These are good questions, Kwamina.

I am slowly going through old posts to see what sorts of things I have posted that relate to the topic.

1. Who is the BPD in-law in your life?

We think my dh's sis is uBPD. His mom has lots of Npd traits that counselors for three different family members, including myself, have suggested we read up on--no diagnosis just awareness of what npd can mean in terms of communication and relationship.

What are the most significant challenges you face with this person or as a result of this person being involved with your family-member? Managing guilt and managing relationships that fit our values.

Are you perhaps dealing with multiple BPD in-laws? Yes--at least axis-2 type behavior


2. At what point did you realize something might be 'wrong' with this in-law's behavior? Was it a sudden realization or more like a gradual process?

The process was gradual. There was always weird behavior--guilt, enmeshment, unstated but expected expectations--that I just ignored because the behavior just didn't jive with my upbringing. Thankfully, because I ignored it and didn't jump to try to fulfill needs, I didn't get sucked as sucked into certain dynamics and behaviors. However, the first experience as the focus of a rage was sudden.

3. Do you feel that your relationship with your family-member who is in a relationship with this in-law, has changed as a result of the BPD in-law coming into that person's life? If you do, in what ways has your relationship with your family-member changed?

I'm not sure if my answer fits this question precisely. I am married to someone with a uBPD sibling and unpd mom. I feel like my marriage has been enriched in some ways as a result of learning to maintain relationships with significantly difficult (and/or mentally ill) people. I have to say that one of the gifts of uBPD/unpdis that I have learned more about myself and my dh and more strategies to parent sensitive kiddos and communicate better in general.

4. Have you found effective coping strategies for dealing with your BPD in-law? If you have, could you perhaps share some of them with us?

Here are some snippets from past posts about coping:

My dh has a mom who is very NNNNNN (narcissistic) and a sister who appears to be uBPD. He is distant with all of his siblings, and this extends to other family relationships. DH has noted on occasion, "I wouldn't have contact with my family if it weren't for you." I have to be careful not to be the main connection to dh's family for him; he needs to be in charge of maintaining his relationships. There are people in DH's family I like and others that I am not fond of. I choose to foster relationships with those I like and DH follows--he feels very ambivalent about his family after years of drama/guilt/FOG, and he doesn't want our children infected (dh is very protective and angry about letting his family near our kids). However, we are not close geographically, for the most part. We email two or three times a month. We talk on the phone every couple of weeks to certain siblings/cousins/MIL, and we see people three or four times a year. Most of us live far apart, so the F2F time seems normal. I feel that my family is a bit more healthy, and we see my family a similar amount of time or less, and we live in different states and have similar phone/email habits, although I talk to my parents weekly.

Over time, my dh and I have changed patterns of behavior with his family. With his sister, we have low contact.

With his mom, one boundary we have worked to create is that when people want to visit us, they have to let us know when they would like to come for a visit, so we can check to see if the visit works with our schedules. What this has done for us is if dh's mom does not like to ask if it's okay to come for a visit, she either gets a hotel room and tells us she will be at a hotel on certain dates, or she finds friends/family in our area and stays with them and then tells us she is visiting with so-and-so in case we want to see her.

This is a bit weird and uncomfortable because it makes us seem like mean or unaccommodating people. But my therapist keeps reminding me, this is her choice, and all she has to do is call or send an email saying, "Would it be okay to come and stay with you on X dates?" and she is refusing to do this since we started telling her we didn't like getting a call in the morning saying she would be arriving that evening to stay with us for X-amount of days.

Another boundary we have is we want our children to see family members at their best, so we do not do holidays at dh's mom's or uBPDsil's houses because these have a long-standing pattern (decades) of triggered/disordered behavior. Other family events or family hosts we go to because they do not seem to act out in other locations.

When it comes to gifts and my uBPDsil's family, I look at giving a gift as something that is free of attachments and expectations. We send birthday, graduation, Christmas, confirmation, and whatever other type of gifts to nieces and nephews because we choose to err on the side of reaching out or giving without strings attached (which is a fairly unknown concept in much of DH's FOO). We rarely receive acknowledgement or a thank you card, and I have no idea if the gifts are received or if uBPDsil takes cash/gift cards for herself, throws them away, or gets rid of packages, but I continually work on letting go of caring about the outcome (always easier said than done!  ). It is much less annoying after a number of years of practice. The years that uBPDsil has decided to acknowledge birthdays/holidays of our children, we send a thank you note, and our children are old enough to write their own now. We hope that we are modeling positive qualities, but we choose to do this for ourselves and not what it may or may not do for upbdsil and her family.

