UBPD Sister with Enabling family -- In need of help/support

[Pushover_Pleaser]

First time poster, been reading some of the threads and they hit home with me. I don't know where to start... some background I guess is I am 10 years younger and I was adopted by her parents. I am of no blood relation, I have another sister who has been pushed out of the family as well and I still am unsure as to why fully. There is more to that than I know I believe, but that sister is a pre-curser for how my sister treats me.
- The past few years she has been going up and down on whether she hates me or loves me, she says that she is supportive and wants me happy then she turns around and tells me how I ________ed up or did something wrong
-she constantly loves to remind people, myself included, what all she has done for them and how no one ever does anything for her & No one cares about her or what she wants.
-She will use my other sister against me, saying "you are just like her" when she knows that bothers me.
- I have gotten into a relationship a few years ago and was going to be moving a few hours away so we can be together, she threw a fit and told me how i take advantage of people and how I will just use him and I moved for a man and not for me. She stopped talking to me for about 3 months prior to this because I asked her to talk to a therapist.
    -she thought I was moving to one place, and ended up posting to facebook how she will be moving there for a job, little did she know I was not moving to that area but somewhere completely different.
- I got engaged and she did not like this. She has been with her boyfriend for years and he has yet to propose, so she hates that I am happy. She has this idea I want her life, my other sister wanted her life. So she is kicking us out.
-I told her where the honeymoon was going to be and she freaked out because she had always wanted to go there, the cut of the diamond my fiance was thinking about was the same cut she wanted (I had no input nor clue of either) She wanted to get married in a certain location and thought I was going to do that too, I did not want that at all. We had talked through that and it was okay for a while.
- She drilled me about my fiance's past and I would not give her all of the information or very little because she is not to be trusted with anything or she will blow it up out of proportion, which is leading to why I am seeking advice now.
- It has come to the point I am close to the wedding, there was a hard boundary set with my mother by my fiance (mind you i had little part in) and my mother told my sister... now she has declined to go to my wedding, and I tried to call her to have a conversation, she has told me we need to end communication for a long time, if ever and I had put her in a bad place with HER family and she will not stand for it.
-she loves to use the terms "My family, My mother, My father" to me knowing it hurts because I am not blood.
-My sister has been trying to push me out for years, now my mother is in the middle and I have yet to talk to her about it because I am still too emotional. She will always side with my sister, regardless of knowing how she is. the family will do whatever they need to in order to keep the peace and the more I have stepped back and watched, the more I cannot let this effect my own mental health.
- they now have been thinking my fiance is some woman beater, cheater, creeper... He is none of these things, he has a rough past and frankly I dont think i need to justify my choice of a partner to my family. They need to trust me and my decisions, they dont have to agree but they need to accept.
- My sister has ended contact, which I am completely fine with, the thing that is getting to me is the FOG portion of it and how I feel obligated to my family (parents mostly) to keep a relationship with my sister... i dont know how much longer I can stand it.
-My anxiety is so high when she reaches out to me, or when I feel I have to reach out to her because that was her most recent complaint is that I am isolating myself and I am removing myself from the family, I live hours away, raising a family and trying to become a parent myself. I go there as often as I can without exhausting myself and I talk to everyone as often as I can. I don't understand what to do next or how to navigate this at all.
-Please, any advice or support on this would be greatly appreciated... I am at a loss. I love my sister, I can never have a normal relationship with her, I am afraid if I go NC I will lose the rest of my family like my other sister did.

Thank you

[Mutt]

Hi Pushover_Pleaser, welcome. Glad you’re here.

That’s a lot to carry, especially with the push-pull from your sister and the family pressure around it. It makes sense your anxiety is high.

What stood out is you’re seeing it clearly. You can love her and still protect your peace, even if others don’t agree.

Keeping it simple can help:

   •   focus on what’s healthy for you
   •   limit what you share

If you want to share, what kind of contact feels manageable right now?

[Pushover_Pleaser]

Honestly, I am not sure until I speak to my mother about it. I am not sure how she will react when I talk to her about how I am feeling. I don't know what her reaction is going to be just yet and I am so scared to have that conversation. My fiance and my friends I have spoken to about this all tell me that in order to keep my peace and mental well being that it would be best to just not have contact at all. My thing is that I am fine with having no contact if we can still be civil and she wont try to take our parents from me and make me the bad guy, which is a very big possibility. They live in close proximity to each other and she has a lot of influence on my mom right now and looooves to make me and my fiance look bad. The poor man has done nothing but try to be nice and build a family, show them respect and that he can be an amazing husband to their daughter and I dont see it being reciprocated at all.

[Notwendy]

This is a difficult but not uncommon situation. While one person in a family may have a disorder, the family as a whole acts as one system. Other members can take on roles like enabling the disordered person.

It may help to realize that not all of this is personal to you, or about you. It's natural that parents love their children and it's possible your mother has compensated for your sister by enabling her, and isn't fully aware of that. In my family, some members became my BPD mother's enablers, and tended to align with her, even if it compromised other relationships.

I understand your fears of how your sister can align family members "against" you. There really is no way to control what your sister says or does and what others decide to believe. I agree that speaking to your mother about it would put her in the middle and that, as a mother, she doesn't want to choose between two of her children.

I think that underneath your sister's behavior, she's jealous of you and if she puts you down, somehow she thinks she can feel better about herself. One suggestion is, rather than to speak to anyone- is to slow down the information given to her. She doesn't need to know your plans to move, or all the details about your ring, or your fiance. It may be that you don't share this information with your mother either- for your own privacy. It doesn't mean going NC or not sharing anything, but choosing what you want to keep private.

