Don't want SIL playing with our daughter

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I'm looking for some opinions/advice or shared experiences on the interaction between disordered relatives and the interaction with your children.

Just a quick background on the situation... .

The BPD person in our life is my sister in law (husband's sister), who was diagnosed with BPD a couple of years ago.

We've had a very difficult relationship with her over the years and been subjected to physical (once towards my husband) , verbal and emotional abuse. There have been periods of silent treatment and no contact initiated by her. The way we've been treated has been incredibly upsetting for me.

The current relationship we have with her is one where we see her only if we need to, such as family birthdays or christmas. We have minimal interaction with her on these occasions, but the interactions are polite, which is more than I can say for how it used to be.

I'm prepared to continue to have polite, superficial interaction with her at mutual family events, for the sake of the rest of the family. Seeing her is something I find distressing leading up to and after the event, but I'm prepared to put up with it, if it's only a few times per year.

The thing I can't handle is when she interacts with our daughter, who is 3 years old. My SIL seems to make a point or to go out of her way to interact with our daughter and it's really upsetting to me. Most other family members will wait for our daughter to initiate interaction, but my sister in law gets right in her face and initiates the interaction with my daughter. She will often engage my daughter in a game or activity one on one.

My husband doesn't like having her around our daughter either. We see her as a bad influence and someone that continues to make poor life choices and hurt the people around her.

How can I make this situation less intense?

I don't feel as though I can say anything to my sister in law, going by past experience (even though I disagree with walking on eggshells).

I feel that it wouldn't be moral to tell my daughter not to interact with her, even though I wish I could.

My mother in law (her Mum) is very understanding and knows how I feel about this and suggested that when my SIL is playing with my daughter one on one, that someone else join in to take off the intensity of the interaction between the two of them.

Does anyone have a similar experience or have any advice on how to make this situation more comfortable?

[fightorflight]

I'm looking for some opinions/advice or shared experiences on the interaction between disordered relatives and the interaction with your children.

Just a quick background on the situation... .

The BPD person in our life is my sister in law (husband's sister), who was diagnosed with BPD a couple of years ago.

We've had a very difficult relationship with her over the years and been subjected to physical (once towards my husband) , verbal and emotional abuse. There have been periods of silent treatment and no contact initiated by her. The way we've been treated has been incredibly upsetting for me.

The current relationship we have with her is one where we see her only if we need to, such as family birthdays or christmas. We have minimal interaction with her on these occasions, but the interactions are polite, which is more than I can say for how it used to be.

I'm prepared to continue to have polite, superficial interaction with her at mutual family events, for the sake of the rest of the family. Seeing her is something I find distressing leading up to and after the event, but I'm prepared to put up with it, if it's only a few times per year.

The thing I can't handle is when she interacts with our daughter, who is 3 years old. My SIL seems to make a point or to go out of her way to interact with our daughter and it's really upsetting to me. Most other family members will wait for our daughter to initiate interaction, but my sister in law gets right in her face and initiates the interaction with my daughter. She will often engage my daughter in a game or activity one on one.

My husband doesn't like having her around our daughter either. We see her as a bad influence and someone that continues to make poor life choices and hurt the people around her.

How can I make this situation less intense?

I don't feel as though I can say anything to my sister in law, going by past experience (even though I disagree with walking on eggshells).

I feel that it wouldn't be moral to tell my daughter not to interact with her, even though I wish I could.

My mother in law (her Mum) is very understanding and knows how I feel about this and suggested that when my SIL is playing with my daughter one on one, that someone else join in to take off the intensity of the interaction between the two of them.

Does anyone have a similar experience or have any advice on how to make this situation more comfortable?

[HappyChappy]

Hi fightorflight,

I can see how some of the stories on this website might concern you. But If you only see your SIL when needed, then I’m guessing your daughter has very limited interaction. So the effects of that relationship will be limited. I would echo the advice you’ve already been given, which is to join in with your SIL, when she plays with your daughter. Very limited watered down interaction will have a limited watered down effect. It’s also fair to say that there are many intensive people out there, so your daughter will have to learn how to deal with such people at some point, so I wouldn’t say this is necessarily a bad experience for her.

As the child of a BPD, it was being left alone all day that I feared.  Someone with BPD cares what others think, so they tends to be inhibited in company, so I wouldn’t worry too much. Also a child needs plenty of repetition and reinforcement to set beliefs, so with limited contact, she won't have that. They also tend to see their main care giver as the most trusted source.

[Sunfl0wer]

The thing I can't handle is when she interacts with our daughter, who is 3 years old. My SIL seems to make a point or to go out of her way to interact with our daughter and it's really upsetting to me. Most other family members will wait for our daughter to initiate interaction, but my sister in law gets right in her face and initiates the interaction with my daughter. She will often engage my daughter in a game or activity one on one.

My husband doesn't like having her around our daughter either. We see her as a bad influence and someone that continues to make poor life choices and hurt the people around her.

I hear you about the interactions irking you or such. 
I am a bit unsure on exactly what bothers you though?
What is the worry?  What do you think will occur that is harmful exactly?
(Not asking in a critical manner, actually wanting more info)

My son is autistic and when he was little did not like people being over bearing.  He needed time to warm up to a situation.  Or he simply didn't like some adults vs others.
Many people were bothered by this, criticized, or tried to "fix" him by imposing themself on him.