I have to say that therapy has been necessary for working on being okay with the types of contact/boundaries we have with these family members. CC often feels just as bad as the enmeshed, narcissistic, and uBPD behaviors, but my therapist says that these feelings are normal. What we are being called on to do when dealing with people with these behaviors is not usual, but we are maintaining a relationship even though it's limited. And, we cannot give MIL or uBPDSIL the relationship that they want because it's so dysfunctional and unhealthy for us, so we accept the discomfort of doing what is healthier for our marriage and our family.

1 BPD in law is ex dil

2 I think I had thoughts of problems while they still lived overseas when we skyped or on special occasions when she wouldn't come out of her room. But it was when they lived with us for a year and I experienced the rages,  the not talking for sometimes up to a week,  the general rudeness and her obvious feelings of "we owed her" just to name a few problems. I was working full time in a very physically and emotionally demanding job at the time and it was ghastly to come home to. My husband stayed at work to avoid the problem!

3 I  think my relationship with my son is perhaps closer but at times more difficult with my husband as he just likes to ignore the problem and not talk strategies. However I must say of late after a big talking to he is trying to communicate so maybe something positive may come out of it.

4. Coping strategies?  I have a very good friend who I talk to.  She has been wonderful and helpful. I am a former oncology nurse with rather a black sense of humor as you get when you work in that field for any length of time and I now use that black humor whenever situations become totally ridiculous as it can get with texts emails etc that don't make any sense and are illogical. I find it really helps to see the funny side of things.  It's not that I am laughing at her just at the situation.  It relieves frustration, anger and bewilderment. I even try and use it where appropriate with my gd and she gets it.

I also avoid talking to her and put everything in writing and I am learning to create boundaries which had made me feel better ie that we are not at her whim of changing rules etc according to her mood of the day and this was a frequent occurrence. So frustrating.

I still get very sad for gd a 12 year old should not have to deal with this and I get frustrated at the ever changing rules and her sense of the world owes her ( if you look at my past posts you will see why) and i am still working on this one.  But as I said boundaries!

Also an odd one I guess is other people's reactions.  They do not get that a female of this particular race could possibly be abusive. I am learning to shut up and stop justifying. This site had been an amazing help with these problems.

Can I just add another thing that can be difficult if it is an inlaw. I have found that I have had to get past the fact that it is an inlaw and not your own child.  While not to downgrade the difficulties that parents of BPD children have,  I guess rightly or wrongly I feel I didn't make the choice of this girl in our family and I haven't signed on for this.  All the while trying to support our son and gd as she continues to reign havoc down upon them.  I guess that is where my humor comes in.  When I feel the emails texts etc are getting too ridiculous I tend to try to laugh and see the funny side. It is honestly much easier than crying!

Hi Turkish

Thank you too for sharing!


I believe you posted about this incident before. What did you do after she slammed the door? How did she react to her own behavior?

Were there perhaps also other 'less real' episodes in which she became physically violent (or threatened to become)?


This is quite concerning. That older brother definitely needs to be watched.


You've actually shared some great advice here. Reflecting on your past you have been able to identify the dynamics of what was really going on. Once you are able to recognize this, you can start to make a change

Hello,

I am also gearing up for the holidays and am dreading a holiday visit where I will be battling my MIL who will try to take over the house, make passive aggressive demands (waif), and pretend she is all about visiting with her grandchild, though she will show no affection unless there is an audience of strangers.

1. Who is the BPD in-law in your life? What are the most significant challenges you face with this person or as a result of this person being involved with your family-member? Are you perhaps dealing with multiple BPD in-laws?

My MIL.  Biggest change is realizing that I have had to bring it up and talk about it as my husband does not like to deal with the chaos and appeases everything.  He has always been very accommodating and in turn will become physically ill when she throws guilt on him or puts him in difficult situations.  It is challenging for me not to get angry with my  husband when he goes into "checking out" mode when she is around so that she will not get upset about anything and everything. 

