Advice about supporting my daughter

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hello,

This place has been very helpful to me. Thank you everyone for making me feel that I am not alone in the struggle.

I am married to pwBPD spouse for a bit more than 20 years. I have realised for the past five years about hopelessness of the situation. I have stuck around because of my daughter who will leave the nest in a year, a timeline that I have also kept for myself to initiate separation.

My wife has been a good mother to my daughter until some 18 months ago. My daughter is progressing through teenage years, and becoming emotionally independent. With that happening, my wife is showing increasingly petulant behaviours towards her. She takes offence on things that seem routine in a teenage life, and then spends long time berating the daughter.

I am trying to support daughter as much as I can. I am posting to seek your opinion about some things to do or not to do as I navigate how I can support my daughter. I really appreciate your experience and opinion.

Thank you.

[bluetooth]

Hello,

This place has been very helpful to me. Thank you everyone for making me feel that I am not alone in the struggle.

I am married to pwBPD spouse for a bit more than 20 years. I have realised for the past five years about hopelessness of the situation. I have stuck around because of my daughter who will leave the nest in a year, a timeline that I have also kept for myself to initiate separation.

My wife has been a good mother to my daughter until some 18 months ago. My daughter is progressing through teenage years, and becoming emotionally independent. With that happening, my wife is showing increasingly petulant behaviours towards her. She takes offence on things that seem routine in a teenage life, and then spends long time berating the daughter.

I am trying to support daughter as much as I can. I am posting to seek your opinion about some things to do or not to do as I navigate how I can support my daughter. I really appreciate your experience and opinion.

Thank you.

[PeteWitsend]

...

I am trying to support daughter as much as I can. I am posting to seek your opinion about some things to do or not to do as I navigate how I can support my daughter. I really appreciate your experience and opinion.

Thank you.

The most important thing you can do is be there to listen to what your daughter says. 

If you're with your daughter and your wife is not present, you can be more open with her.  I still would not mention BPD, or bad mouth your wife, or anything like that, but you shouldn't also defend her behavior toward your daughter, and validate your daughter's feelings about it. 

If your wife is present, and your in the midst of conflict, it's more challenging to negotiate, but you have to be careful not to take sides, and try to defuse things without making your daughter feel unsupported.  She's also going to be looking to you for guidance, and if you're doing one thing and saying another, you're going to lose credibility in her eyes. 

It's not going to be easy, but if you consider your words and actions carefully, you can navigate this issue without losing your daughter's trust, or escalating the fighting; that I think are your two goals when in the midst of it. 

it sounds like at least you don't have to worry about placating your wife if you're already planning an exit from the marriage. 

[ForeverDad]

I have realized for the past five years about hopelessness of the situation. I have stuck around because of my daughter who will leave the nest in a year, a timeline that I have also kept for myself to initiate separation.

Waiting until the children are grown and gone is not necessarily a good strategy.  Ponder what happens when a couple files for divorce with nearly grown children.  Yes, family court would likely make a temp custody and parenting schedule order, but (1) temp orders often end once the child ages out of the system at age 18 or finish high school and (2) your daughter is definitely old enough to speak up for herself to the court and state her own wishes.  (Not to mention that by that time the children already have a drivers license and are able to "vote with their feet".)

I guess good question to ask yourself whether to act now is what you think your daughter would choose to do once there is a separation.  Would she have the strength to decide to live with the mentally healthier and more stable parent?  Or could her mother pressure and manipulate her to side with her?  I ask this because many children are so influenced by their unstable parent that they don't have the insight and gumption to stand up for their own best interests.

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.  Staying together would mean that's the only example of home life they would have known — discord, conflict, invalidation, alienation attempts, overall craziness, etc.  Some 40 years ago the book Solomon's Children - Exploding the Myths of Divorce had an interesting observation (the earliest quote I could find) 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 going forward, 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.  And some of the flying monkeys too.

[Notwendy]

When I see posts on this topic, I try to give a perspective from the daughter's point of view and also from the experience of raising teens myself.

I was not my BPD mother's "favorite child" so I can't say she was particularly good to me as a child, but my teen years were more difficult. It's been written that parents with PD's see their children as extensions of themselves, but for a child, a primary developmental task is to establish their own autonomy, which is in conflict with that perspective. Younger children tend to me more easily controlled.

