I feel like the eye of Sauron is about to swing my way.

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Firstly I love this website it saved my life more than a decade ago- and here I am again because of my values (ugh) and my SS21. I wish I could just walk away and have nothing to do with my uBPDxw.

My uBPDxw and I have had no contact for almost 10 years. The few times she has reached out to me using my SS(21) as bait  I contacted my son and his BioF to check in. Fortunately every incident was an exaggeration and I was able to maintain no contact.

My son is not my biological son, as he has two legal parents. I have had to navigate a very careful path to maintain a relationship with him through his BioF. His BioF also has to be careful so that my (and his) uBPDxw doesn’t try to sabotage his professional and personal life ( as she has attempted multiple times over the last 2 decades).

Quick summary:
Sadly, my son has had to see and experience his mother’s behaviors firsthand. She has undermined his relationship with his dad, and love bombed him so much that at 14/15 he refused to live with his dad and moved in with her. Then when he turned 17/18 she  started recycling with him. She spread rumors about him and at the age of 18 he was working 3 jobs and “taking care of her”. She’s cut off all of her family and thus isolated my son. Because of our no contact I’m still a part of his life. For the last 3 years my son has been housing insecure, he’s convinced he has anger issues and his mother is “afraid” of him. He doesn’t trust his dad.

Last year I convinced him to come live with me in NY, ( they-my ex, his BioF  and him were in CA) at the time he was 19. He stayed with me 2 months and then my ex started calling him and love bombing him. Earlier this year he returned to CA.


PRESENT DAY:
My son is living on his own in CA and his BioF  helps him with rent as long as he holds a job and doesn’t smoke weed or get drunk ( partly because of the rumors my ex spread with grains of truth because he’s a surfer in CA). My ex who has reinvented herself numerous times in the last 15 years has legally changed her name, disowned all of her family and now claims to be indigenous ( she is not). She is messing with my son’s sense of self and confusing him in ways that I fear will do long term damage ( on top of the Trauma he already had to heal from).

I opened up a joint account with him so if he’s short on money for food I can help. But he has anxiety about being “too much” and pays me back immediately.

She’s recycling him and drawing him into her new life and identity. I’ve started being more open with him about what our marriage was like and I try to explain to him how to not engage, how to understand his own boundaries and how to use his own critical thinking when what she is accusing him of doing doesn’t make sense.
 
The more I talk to him the more I worry that she will target me. But I cannot standby and let this happen to my son because his dad is afraid of what she may do to his life ( as she has endangered his wife and kids by making false accusations).

I have no idea if this is the right board for this. But I needed to say this to folks because it feels like I’m living in a soap opera.

 Also- in case this post makes folks feel sad or stressed please know - I am very happy in my current life. Married, in a healthy relationship and continuing to heal.

[KarenDH]

Firstly I love this website it saved my life more than a decade ago- and here I am again because of my values (ugh) and my SS21. I wish I could just walk away and have nothing to do with my uBPDxw.

My uBPDxw and I have had no contact for almost 10 years. The few times she has reached out to me using my SS(21) as bait  I contacted my son and his BioF to check in. Fortunately every incident was an exaggeration and I was able to maintain no contact.

My son is not my biological son, as he has two legal parents. I have had to navigate a very careful path to maintain a relationship with him through his BioF. His BioF also has to be careful so that my (and his) uBPDxw doesn’t try to sabotage his professional and personal life ( as she has attempted multiple times over the last 2 decades).

Quick summary:
Sadly, my son has had to see and experience his mother’s behaviors firsthand. She has undermined his relationship with his dad, and love bombed him so much that at 14/15 he refused to live with his dad and moved in with her. Then when he turned 17/18 she  started recycling with him. She spread rumors about him and at the age of 18 he was working 3 jobs and “taking care of her”. She’s cut off all of her family and thus isolated my son. Because of our no contact I’m still a part of his life. For the last 3 years my son has been housing insecure, he’s convinced he has anger issues and his mother is “afraid” of him. He doesn’t trust his dad.

Last year I convinced him to come live with me in NY, ( they-my ex, his BioF  and him were in CA) at the time he was 19. He stayed with me 2 months and then my ex started calling him and love bombing him. Earlier this year he returned to CA.


PRESENT DAY:
My son is living on his own in CA and his BioF  helps him with rent as long as he holds a job and doesn’t smoke weed or get drunk ( partly because of the rumors my ex spread with grains of truth because he’s a surfer in CA). My ex who has reinvented herself numerous times in the last 15 years has legally changed her name, disowned all of her family and now claims to be indigenous ( she is not). She is messing with my son’s sense of self and confusing him in ways that I fear will do long term damage ( on top of the Trauma he already had to heal from).

I opened up a joint account with him so if he’s short on money for food I can help. But he has anxiety about being “too much” and pays me back immediately.

She’s recycling him and drawing him into her new life and identity. I’ve started being more open with him about what our marriage was like and I try to explain to him how to not engage, how to understand his own boundaries and how to use his own critical thinking when what she is accusing him of doing doesn’t make sense.
 