I also have a great aunt who has severe witch BPD and am again in no contact with her.  I will send her a Christmas card but nothing else.  I feel awful about her as she is 85 and lives alone and seems very coherent but when I talk to her she yells and is abusive and only wants to get into circular arguments.  The last time she, I let her yell at me for 10 minutes and asked her to not be mean to me and she started again.  I hung up and probably will not talk to her for quite a while.  And it makes me sick with sadness and guilt.

2. At what point did you realize something might be 'wrong' with this in-law's behavior? Was it a sudden realization or more like a gradual process?

With the MIL it was a gradual process.  My husband was in denial but then slowly revealed more to me about how it was common knowledge in the family.  (Aunt is a psychiatrist).  I realized all the stories of mean people who made her cry where really stories about people who could no longer take her insults and demands.  If people don't act or respond exactly as she expects, she cries.  We went to her house for Christmas two years ago and I really realized that she could never manage any schedule.  We would eat dinner at 10 pm after her saying it would be ready at 5 and not allowing us to eat anything else. And she constantly says she is sorry.  I would find her going through my things and sorting them out and if I would walk in on her, she would say she is only trying to help.  I saw the repetitive calls to my husband that were done in a way to create chaos.  Ex. Calling him right before he gets on a plane to say something is wrong with his father and that they might have to go to the hospital. Or if he didn't answer she would leave a message that they were going to the hospital with his father and then she would not answer the phone when he called back. My husband would become physically ill.  I saw it happen so many times. 

3. Do you feel that your relationship with your family-member (in a relationship with) or partner (related to) this BPD in-law, has changed as a result of the involvement of the BPD in-law? If you do, in what ways has your relationship with your family-member or partner changed?

I feel like he is now open to talking about it and we have worked out a bit of a strategy.  We invite them out once a year, instead of her constantly tell us when she would like to come out.  We try to do things on our terms.  For this visit, we have activities planned for the entire time as we cannot have any idle time with her because she cannot sit still and will do things like lint brush all the furniture, try to make food ( this is the absolute most stressful situation with her - food making), or sit with us all in the living room or make comments about how uncomfortable the bed is of that my daughter isn't yet potty trained.  (We allowed her to purchase her own air bed and have it sent to the house.  My husband said if we bought a bed she would complain about it but she would not if it was her purchase)

I will admit I need to remind myself not to get mad at my husband for his acceptance of her behavior.  He has lived with it his whole life and done what he does to survive. I am afraid for the future and what will happen if his Dad passes first. We've already decided that if she moved in with us, our marriage would be over.

4. Have you found effective coping strategies for dealing with your BPD in-law? If you have, could you perhaps share some of them with us?

My coping strategy has always been the medium chill - is that what is called?  She knows nothing about me.  We don't tell her about major events. Surgerys, etc.  She gets hysterical and insists on coming out to help even if she is no help. She says unhelpful things that trigger my husband and upset him. (ex. when I had pre eclampsia in the hospital, he called to tell her I had it and was having a c section. she yelled and cried and told him that women die all the time from it.  A rattled husband was the last thing I needed before that surgery, he was a mess) I've stopped trying to foster a relationship with her.  After we had a child, I used to often send pictures and videos but every time, it just created a flurry of comments, many rude.  Then she would text my husband and sort of "fact check" what I had said.  So no more information. We Skype with her once a week and occasionally I will send her a photo. I am cordial and nice.   We never tell her when my mom comes to visit because she is also very competitive. 

I have constant anxiety about her coming to visit.  She insists on dominating everything. I love her husband.  It is hard for me to bite my tongue when she interrupts any conversation I try to have with him.  Yes, the holidays. Thanks!

Thanks for your response and insight Kwamina!


I do. It has helped to put a name to all the erratic and destructive behavior that he has known for so long. The explanation of her BPD has made a lot of events make more sense to him. 