Your can keep some aspects of your relationship private. It may be that complete NC isn't feasable when you want to keep contact with family members. LC- lowering the emotional content, less contact, less drama may be more doable for you in your situation. You don't need to speak to anyone about your choice of what to share and what to keep private. You just do it.

[TelHill]

This is a situation I've experienced with my late dBPD mother and disordered uBPD older and only sibling.

People suffering from BPD can't process strong emotions well. With strong emotions like jealously they tend to get overly upset, suffer from mood swings and act impulsively. This is called emotional dysregulation.

It's not easy to have a relationship with a person suffering from bpd. Whatever affection they have for you is buried underneath irrational fears of abandonment, rage that your x, y, and z is better than theirs, and no one will see them as the special and superior person they are. The latter is a defense against their low and depressed self-esteem.

Notwendy has some good suggestions how not to disturb the hornets nest of a bpd's inner world. I've made the mistake of trying to fix these relationship by telling the truth or angrily setting boundaries. It never worked and set me up to be the subject of a smear campaign.

Bill Eddy is an author whose specialty is helping individuals have drama-free relationships in business and in families with high conflict people, those with personality disorders. I found the information below helpful.

Congratulations on your upcoming marriage!


https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/biff-communications-for-estranged-families/

[Pushover_Pleaser]

Thank you all so much for your advice and relation on the topic. I greatly appreciate the viewpoints you have given. I am trying not to act irrationally and give myself time to process everything and try to navigate how I am wanting to respond. I know for a fact that she will come back and possibly either try to get me to admit fault, or forget that anything was done.

   She has a bit of a substance abuse problem and can be quite unpredictable. She has to drink in order to be in the room with me when we have an altercation. The last time this happened was about 3 years ago and she stopped talking to me after kicking her daughter out of her house and I mentioned that maybe therapy would be ideal for her to get a second opinion. She took that as a threat and decided that I was an evil person for that. (she still likes to bring that up when she's mad). Now granted, back in this time I had not learned about this and was not strong enough to stick up for myself, so I admitted fault and tried to get back in her good graces.

   I don't think I can manage to do that again, I think what she has done is at my breaking point. I need to be able to give myself the mental clarity and happiness I deserve without her tearing me down every chance she gets. It's like she knows when I am doing good and happy. I literally had therapy the day before our last interaction when all this happened and my therapist had told me this was the happiest she had seen me since we started a year ago. Can you guess what my main topic of discussion is in therapy haha.

    I am building my life, I just made my own business, I am waiting for my promotion at work, I am getting married to the man of my dreams, he has gifted me with 2 beautiful children that I have the pleasure of being a bonus mom to. I cannot stand anymore hurt and pain, mental torture that this woman gives me. I really think I have to make the hard choice and cut it off before it reverts back to making me miserable. I just pray that my parents can understand and not give in to the torment of having to choose sides. I do not intend on having them choose anything, I will be civil and be able to spend holidays, family functions, ect. without making it awkward. I just will keep her more at a distance and not interact with her anymore than I need to.

    please let me know if this is a rational idea or if I am acting out of emotion, I am trying not to let my anger sway my judgement and I understand how she is unable to regulate her emotions. I don't think I can keep using it as an excuse to let her get away with how she treats me and now my soon to be family.

[Notwendy]

She has a bit of a substance abuse problem and can be quite unpredictable. She has to drink in order to be in the room with me when we have an altercation.

   
Please let me know if this is a rational idea or if I am acting out of emotion, I am trying not to let my anger sway my judgement and I understand how she is unable to regulate her emotions. I don't think I can keep using it as an excuse to let her get away with how she treats me and now my soon to be family.

I want to key in on some of your statements. "A bit of" is minimizing the substance abuse. It's not a "bit". It may not be her main underlying issue but it is a significant one- no matter what the amount of substance is.

She "has to" drink in your presence. No, she doesn't "have" to because of the circumstances. She is the one responsible for her drinking, even if she herself isn't able to control it.

You "pray your parents will understand"- if they are enablers, they may not understand, but this isn't a reason for you to have boundaries on your own well being.

You are not being irrational by choosing to have boundaries. Your plan to protect your future and emotional well being is rational and reasonable.

I'm not being critical of your thinking and FOG. I recognize this as similar to the thinking I grew up with, and this is why I point them out. When we grow up in a family with dysfunction, it's what we know as "normal". The uncertainty, FOG, self questioning is a result of that. However, you also have the insight to know this isn't functional and are working on positive change. This is a good thing.

In a family with dysfunction, all family members take on behaviors that keep the family in balance. If one member changes their behavior- the other members feel a sense of discomfort. They may then attempt to get the family member who changed back in their role. If the family member does not do that, they may get angry and even reject that family member.

It looks to me as if your family pattern has been to enable your sister. This is common too- as it helps keep the stress down. Everyone benefits when you appease your sister, even if it isn't to your benefit to do so. Why would parents do that? Possibly because these patterns can be intergenerational. It may be the one they know as "normal" too.

You can be the one to break the cycle for yourself and I encourage you to do so.

I also stepped out of the family pattern. I began to have boundaries with BPD mother. I also assumed my father- who was her enabler would understand. I wish he would have, but he didn't. Still, it was important to me to make this change.

I also had enabling and co-dependent tendencies, people pleasing and had to learn about boundaries. I did counseling too. It wasn't until later that a counselor recommended 12 step groups in addition to the counseling. I was surprised that nobody had mentioned them before. BPD mother did drink, but it was a long time ago and substance abuse was not an issue in my own family. What I realized though is that the family patterns are learned in childhood, and also are similar in families where there is a person with a disorder. I found groups like CODA and ACA (for adult children) to be very helpful in addition to counseling. (They don't take the place of counseling). You may want to check them out.