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Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits. Practicing lawyer, Senior Family Mediator, and former Licensed Clinical Social Worker with twelve years’ experience and an expert on navigating the Family Court process.
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Author Topic: Dealing With Transactional Parenting  (Read 595 times)
Portent
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Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
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« on: January 04, 2017, 05:51:46 PM »

My soon to br exBPDw thinks she is a great parent. She knows exactly how to handle any issue that may arise. Scrapes, illness, feeding times, she is an encyclopedia of if X then Y. Of course her parenting skills totally break down when it comes to correct emotional interaction.

Duh.

She is in therapy and her therapist may or may not think she is pwBPD. My therapist whi has seen my wife twice agrees that she is a pwBPD said that he wouldnt diagnose her as BPD either because she would run. The therapist diagnosed her with other specified anxeity disorder. Im 60/40 that the therapist who is trained in DBT is simpy trying to get her into therapy. Currently the therapist is working in my wife with her issues with her mother which is the root cause of all this. Her step father abused her and her mom refused to belive her over him. So that leads ne to believe the therapist has zeroed in on BPD.

The therapist is also working on her parenting skills. Which is good because that os a primary and immediate concern.

At this stage she is still a transactional parent but I hope things will improve. However, what do I ro now.

My gut tellw me I have to be the emotiomal rock for my son and just use logical judo with my wife. Let her be transactional and maybe redirect it even into fake emotionns.
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Turkish
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Relationship status: "Divorced"/abandoned by SO in Feb 2013; Mother with BPD, PTSD, Depression and Anxiety: RIP in 2021.
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« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2017, 08:56:50 PM »

What do you mean by "transactional parent?"
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Portent
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« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2017, 01:54:55 AM »

What do you mean by "transactional parent?"

She views parenting aa if this then you give thjs. The emotional half of parenting is a foreign concept to her. At this stage her 9 and year olds are mkre emitionally mature than she is. So she can in no eay provide the emotional aspect of neing a parrent.
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Portent
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« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2017, 03:07:41 PM »

Maybe I wasnt clear enough. I come from s coaching background. Its what attracted me to my BPDw. She is a life coach. Like many BPDs she has devoured self help books.

Transactional coaching is a term used to describe coaching skills and Xs and Os. This is contrasted with transformational coaching where you make a personal emotional connection with players and teach them to be better people. My wife cant do this with her kids. As such she downplays its importance like most transactional coaches downplay the importance of transformational coaching.
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Turkish
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Dad to my wolf pack


« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2017, 09:48:49 PM »

I felt that was what you were communicating, but the differences you cite lay it out in clear terms, and make sense vis-a-vis a parent who lacks empathy skills, is self-absorbed, or a "deflated false-self" (Masterson) who may seek at times to use others to make up for a perceived lack in themselves.

I can see pwBPD-like parenting characteristics within this summary:

Excerpt
For the transactional coach, the bottom line is the win. All practices, drills, strategies, and techniques are focused on that end result. The means to achieve the win, however necessary, are secondary to winning.

A transactional coach manifests several basic characteristics:

    Relives glory days through youth practices and games, which highlight the coach’s achievements
    Participates in youth practices and drills as a means to show off, rather than playing to the skill level of the children
    Blatant or subtle disregard for organizational rules and/or the safety and health of athletes
    Shows disrespect to athletes, parents, other teams, other coaches, and officials
    Identifies the team’s wins or losses with his or her own self worth
    Punishes athletes when the team does not win or if the team makes mistakes
    Rewards good performance with playing time, keeping the win in mind. In other words, the best player plays, whether or not he or she is a good sport, attends practices, is a team player, has integrity, etc.
    Shows favoritism, while belittling other athletes
    :)oes not speak to parents, does not seek help from team parents, or refuses help from team parents

Sounds like you're taking a more holistic approach.

When I saw a book like "What Successful People Do" or some similar title on my first grader's home reading log (next to something like The Lorax), I shook my head. He's 6! Let him be a kid.

I already anticipate the deprogramming that I will have to do in the future.