I was not, thank you for these links.  The Support of S.E.T. can already be difficult for me.  I know I have a tendency to just shut down once I am frustrated with behavior.  To appear open and friendly through a smile or hand gestures is great advice.  It has been a big one that I struggle with .  Also the Staying Assertive in

D.E.A.R.M.A.N.  I very much want to retreat and just forget about it.  As with my husband, it is sometimes more hassle than it is worth and I find myself following his footsteps and then getting angry about how I was spoken to or manipulated. She is also a self hurting waif so almost always, if things don't go her way, she will "accidentally" hurt herself.  Ex. Waiting to eat and with my child, I ask my husband to get some food for us while we wait for a lavish and unnecessary dinner (scheduled to eat at 5, ate at 10, i hid in the bedroom with my child because I was so frustrated).  He tells her we came to visit her and we don't need a buffet of food for dinner, please stop etc... .She cries at him, he feels awful.  Then when we do eat, she shows me the giant scar of where she just burned herself.  I laughed it off and said you have to be careful!  But to me, it was very evident that she had done it for my sake and was blaming me.  It takes all my energy not to say, " you did that on purpose! don't blame me!".  We try to keep her out of the kitchen as much as possible because that tends to be the heart of the chaos.

1. Who is the BPD in-law in your life? What are the most significant challenges you face with this person or as a result of this person being involved with your family-member? Are you perhaps dealing with multiple BPD in-laws?

My bother's wife. The most significant challenges are pretty much having anything to do with her, at this point. They have three kids now so I can't bring myself to cut her off entirely, but I would if it weren't for the kids. My mom gets the brunt of her abuse and it's totally undeserved and hard to watch. SIL uses the kids like pawns, it breaks my heart. All my mom wants is to be a grandma to them and SIL lies and manipulates and withholds in almost every situation.   

2. At what point did you realize something might be 'wrong' with this in-law's behavior? Was it a sudden realization or more like a gradual process?

My first inclination that something was really wrong with her was during the months leading up to their wedding. They were married relatively young, age 20 & 21 I think, but had been dating since they were 15 & 16 so I'd known her for a long time. We knew she had a bad upbringing and that her mother was horrible to her and had BPD herself but were very naive as to what all that meant. The first big blow up came about a week after their wedding and nothing was the same after that. My sister got married a few years later and SIL was just awful at that wedding. So bad that Sis, me and my mom sought counseling to find out what we could have done to upset her so much. The counselor immediately suggested SIL might have BPD and it was like a light went on in our heads. We read up on it and suddenly her past behavior, although no less awful, made sense in that context and we felt less crazy. 

3. Do you feel that your relationship with your family-member (in a relationship with) or partner (related to) this BPD in-law, has changed as a result of the involvement of the BPD in-law? If you do, in what ways has your relationship with your family-member or partner changed?

I feel like I've lost my brother. When she's not around I can talk to him like we used to when we were kids. As soon as she enters the room he becomes a totally different person. Some of the things he goes along with... .it's like he's a puppet and she's got her arm stuck up in him controlling everything he says/does/thinks. It's gross.

4. Have you found effective coping strategies for dealing with your BPD in-law? If you have, could you perhaps share some of them with us?

I avoid her as much as possible.  Like I said, if not for my niece and nephews, I would have cut contact with her long ago. I try really hard to keep toxic people out of my life and she is toxic, like poison. When she tries to manipulate me, I keep silent. I don't give her any information about my life or about those around me. I don't try and reason with her or get into any of her little games, I just walk away. I tolerate her around the kids and try to keep my focus on the kids for the sake of the kids and do my best to put her out of my mind when she's not around, not waste any more energy trying to figure her out. She's put a huge strain on our family and it sucks. One person can muddy the waters so much when there's fifteen other decent people and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. 

Hi Cat21

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us


Based on what you say here it seems your husband and his parents have been enabling your sister and seriously walking on eggshells around her. I can definitely see how this could create tension in your marriage. Good though that your husband has started standing up to his sister. What led to this change in his behavior towards her?


This indeed is a clear sign of something being very wrong. How did you respond to your husband 'instructing' you how to behave around his sister? Hod did that whole conversation make you feel?


I am glad you have support from a therapist to help you navigate this difficult family environment. Is your husband perhaps also seeing a therapist?

What traits do you see in your husband that you also recognize in your SIL?


Not taking what is said personally (as difficiult as it can be) and not letting yourself get provoked, is very important to remain balanced yourself

Hi again mother in law


Great to hear this thread has sparked this positive reflecting

Dealing with hurtful comments isn't easy. I am glad you've come to the point that you are better able to deal with it and not let it affect you that much anymore. Your SIL's hurtful words and actions aren't a reflection of who you really are at all, but only a reflection of her own inner turmoil and negativity which she is projecting onto you.