I learned to try to educate them on what works best for him.
If they did not listen, and persisted in running their own agenda, I learned to avoid them, even if it meant leaving early.

Yes, people talked about me behind my back, in front of me, thought they knew better.  Called me overprotective or any array of names.

I had to learn to cope with their name calling at me.

[fightorflight]

Hi HappyChappy,

Thanks for reading and taking the time to respond. You've given me some perspective on the situation and as you say, with limited contact, the effect on our daughter is reduced. I do struggle with the concept of joining in with her and my daughter though, because I find it very distressing to be around my SIL and want to keep my interaction with her to a minimum. I suppose my husband, her brother, could do that instead, because he is better at coping with this situation than I am.

Hi Sunfl0wer,

Thanks too for your post.

I hear you about the interactions irking you or such. 
I am a bit unsure on exactly what bothers you though?
What is the worry?  What do you think will occur that is harmful exactly?
(Not asking in a critical manner, actually wanting more info)

These are great questions and to be honest, I'm not sure I know the answer myself. I think it bothers me because I carry around a lot of resentment towards my SIL for the way she has treated my husband and I in the past. Most of the damage was done before she was diagnosed and her actions have had a huge impact on my emotional well being. The thing that makes me so angry, is the lack of remorse from her end. I don't expect people to be perfect, but I think people need to own their own behaviour, regardless of their own personal struggles.

When I see her engaging with my daughter so confidently and exuberantly, I think 'You have some nerve, how dare you act as though everything is perfectly fine, when to me it is far from fine.' Time and again I see my SIL treat people like crap and then after a period (months) of silence, reappear and pretend nothing has happened. I really want to see her take some responsibility for the way she treats people or even acknowledge her behaviour.

Besides hello and goodbye, she makes no effort to speak to me or my husband. I feel like she needs to make more of an effort to repair things with us, before going ahead and acting as though nothing has happened. I've read a fair bit about BPD to try and understand it and one of the main emotions that is described, is feelings of shame. I don't ever see this shame from her and I almost want to see it, because I can't feel sympathetic for somebody who goes around treating people like crap and taking no responsibility for it. If I had treated someone the way she's treated us, I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable going up to their children and playing with them, I would feel ashamed of my behaviour.

If she the interaction between my SIL and daughter was more natural, I think I would feel more comfortable. In a family situation, our daughter will interact with each person as it suits her on the day and might naturally gravitate towards one person, but with my SIL it feels really forced or controlled. I don't understand the motivation, so perhaps that's why it upsets/scares me. Does she make a point of interacting with our daughter as a way of trying to make up with us? Is it to make herself feel like a good person? Does she genuinely care about our daughter?

I really struggle with the concept of how can someone who has a terrible relationship with the parents, think it's ok to engage with the children. Is it just me?

I'm not sure I've really answered the questions, but it's helpful to explore why this gets to me so much.

Sorry to hear of your struggles with people not understanding your son and well done for learning to cope.

[Sunfl0wer]

Going to be blunt here... .

Sounds like you are really trying to look at things.

I really do not hear any reason that the interaction will impact your daughter in a negative way.  Many people have fake masks, yet, because you have unveiled this one, you want to hold her face to a mirror? 

I can't see how this has to do with your daughter other than you are making it about her.  (I really am not meaning to sound harsh, even though it does sound harsh, idk how to make it sound more tactful while maintaining the objectivity of what I am trying to convey)

There are going to be people in life you do not like, and well, your daughter will or may not interact with them.  It is helpful for her to get experiences, so long as they are not harmful.  And yet, you do not express the need to protect her from anything.

So bluntly... .
Sounds like an opportunity to work out your feelings.
Not one to try to change the experience.
Well, unless you cannot cope and need to avoid this type of encounter for your own self care.


So back to you... .
You do not have to feel obligated to feel sympathetic towards her, what makes you ponder such?

Why not allow yourself to dislike her AND allow yourself to appreciate someone doting over your daughter... .or at least feel neutral about it?

Idk, if it were me, I may come up compromise in my mind to address my feelings and explore them a bit and also come up with a strategy to shift my child's focus a bit as maybe my instinct is onto something a small bit, and the kid could be feeling smothered, idk, I can't see it.  I would maybe bring a game for the kids to share so kids would have more kid time so my child could have a more varied experience vs her latching onto her.  Or if I knew that lady didn't like playing outside, maybe would bring a bubble kit for kid to play with so she would be effectively engaging in something not compatible with SIL.

Sure, it would kinda suck that at family events, most moms went "off duty" and let the kids run amuck, I wish I could, but didn't for reasons.  I often had to bring stuff with me to help my kid have alone time in some way.

Hopefully something is helpful, and excuse the roughness of style. :/

[HappyChappy]

I find it very distressing to be around my SIL and want to keep my interaction with her to a minimum. I suppose my husband, her brother, could do that instead, because he is better at coping with this situation than I am.

That would work. But there are techniques you can use to get the best out of someone with BPD, that make it easier to deal with them. I wonder if your husband has picked them up naturally. A BPD is in many ways stuck in their emotional development, so if you view them as a 6 year old, that can help. When my BPD mom and 6 year old son played a game, they’re remarkably similar (competitive, argumentative, intense etc... .). But here are some more scientific approaches:

Communication tools (SET, PUVAS, DEARMAN)