For a teen, becoming their own individual is a main aspect of their development, but teens don't have full maturity. They have their own hormonal, physical, and emotional changes. While truly bad behavior is never acceptable, a parent needs to be able to differentiate between teen age moodiness and that. What is missing in this combination of teen age girl and BPD mother is that, the mother herself doesn't have emotional regulation skills either.  In other words, even normal and generally well behaved teens can feel aggravating to parents at times but the parent needs to be the adult in the room.

One of the odd experiences for me as a teen was that in some ways, I had "outgrown" my BPD mother in maturity- and yet, I wasn't mature yet. My BPD mother still had authority over me as a parent but also behaved in ways I would not be allowed to do. She would either be overly authoritarian and controlling with me- or look to me as an emotional caretaker.

It's possible that your D is reacting to her mother in an age appropriate way but her mother isn't responding to this in the way a stable adult would. This also doesn't mean your D can act out in unacceptable ways but you need to be able to discern what requires discipline and what does not, because, if her mother is irked with her, it may or may not be your D's fault.

The one best intervention for me at the time was time away from her. My parents didn't divorce but if they did, I'd have wanted to live with my father. This may not be the case with your D if she has a better relationship with her mother than I did, but her spending time with you will give her some respite from the dynamics with her mother and a chance to interact with you as the more emotionally stable parent. In other ways, I could spend time with relatives, summer camps, after school activities. College for me was a way to start my own independence. If your D has academic or trade skills interests, that can be a path to encourage (not too much pressure).

[CC43]

Hi there,

I'm sorry you're at the point of thinking about separation from your wife, and that life with her doesn't seem manageable anymore.

My guess is that the situation has worsened between your wife and daughter in the last few months because your daughter has matured.  Your wife is likely jealous of her own daughter--for her accomplishments, friendships, increasing independence, bright future, beauty, closeness with you.  Maybe your daughter is starting to get attention from others, including young men, that is too much for your wife to bear.  In addition, as your daughter exercises some independence, perhaps by getting her driver's license and doing more things on her own, her mom feels like she's losing control over the one person that she could confidently boss around, and rely upon for constant emotional engagement.  Thus your wife's "status" is challenged, making her act out?

Anyway, if there's near-constant strife in the household between your wife and daughter, I think my recommendation would be to give your daughter some time and space away from that as much as possible.  She might enjoy concentrating on extracurricular activities at school, or maybe work in a part-time capacity, rather than "deal with mom" all the time.  Maybe she starts to study at a library, where it could be more reliably peaceful.  Just being available to transport her, or letting her have access to a family car, could increasingly let her "vote with her feet" and continue to develop her identity outside the purview of her mom.  I think that structured activities might help here, such as a summer job, scholastic pursuit or volunteer activity.  Maybe over the summer, the two of you could try touring college campuses together.  That might get her excited about starting a next phase.  I'm not suggesting that your daughter should "cut out" her mom from her life.  But my guess is, a little separation from her and increasing focus on external activities might help.

[Notwendy]

The point about extracurricular activities is a good one. BPD mother's criticism and blaming me took a toll on my self esteem. School, friends, and extracurricular activities helped to counteract that. It didn't resolve all of it but - they were a source of positive feedback and validation.

I don't know if you or your D are in counseling. I think it's essential. It's someone your D can speak to without fear of consequences. I didn't know my mother had BPD. I think it could have helped to know. However, this information needs to come from someone objective, like a counselor who would know if it is in your D's best interest to know and how to speak to her about it.

While I think it is possible to help mitigate some of the effects of having a mother with BPD, I don't think it's possible to avoid all of them. This is a significant person to a child and even in the most protective circumstances- they have a relationship with this person. Let your D know that it is a normal and positive form of self care to seek out counseling, as she also will need to do this at times, as an adult- as she feels she needs it. I haven't done it continuously but at times when I felt I needed some objective guidance and feedback.

[ForeverDad]

I don't know if you or your D are in counseling. I think it's essential. It's someone your D can speak to without fear of consequences. I didn't know my mother had BPD. I think it could have helped to know. However, this information needs to come from someone objective, like a counselor who would know if it is in your D's best interest to know and how to speak to her about it.

All of us here have found benefit with local in-person counseling.  (My divorce lawyer told me, "Courts love counseling!"  So if you start the divorce process and mother resists approving counseling, court will likely side with you.)  Remote peer support is excellent but it does have its limits, and in-person counseling is one of them.

Also, schools and colleges have counselors too.  They're there but it requires you or your daughter to speak up and ask.  While they may not be able to provide services to the extent available elsewhere, they are not a resource to be ignored.