BPD is a very difficult disorder and an in-law with BPD, particularly one who doesn't acknowledge his/her issues and is unwilling to work on them, can greatly affect all the other family-members involved. To protect yourself, setting and enforcing/defending boundaries is crucial and that indeed can include reducing the frequency of contact. Even when people go completely NC, this doesn't necessarily have to last forever though, it all depends on the situation. We might not be able to change or control the other person's behavior, but we can control our own behavior and we indeed have options available to us that include determining the frequency of contact we feel comfortable with.

Hi claudiaduffy and thanks for joining the discussion

I hope you do go back and read what everyone else has said, the posts are very interesting!

I am glad your husband was able to recognize the dysfunction in his mother's behavior. It is sad though that the step of NC was necessary to keep yourselves safe from her. It is what it is though and setting boundaries, protecting ourselves and being mindful of our own well-being is very important indeed.

Your own mother was BPD too and your experiences with her helped you be more patient with your future husband. Do you feel that your experiences with your own mother also helped you be more prepared for dealing with your husband and his uBPD MIL in other areas?

I can understand how your husband might have certain PTSD-like issues after going through all of this. You mentioned he was meeting a new therapist when you posted this. How did that meeting go?

Take care

1. Who is the BPD in-law in your life? What are the most significant challenges you face with this person or as a result of this person being involved with your family-member? Are you perhaps dealing with multiple BPD in-laws?

My husband’s mother has many of the traits of someone with BPD/NPD. I think the MIL-DIL relationship can be a challenging relationship regardless, but is certainly very difficult when mental health issues are mixed in.

Having BPD as part of my life has meant dealing with controlling behaviors, rages, vilification of me as a person, emotional blackmail and love frequently used as a weapon. Consequently, I have had the challenge of working through my own feelings of guilt, anger and hurt. I’ve had do a lot of growing as a person (and continue to) in order to step up to these challenges.

2. At what point did you realize something might be 'wrong' with this in-law's behavior? Was it a sudden realization or more like a gradual process?

When I first met my in-laws over dinner, their 5 kids had a little side conversation with me to apologize in advance for their mother being a little crazy. I mostly just laughed it off and figured they meant it in that way everyone’s family has their quirks. It’s only when I moved in with them that I initially did have a bit of an “off” feeling. I mostly shrugged it off. PwBPD was extremely generous, complimentary and charming. In retrospect there were many hints of possessive and controlling behaviors I ignored at the time. Things came to a head when we tried to move out of their house to our own apartment. And really descended into a place I would qualify as emotionally abusive when her son and I decided to get married a few years later.

3. Do you feel that your relationship with your family-member (in a relationship with) or partner (related to) this BPD in-law, has changed as a result of the involvement of the BPD in-law? If you do, in what ways has your relationship with your family-member or partner changed?

Having BPD behaviors as part of our life has forced us to strengthen our ties together as a couple and become more mindful of our own behaviors than we may have otherwise. Communication techniques and boundaries we’ve learned to interact with pwBPD have also been great for generally strengthening connection and understanding in day-to-day married life. 



4. Have you found effective coping strategies for dealing with your BPD in-law? If you have, could you perhaps share some of them with us?

I think it was hitting rock bottom in dealing poorly with the BPD behaviour that propelled me to open my eyes a little more. I didn’t have the compartments to mentally file the way I was being treated at the time… so I was dragged under. Learning about BPD was a real first step in change.

I have since gone into a bit of a training mode to try and build the muscles that would help me manage having a pwBPD in my life. I started practicing DEARMAN and SET with difficult clients, even with stubborn farm animals (I know they don’t understand, but great practice for me coming up with DEARMANs for different situations!). I’ve become more conscious of enforcing boundaries at work. I also picked up a book on DBT and find concepts like mindfulness and radical acceptance to be very applicable. I hope to practice these techniques enough in calm waters so that when the next BPD storm hits I can have the tools in my tool belt. That’s the idea at least.

