Establishing boundaries during parents' divorce

[catclaw]

Hey everyone

This post is very hard for me right now...

4 Years after their separation, my parents are getting formally divorced. Their separation itself was really ugly but they tried to keep a respectful contact, which was horribly awkward because of everything around. My father has strong NPD traits. I don't really know about my mother (yet), because I think I'm turning a blind eye on this.

Mom and I have been very enmeshed from my early teens onward because I've spent lots of time in hospitals and she was my primary caregiver. Dad worked too much (high functioning in a locally famous position), my brother has a troubled relationship with my mother (claiming she was emotionally abusive to him as a child, using him as a substitute for a partner until she met my father when he was in his mid-teens) and found this whole illness-mother-sister thing to be insane, thus kept him self out of it and my grandparents even leaving the country because my suffering was just too much for them to take.

Now, my father is spontaneously getting married again. Yup. Spontaneously.

Ever since my mom heard about it, she tricks me into converation about my father. She projects a lot onto me like "I'm fine with his decision, but it must be devastating for you after everything that happened". Actually, I'm fine with him getting married, it's his life. But after these exhausting talks with mom, I feel how I'm carrying her hurtness for a short time. I get rid of it soon after, but only when I try to figure out my anger towrds dad and realize, this isn't my emotion right now, it's mom's.

I tell her all the time how I'm not going to engage in conversation about him. My fatehr and I had 2 years of silent treatment and have only just begun to establish something like a casual father-daughter-relationship again. But she gets me every. single. time. Once I established a boundary not to ever talk about him with me again, she thtrew my grandmother (dad's mom) in the mix.

My grandmother lost her husband after almost 7 decades of marriage. Right after his death, she became delusional. I, myself have very little time to spend at the elderly care center (I work full time and have a care-intensive stepson whose mother has BPD), but I go there on the weekends. So I get into a triangle - informations about my grandmother from mom and dad during the week - mom blames dad on grandma's delusion (getting her in conflict about a new DIL, spending more time with his fiancé and her mother than with her etc.) while dad asks me for advice on how to help grandma (I work in mental health care). Right now, whenever mom was with grandma (she goes there almost every day), I she texts me how upset and distraught she was, how all of this family drama affects her and that I need to talk to dad about his life choices because he will not listen to her. I say "yes, I will ask him if there's an alternative to getting her into psychiatric care when he's on vacation, but I'm not asking him to stay home". Turns out, this was never even his plan.

I was able to distance myself from the divore drama for once, now I feel like I'm being emotionally blackmailed through grandma's mental health to engage in a divorce conflict that is not mine.

My therapist says that she noticed how I protect my mother and the relationship whenever the issue pops up. She thinks there's lots of guilt I have inside me for not wanting to keep up with the relationship drama after everything mom has done for my when I was vulnerable during my teens.


I wonder, will I be able to keep up that boundary if there's my very very vulnerable grandma affected by it? If so, how do I do it? I'm so unsure about all this right now.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Catclaw, 

You sound as if you must be exhausted from all this mental tennis going on. Do you feel like you are the tennis ball? Being caught up in a drama triangle is a lot of work. Have you read about the drama triangle?

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php

What do you really want to do? What do you feel obligated to do? Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between these two questions. Maybe you've never thought about what you really want. You can safely answer here at this site, free from criticism or concern.

My mom was an uBPD, and she and my dad divorced when I was in college. I was emotionally quite enmeshed with her, and it was real tough to try and stay in the middle. Exhausting. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts in response!

 
Wools

[Naughty Nibbler]

HI catclaw:   

I'm so sorry about the dilemma that you are in the middle of.  Woolspinner brings up a good point about triangulation.  Sounds like multiple triangles in the works.

My grandmother lost her husband after almost 7 decades of marriage. Right after his death, she became delusional. I, myself have very little time to spend at the elderly care center . . . . mom blames dad on grandma's delusion (getting her in conflict about a new DIL, spending more time with his fiancé and her mother than with her etc.)

.

I'm thinking that if grandma started having delusions 7 years ago, that it is an age related issue.  How can a continuing problem be blamed on your father (other than your mom wants to make him feel bad and blame him).

Looks like there is a lot of Fear, Obligation and Guild being passed around.  FOG

Grandma might not be able to process the situation with your father's fiance.  Perhaps, some things are best left unspoken around grandma and if the fiance comes to visit with dad, the fiance can just be introduced as a friend.

