How do I protect my kids?

[Peter Deveroux]

My stbexWuBPD (hope I got that acronym right) is emotionally abusive to my kids and to me. We are still living in the same house. My kids all are in or will soon be in therapy (they need it for many reasons including the obvious one). How do I protect them from her subtly cruel behavior until we can proceed with our divorce? I especially want to know for my autistic 11-year-old son.

[Notwendy]

I wish I could tell you how to do that. I'm the adult child of an elderly BPD mother who is verbally and emotionally abusive. I don't know how to avoid this because, interacting with her potentially involves this. As an adult, I understand BPD better and so can take steps to deal with this. As a child, I was unable to. Although you can do things like take the child out of the house with you, if he's going to interact with his mother, I don't think there's a way to avoid some of this.

Consider- this is a reason for the divorce- for you to have your own space and a space for your children when they are with you. This will help. However, emotional abuse is hard to prove and likely there will be some contact.

What you can do is mitigate this by setting a different example- what you are doing by getting divorced- having boundaries and demonstrating that you do not find abusive behavior to be acceptable, and building your own caring and loving relationship with your child and also taking care of yourself. Having emotionally stable and caring adults in a child's life can have an impact in mitigating the experiences with a disordered parent. Therapy for you and the children helps too.

Of the protective/mitigating factors I grew up with were- having a different kind of relationship with my father, spending time away from home with stable family members (his extended family), and hiring child care help as my mother would be ovewhelmed by this. On weekends, and some evenings- he took us out of the house- BPD mother stayed home. We did things like go to the movies, park, zoo, museums, with just Dad. You may find it necessary to over function as a parent but this benefits the children and your relationship with them.

Even with these efforts, we were exposed to emotional and verbal abuse but this helped mitigate it I think.

For your child with autism- routine and stability are important. When you do have your own place, consider making a duplicate of his room at home at your place- same type of bed, same sheets/blanket on his bed, some duplicates of toys, clothes, games, toileteries. The more you can have routine and stability, the better for him.

[ForeverDad]

While the perceptions and behaviors of a person with acting-out BPD traits (pwBPD) are mostly self-centered, they are also often controlling and dictatorial.  For example, you would like to find helpful counseling for yourself and the children.  She may oppose it but as my lawyer stated, Courts love counseling.  In a dispute between counseling or not counseling, family courts generally enable the parent wanting counseling.

It's not surprising that disordered parents want to pick easily swayed or biased counselors.  If this is your situation, strategy may be needed.  If you research and determine which are the more experienced and more perceptive professionals that accept your insurance, then at the right time you can present the vetted list to the court and propose your spouse select from among those.  Courts like to have input from both parties and will like that.  This may avoid your ex managing to pick ones ex can control/influence.

Your stbEx probably resists therapy for herself - denial, blaming and blame shifting onto others.  You have found you can't lead her there.  And you will find that divorce/family court won't even try.  All the professionals will more or less deal with her as she is.  You are wise to do the same.  Focus and prioritize on (1) yourself and (2) the welfare of the children.  As much as we didn't want to take that path, divorce enables us to reclaim our authority as a parent.

Living in a calm and stable home, even if only for part of their lives, will give the children a better example of normalcy for their own future relationships.  Nearly 30 years ago the book Solomon's Children - Exploding the Myths of Divorce had an interesting observation on page 195 by one participant, As the saying goes, "I'd rather come from a broken home than live in one."

Ponder that.  Taking action will enable your lives, or at least a part of your lives, to be spent be in a calm, stable environment — your home, wherever that is — away from the blaming, emotional distortions, pressuring demands and manipulations, unpredictable ever-looming rages and outright chaos.

An excellent guide to assist you through the legal quagmire of a divorce is William Eddy's excellent handbook "Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder".  It is a great complement to the local resources such as counselors and family law attorneys, not to mention the peer support here.