The more I talk to him the more I worry that she will target me. But I cannot standby and let this happen to my son because his dad is afraid of what she may do to his life ( as she has endangered his wife and kids by making false accusations).

I have no idea if this is the right board for this. But I needed to say this to folks because it feels like I’m living in a soap opera.

 Also- in case this post makes folks feel sad or stressed please know - I am very happy in my current life. Married, in a healthy relationship and continuing to heal.

[ForeverDad]

Welcome back, though of course we wish the circumstances were better.

My initial idea, once I got past the impression of how thoughtful you've been, is that he would benefit from a patient counselor who is aware of the background environment and how his influenced sense of stability (?) or certainty (?) in his life has limited him from taking charge of his life.

He is an adult.  His mother can't legally stop him from seeing a counselor or therapist to aid him in improving himself toward a more normal perspective and perception of himself.

A real possibility is that he would share seeing a counselor and his mother would subtly or not so subtly influence him to give up on that effort.

What do you think?

[Notwendy]

I agree with the counselor idea.

I think your being a support person to your SS has a positive impact on him. You may be the most stable parent figure he has. From my own experience with a BPD mother, even the most well meaning relatives could not completely mitigate the effects of this- but whatever they could to makes a difference.

I will also support you having your own boundaries- you want to be supportive but not step over into enabling or getting too involved in the disorder. It is possible your ex will try to target you. The other side of this is your SS- who as an adult, is now able to begin to see things for himself. My father's family has been supportive of me and my BPD mother has said things about them, but I know they aren't true. She's also said things about me that aren't true. If your SS is confused, stay the course, he may waver but you stay as a steady presence for him.

I think it's a good quality on his part that he pays you back. He's being a responsible young man who wants to stand on his own two feet. Although it's kind of you to help him, you also don't want to enable/discourage this drive to independence. I can relate to this as I wanted to be financially independent of my parents. My BPD mother fostered economic dependence in my sibling. It was not a good thing. I know this isn't what you are doing. I think you see where your SS has been parentified and want to be kind to him but if he pays you back, this is commendable.

I do like the idea of the joint account. Young adults at his age don't have much of a financial cushion . I had one of my father's credit cards as "last resort only use" when I was that age. While money in my family was a difficult issue, I appreciated that there was this protective cushion. I think I used it a couple of times- but I also was mindful of accepting money from my parents.  One idea for the money your SS pays you back is to put it in a savings fund for him and gift it back later for something in the future, like a down payment on a house one day.

I think it's great that you are now in an emotionally healthy relationship. Good for you and also good for him to see an example of that. It is OK to have boundaries and take care of yourself- that is role modeling healthy boundaries too. As children, we need the adults in our world to protect us and take care of us. As adults, we still need supportive family members in different ways. Your SS is going to be navigating this relationship with his mother as he matures. He also is striving to be his own independent person and it seems he's on the path to that. Your encouraging this while being a consistent adult in his life has a positive impact.

[GaGrl]

Many of the things you have done are similar to what my husband and I did 15-17 years ago as my stepdaughter began to individuals from her uBPD/NPD mother. She lived with us briefly (six months), then moved to Texas to live with her SO. We set up a joint account with her but rarely had to use it. Mostly, she needed emotional support and some objectivity as she came to terms with how dysfunctional her mother was (is), and how boundaries work. It took years, frankly. What finally clicked for her was what needed to be put in place to protect her own daughter.

I wish she and her daughter had gone into therapy earlier, but that wasn't anything I could influence other than communicate what it had done for me. Both are in therapy now.

One thing to watch for...my SD now freely admits she has partnered twice with men who are the female versions of her mother. Not a great way to work out those issues!

You have a good handle on this. Patience.

[Notwendy]

It took me a long time too. I don't think this is something we "get" all at once- it's a part of our maturing and also collective experiences. A mother is a significant person to us- it's the "normal" we know growing up and we don't know other "normal" to begin with. It's only when I was old enough to spend time at friends' homes and with other family that I began to see that my friends' mothers were different than mine but I could not comprehend why.

Children want connection with a parent, even an abusive parent. It's instinct and survival.

I feel as if we can be somehow "groomed" to be our BPD mother's emotional caretakers and caretakers in other areas too ( household tasks for instance). We somehow feel responsible for them even though it's a reverse of the "normal" which is parent caring for child.

Understanding the situation is an evolving process as we mature. As GaGirl mentioned, some of this is though parenting. I would recall certain things that I experienced as a child and think- oh no this isn't OK- but at the time, I though I was somehow to blame for the disordered treatment.

It is said, in general, that our FOO influences our choice of partner. I think if a child takes on the role of caretaking, over functioning, enabling, and walking on eggshells, it feels familiar to us. Also it's attractive to someone who is more comfortable with caretakers/enablers. It helps to have role models for different dynamics in a relationship.