Any chance your mom can seek some counseling from a therapist?  It can be a huge burden for someone to use you as their therapist.

[catclaw]

Dear wools,

Thank you for your answer. Yes, these are very exhausting times. My parents, like yours, separated when i started university and when my stepson moved in. So i already left the really hard times behind after finishing my degree.

I actually  know the drama triangle from university and from work - it helps when i use it on other peoples' conflicts but it's really difficult for me to use the scheme on my own system. I never come to a conclusion.

What do i really want to do? That's a good question. On the one hand, i love all three of them. It feels really unbalanced. My dad was really absent while my mom was always there. Then there's the situation which caused my parents to split up - dad cheated on mom and for various reasons it was really humiliating to my mother and me (e.g. when i found out and confronted my dad, he recommended i get psychiatric help and get some medicine to stop the delusion. His now-fiance is yet another woman).

I really feel the urge to be mad at my father but right now, he's actually the one to keep me out of the drama. He never mentions my mother.

It's like, i have a mother who helped me through difficult times, who still hasn't healed from a common hurt, but who's being abusive right now.
And then there's a father who has been absent and abusive in the past but right now tries to protect me. The roles are kind of switched. It confuses the hell out of me. I feel like i owe my loyalty to my mom in this case, which of course is neither rational nor healthy.

Now, what i want to do is have a relationship with both of my parents, as a daughter. I'm willing to give professional advice when asked about grandma but otherwise don't want to be involved in that drama. I want to visit grandma and be able to se her the way i see her. I want to be able to brush off any FOG conversation.

Yet, i feel obligated to engage into the drama, help my mother, make her feel better, pick her side, be responsible for grandma's wellbeing, destroy dad's plans on getting married and still.be able to function in everyday life.

[catclaw]

Hey NN!
Thank you for your answer!

My granddad passed away a few months ago. Sorry for the confusion, I'm not native in english ^^ they were married for 7 decades when he died. Her delusions started about a week afterwards. I, too, see a huge part of her delusions in unprocessed trauma plus the uncertainty of her familiar situation. Which i cannot change. I can only give advice on how to validate the feelings she has and embedding her delusions into everyday life as smoothly as possible to grant a fearless life for her.

Regarding other people's needs, my father is really untalented. His needs need to be satisfied and then he looks how the rest will cope. If they don't, to hell with them. He already introduced his fiance as his fiance and my grandma had a meltdown. Now he's all "she will have to get used to it". She's almost 90. My mother says that if he brings a new DIL, said woman can take care of grandma. She doesn't want to be degraded from DIL/wife to caretaker but still does it.

I asked my mother tonget professional help for years now. She claims she did but my brother and i don't believe her. After having researched therapists nearby, she again claims to see a "lifecoach" every once in a while. She doesn't know that woman's name  or where she is exactly located. So i guess there's only so much truth in this.

She avoids therapy because she has several severe childhood traumas she pushes aside but she fears they will come back if she gets treatment.

My T says mom won't cet help as long as she can rely on me counselling her. Because of the feeling of obligation i have towards her (like an IOU for my teens), i can't keep the boundary up somehow.

[Naughty Nibbler]

  HEY CATCLAW:

I asked my mother to get professional help for years now. She claims she did but my brother and i don't believe her. After having researched therapists nearby, she again claims to see a "lifecoach" every once in a while. She doesn't know that woman's name  or where she is exactly located. So i guess there's only so much truth in this.

My T says mom won't get help as long as she can rely on me counselling her. . .

I'm thinking that grandma is your father's mother, right?  I can see how your mom would feel less of an obligation for your grandma, in view of your parent's divorce and your father's upcoming marriage to a new woman. 

Even if your mom did see a therapist in the past, there are times in our lives when we can use a tune up.  Perhaps you can convince her of that.  Your therapist is probably right, as long as you don't enforce a boundary with your mom, your mom will keep using you as her therapist.

If mom does have a life coach, then suggest she needs to consult her life coach with her issues.   Tell her that you love both her and your dad and you don't want to be torn between them with their issues.  This may prompt mom to seek the professional help she needs. 

The boundaries are for you.  Mom might not be happy about boundaries, but it could take a lot of stress off of you.  You might want to set some boundaries with your father as well.  You can't take on the responsibility to fix all these relationships and make everyone happy.