For the time being, I have chosen to keep my distance from pwBPD (My husband is low contact, I am very very low contact). I have made the decision that I not only owe it to myself to be happy and healthy, but I also have people who care for me and who rely on me to be happy and healthy. No longer exhausting our emotional/mental energy on trying to make the pwBPD in our life happy has allowed us to put this energy towards the positive things we do have. I think this refocusing has given us a chance to have full batteries when it does come to inevitably dealing with some of the hurtful/destructive BPD behaviors. Doesn't make things perfect, but helps.

My goal is to continue to keep the distance I need for my own wellbeing, practice the techniques that help not only in dealing with BPD behavior, but for improving quality of day-to-day relationships. And hopefully I’ll eventually get to the “anti-BPD-abuse black-belt level” like Claudiaduffy mentioned! I find many of the stories on this board to be very inspiring and hope to continue to learn and grow like so many others. ☺

Hi LepoqueModerne and Seoulsister

Great that you've also joined the conversation! Thanks for sharing your experiences and insights.


I have also found that all the skills and techniques can be very helpful in other situations. I use techniques such as SET, DEARMAN and BIFF a lot with difficult colleagues and clients. I have found that the skills we learn to deal with BPD in-laws and/or family-members are in fact highly advanced life skills that in a sense can give us a competitive advantage in certain situations.

I am glad that you've been able to take steps to protect your well-being. Hopefully some day we all will reach the black-belt coping skills level claudiaduffy is approaching


Boundaries really are crucial when dealing with individuals with BPD, I am glad this has also helped you. The communication techniques such as validation and S.E.T. are very powerful! Your post also shows how the techniques we learn to deal with BPD individuals also have great value in other areas of our lives. That the validation technique has helped your marriage is lovely indeed!

Thanks for sharing this

The Board Parrot has confidence in you too claudiaduffy

Hi... I posted this on another thread, but think this group might have been the best place to post this as it seems many of you are dealing with an in-law situation too. 

My husband of 17 years is a wonderful man who is the child of a BPD mother.  After many, many years of starts and stops in therapy to determine how to handle her, some significant events occurred that have made him recommit to therapy and he is leaning towards ceasing a relationship with his mom.  This is a difficult decision for him and one he is working through weekly with the help of a great therapist. 

Now for my problem: For our entire relationship, whenever we have had any type of disagreement/discussion, he shuts down and retreats.  This is not how he handles confrontation in any other part of his life.  In fact, he is an accomplished businessman who takes confrontation in his work life in stride and is often the one brought in to have those difficult conversations.  Personally, however, he has always retreated, and most often forgets the disagreements or discussions.  As a result of his therapy, he is learning he does that because of his past experiences with his mother. 

I can understand that, however, there are consequences as a result of that response.  Because he always retreated, I just started to handle more and more things and to make decisions without him, regarding our schedules, our children, etc.  He never complained having these things taken off his plate.  (To complicate matters, my husband travels a great deal for work and we had a second child with special needs who requires a great deal of involvement in his therapies and at his school.  All of that fell on me, along with caring for and raising our older child). So now we are in a situation where he says I took decisions away from him, therefore, he responds to me like he would his mother (retreat and then forget), yet the reason I took everything over is because he was never around emotionally to help me in the decision making process.  I became very independent because I was used to not relying on him, and now he is telling me that the reason he is emotionally distant is because I am too independent. 

I want to encourage him in his therapy regarding his mom, but feel like the process has brought up issues in our marriage.  I realize it is a problem and want to figure out how to fix it so we both feel balanced again.  But I feel we cannot work on us, while he is still trying to figure out his complicated childhood.  In the meantime, nothing has changed in his emotional distance.  I feel he is transferring his upset with how his mother treated him onto me and our relationship.  As a result, we are growing farther apart. 

I have consciously tried in the last few months to let go of things in our life and include/encourage him to make more decisions.  I am sure I still have a ways to go.  But I don't feel he is making a similar attempt to connect with me emotionally.  It is like my independence emasculates him, but his emotional distance pushes me to protect myself and just take care of things.  I don't know how we get out from under this.  Do we try counseling at the same time he is trying to figure out his relationship with his mom or wait until that becomes more clear?  I have talked to him about all of this and cried to him about what I need from him and nothing has changed.  We are very kind to each other and if you saw us you would not think anything is wrong, but emotionally, we have very little connection.  We are great co-parents and becoming just very good roommates.  Does anyone else have experience being married to a child of a BPD and the effect that had on the child's own marriage?