Feeling scared

[LittleRedBarn]

I'm facing a felony charge for something connected with my BPDh's mental health breakdown last year, and his family (son 36 and daughter 39, plus his sister and brother) have completely turned against me. It's a second marriage and they have always blamed me for the break-up of my husband's first marriage. Now they are blaming me for his mental health breakdown too and have sent a ton of 'evidence' to the court demonstrating that I'm an evil witch who wanted him dead (I'm not). The prosecutor in my case is young, female and ambitious and has completely swallowed their tales. She is determined to take the prosecution as far as she can.

My husband has always had difficult relationships with his family and all this has made things much, much worse. He has gone no-contact with his sister and brother but he would still like to try and have a relationship, however, strained, with his two children. He has not spoken to his daughter since his breakdown and has only had occasional text communication with his son.

It's hard for him because he is torn between wanting a relationship with his two children, and his grandson, and wanting to stay with me. So I get that he is in a really difficult position. At the same time, my position is really serious - I could go to jail. Yesterday, he started talking about wanting to rebuild his relationship with his daughter. Her birthday is coming up and he wants to send her a card. I get really scared whenever he talks like this because his family is capable of twisting anything against me and feeding it back to the prosecution. I would much rather he had no contact with his family at all until my court case is resolved. But if I try to express any of this, he accuses me of trying to come between him and his children and that I'm manipulative and controlling - which is exactly what his family are accusing me of, too.

I'm also aware that he doesn't have a lot of friends and is pretty isolated generally, so in principle having contact with his family would be good - IF they were able to offer him support, which I'm not sure they can!

I've talked to my therapist about this and he says that my husband should go no contact with his family, at least until my court case is resolved. Meantime, my husband's own therapist is telling him to try to rebuild his relationship with his kids. So the two of us are stuck in opposite corners! I don't really know where to go with it all and feel quite despairing sometimes. The idea of going to jail really, really scares me. I'm female, 63, and have NEVER been in trouble with the law until now.

Writing this makes me wonder if I should ask for a joint session with his therapist, to try and explain my side of things. I'm guessing my husband doesn't do too well in representing me in their sessions.

Thoughts, anyone?

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[kells76]

Hi LittleRedBarn;

Seems like there are two questions for you right now.

One is how to navigate the legal side most effectively when there are potential serious charges in play.

Two is how to navigate the mental health side -- therapists, relationships, perceptions, etc.

Let's separate those out and maybe get some more clarity.

In terms of legal stuff, do you have a lawyer? If so, what is your L's current advice?

In terms of mental health stuff, tell me a little more about how you know what your H's therapist is telling him? Does your H's therapist tell you? Does your H tell you? Some other way?

[LittleRedBarn]

Hi Kells

Thanks for this thoughtful response. Yes, I do have a lawyer. She is excellent, and came highly recommended, and I'm confident that she will do the best for me. Her position is that she would prefer my husband to have no contact with his family until my case is resolved. She doesn't trust his family, and she doesn't trust the prosecutor either. But my husband is not her client, and if she was to advise him on this,  she would potentially be interfering with a witness, so it's a no-no. I have tried telling my husband that she would prefer him not to talk to his kids while all this is going on and it simply enrages him - "I'm not having YOUR lawyer telling me what I can and can't do with MY kids." So that's a non-conversation too.

The reason I know what my husband's therapist is telling him, is because my husband tells me a lot about their sessions. He debriefs to me most times he sees her. I do not do the same with him for my conversations with my therapist and he seems okay with that - I think he's pretty disinterested, to be honest. We've had two or three joint sessions with both of our therapists, just so that each of them has some idea of what the other person is like. What we've never managed to do is couples therapy, mainly because the protective order has been very restrictive up to now. It seems that where there are accusations of DV, couples therapy is not allowed. I'm hoping we might see some easing of this at my next court hearing but the hearings tend to be spaced out at 3-monthly intervals, so it's all taking a long time. Hence my idea of doing a joint session with my husband's therapist to talk about the situation with his kids.

Does this make sense?

[314rabbit]

LittleRedBarn,

Legal issues are tough to deal with in the best of times, and it's even tougher when not everyone on the team has the same ideas about the direction to take.

My spouse's therapist was giving really strange recommendations for awhile (i.e. go to a Domestic Violence shelter type of advice) which I could not figure out. My spouse started to become afraid of me even beyond the usual "I'm afraid of angry people" type of thing. We had had joint sessions with my therapist, but not theirs.

Things started to really make headway when I went to see their therapist. She thought I was a biting dog, and was surprised to hear my take on matters when I shared my perspective. I think you may have some success by talking to his therapist. His therapist may not understand why it is so important to have a temporary no contact period with his children.

I found it helped to bring notes along to keep track of what I wanted to cover. Our BPD spouses have a medical condition, with a medical team, and it is in our best interest to be involved in their care in the way that a spouse would for any other condition. Especially so, since BPD affects us so much.

[LittleRedBarn]

Hi 314rabbit

Thank you so much for this insight. It confirmed my instinct that we need a joint session with my BPDh's therapist. I spoke to my husband today, and he was okay with the idea, so we have scheduled a session for next Wednesday. I'll let you know how it goes!

[LittleRedBarn]

My husband and I had a joint session with his therapist this week and it went extremely well. It quickly became apparent that she really had no idea of the complexities of the situation, or of how long-standing and deeply-felt my husband's problems with his family are.

I set up the entire meeting as me wanting to brief her on just how difficult and complex my husband's situation is, how much pain it causes him and how the three of us can work together towards *his* best interests (not mine), with the focus always on his mental health and emotional stability.

At the end of the session, she turned to my husband and advised him not to initiate any contact with his family until after my court case is resolved, and then only to do so after discussing it carefully with her. I could have punched the air with delight! I honestly had no idea that she would do that.

A big thank you to 314rabbit for validating my instinct to have the joint session, and for your comment about the 'team'. 

[LittleRedBarn]

Last Wednesday, my husband and I had a joint session with his therapist to talk about his relationship with his adult kids, who are a very real threat to me, given my pending felony charges. His therapist advised him not to initiate contact with his family until my court case is resolved.

Now his son has contacted him and asked for a video call. My husband thought it would be okay, as it had been initiated by his son, and went ahead, and his son is now asking my husband to contact his daughter too.

I feel so frustrated, and  I'm scared again too. I spent a long time preparing for the meeting and was so pleased with the advice. Now it seems that I've had just nine days of peace of mind and I'll have to do battle with my husband over his kids all over again. I do understand how hard it is for him, being forced to choose between me and them, but he has chosen me and I need him to take responsibility for that choice.

I turned to Shari Manning 'Loving Someone with BPD' and she says that pwBPD will often ask for advice about difficult situations but then go ahead and do the very thing that they have been advised not to do. Does anyone else have experience of this?  I guess it's a combination of emotion dysregulation and impulsivity. If the feelings get too distressing, they will act, even if it would be wiser not to.

I'm seeing him tomorrow to talk about this and dreading another explosive fight.