Odd Parental Behavior or Not?

[Torched]

My xBPDw, in public, will not look at me and immediately turns her back to me in front of people when am nearby.  Examples include seeing my son after a football game when it is not my day to be with him or at my daughter's dance recitals.  People can't help but notice.  She is extraordinarily angry at me but I sometimes sense that she is humiliated that I left her.  I never wanted to ever do that to her and it causes me pain to think of me hurting anyone that way.

My ex used to treat my family members this way at times publicly when we were married.  She did so to "punish" them IMO.  She did this in front of my children and honestly this was one reason I finally left her because the children were being alienated from their grandparents and I started to see them becoming unhealthy and brainwashed.  She also would do this with me to punish me at home.  This was equated to cold-shouldering and would go on for hours/days.

I'm noticing now that her behavior makes her new boyfriend and her family uncomfortable.  They finally get to see her doing what she did to me and my family for nearly 18 years.  The thing is that it isn't a big deal for them because it doesn't affect them.  It just makes them feel awkward watching it.

A question for everyone:  is this a common behavior by BPD people?
Another question:  why do they do it?  I see it as genuinely childish behavior.
A third question:  what should I tell my kids about it?  They see it clearly.  I don't want them to think that this behavior is acceptable, especially to people other than me.

[livednlearned]

My son's T just talked about this with me -- how it's human behavior to want others to feel the way we feel.

For people with arrested or stunted emotional maturity, their emotions will work a lot like a toddler or child, what some refer to as emotional contagion. Meaning, instead of asking for what they want, they cry or act out until someone gives them what they want.

With your ex, it sounds like she struggles with feeling invisible or erased, so she projects that feeling onto you where it is more comfortable to process.

You make her feel insignificant and erased so she's going to erase you back.

 

I can understand why you want to talk to the kids about it.

For me, talking to my kid about his dad usually backfired, unless he expressly sought clarification for something, which happened rarely and only when things were at crisis level.

I think most kids are pretty myopic when they're young. "Mom ignores me" can become to a kid "dad wants me to fix this" or "I am to blame for this problem." With my kid, he would take things one step further and think, "If I ever do this, my mom is going to hate me like she hates my dad."

What might help get around the distorting effects is to watch for them doing that behavior and then ask them some validating questions. "Hey buddy, when I came to pick you up, I was so happy to see you! Then you didn't have eye contact with me. Everything ok?"

Then work in how it makes you feel and ask if he feels that way, too.

I don't know... .curious to hear what others have to say, and how you're thinking about approaching it.

[Torched]

Thanks.  I can relate to exactly what you are saying and agree.

Her behavior is definitely meant to attack, not defend.  Last year before the divorce, she did it and my daughter picked up the habit in order to "help" her mother or to not "hurt" her mother... .so when mom was doing it to my parents, my daughter (who LOVES her grandparents) would cold shoulder them as well so mom would see it.

I think it is horrible because she will never heal.  She will never "grow out of it."  She will always hate me and will always act this way.  I know this to be likely because she did it for the first 25 years of her adult life, got called out on it constantly in the beginning, and still behaved this way.

For the last five or ten years, I LOATHED her for this stuff.  Now I just really, really feel very very sorry for her that she can't mature out of it and just be happy.