 
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« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2017, 02:18:51 AM »

My gut tellw me I have to be the emotiomal rock for my son and just use logical judo with my wife. Let her be transactional and maybe redirect it even into fake emotionns.

Yes, you will have to be the emotional rock for your son.

How old is your son? How does he react to the way she parents?

In my experience, kids can see through fake emotions. My kids have seen through their dad for a long time. I didn't realize it until I got him out of the house and got the kids to open up to me again.

What kind of visitation schedule is there?

Right now, I don't have any legal orders in place so I am limiting ex's time with the kids as much as possible while still trying to find positive ways for him to interact with them. His emotional responses and interactions are unbelievable. He interacts with them like he is a kid too. I ask the question about visitation because the amount of time your son spends with her will impact potential approaches.

Ex has been out of the house for 9 months now. I am having to sort out a lot of stuff because the way he parented seemed to undermine my approaches to parenting. With the older kids, I am able to talk to them about mom and dad being different. Instead of working on him, I try to work on the kids to help them have better tools to interact with dad in positive ways. That only works with the older kids. If they are only with him for short periods of time, it works. For longer periods of time, it stresses them out and I have to do damage control.

I don't have a lot of answers as I am still trying to sort out how to deal with how his inability to be an engaged parent has impacted the kids. I can see a lot of transactional elements in how ex interacts with the kids. That approach is very invalidating to a kid so that means that you will likely have to find ways to ramp up the validation with your son. He might have some difficult questions for you. He might have negative things to say about his mom. Lots of little things may come up that will leave you wondering what the hell to say or do. All you can do is be strong and try to find ways to explain things without being too negative about her. It isn't easy and I hope somebody else comes along with some more ideas.
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« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2017, 09:27:59 AM »

Gonna share an odd perspective... .

Am working on my own trauma therapy for cPTSD related stuff.
Part of my treatment involves resetting circuits from infancy and early childhood.
Well, a memory popped up for me.

First let me explain that I was raised in foster care by a "witch" type pwBPD.
I was only cared for in the way of having my basic needs met.  I had clothing and food and shelter.  Nothing emotional ever.  I was treated like a burden usually, or simply invisible, often abused in various ways.

So back to the memory that resurfaced for me in my trauma therapy... .

My "family" was prepping to leave on a fun vacation.  I was about 2.  They left me behind to avoid having to change diapers.  They left me with a cousin who was about 7 months pregnant and full of joy and excitement over preparing, with her husbancd, for their first baby.  They cared for me that time with great love, enthusiasm and placed me like their own child, in his crib and used his chnaging table and such to care for me like their own.

Now, I have not thought much about this memory over the years at all.

It kinda just resurfaced after this therapy.  I know it is real because I have a lot of other memories that intertwine with it and recall years later her fondly expressing how she used his crib for me, and recall her sense of joy as she expressed it.

My point is... .

While I was two years old and did not fully have language.
That experience of another person loving on me for a weeks time did something to me in a good way.  I internalized this experience.  I can now literally recall another time eating dinner, where I was sitting in her house, back to sliding glass door.  I recall sitting there and was about 3-6 or so and I was contrasting in my head the idea of, "if these people had been my parents, loved and raised me."  I was able to put into perspective that the way my foster mom was treating me was wrong, not how I wanted any child to be treated.  I was able to also internaliz how I should be treated, how I wanted to ensure my child felt as a baby, secure in that I appreciate and have joy over his presence. (Vs expressions of burden and strife.)

Just saying this because that one week in my life.
Had such a profound impact in how stuff got wired into my brain.
I never realized it until I was doing this trauma work.

If you observed me, you would never know either. I didn't cling to her or outwardly express this in any way at all.

So I guess I am saying that the idea that you are aware that your child needs more than a transactional relationship may be more powerful than you may realize.

Imo, mistake some make is then trying to make up for the transactional parent, becoming enmeshed as if to overcompensate, vs showing a balance. 

But in any event, sounds like you know what you are doing, but felt like my story could have something useful.
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