I am not sure how to feel...

[Furbaby Mom]

Hey everyone,
Background two sisters in law have BPD traits as well as MIL.  I have discussed SIL 1 and SIL 2 (birth order 1 being older) as they have had caused a lot of chaos in my life.  SIL 1 has been NC since December which was the first time my H and I actively decided to cut her off for a while.  Typically, she is the one who is cutting us off.  We blocked her from our social media following a rage attack she had against me toward my H about a picture I posted from Christmas.  She is not on speaking terms with my H and her father, my FIL and I posted a picture of us with them on Christmas.  It was perceived as a direct attack on her (her narrative, not my intention) which lead to some of the most hurtful words used against me.  She sent them to my H which is a pattern of her and her sister.  They go to him in a way of trying to get him to see their side/potentially end things with me, even though we are married.  So here we are today... .

Back around Christmas time, my MIL wanted my H and I to pick a holiday that she and her new H could spend with us.  Holidays are rough because my H's parents live close to each other, but are both remarried.  My family lives about an hour and half away from them.  Trying to balance everyone is tough enough, but my MIL likes to change plans on holidays to align with the exact time my FIL is having us over making us choose between them and her.  Every time she has done this, we have already committed to my FIL.  Plus, honestly, its way less drama at his house because the girls don't go there (SIL 2 is not his daughter and SIL 1 is not on speaking terms with them).  We always find time to see MIL, but it's NEVER good enough.  We decided to give them the day after Christmas which we can sustain long term.  At our get together the day after Christmas, my MIL asked if we could pick one more day during the year, even if its a made up holiday, for us to come visit her.  We agreed on Earth day to be the day we get together each year. 
This past Sunday was earth day.
My H and I were ready to visit her and had it on the calendar.  Mid week, she reached out to my H and told him that since they were away for Easter this year, she is deciding to make Earth day Easter.  She asked if we minded for her brother, sister in law, her old friend and "everyone else" being there.  I mean, what could we say?  We said okay, but both of us were really thrown off. 

It started to hit me that this was a set up.  We had created a slight relationship with SIL 2, but had boundaries with that in that we were not ready to spend time with her boyfriend (he had a few accusations at christmas against me).  We had been at a gathering with both SIL 1 and 2 and SIL 1 acted like we weren't there.  SIL 2 has been trying to get together with us and for a while was really pushing things, but had backed off to a weird level.  They knew about Earth day and they knew we were going to be there, so of course she didn't have to push anything.

I was anxious going there as my MIL's apartment is very small.  I planned on being polite but focusing on her brother and sister in law and their old friend.  We got there and I was shocked.  SIL 1 who is typically in all black was wearing a white sundress.  She was elated to see us, grabbed us both and gave us hugs.  She very quickly told us how wonderful she is doing.  She has three jobs and is in school full time (a narrative I am assuming) and basically life is roses and sunshine.  This is the same girl who avoided me like the plague a month ago... .the same one who had the nastiest things to say about me.  I have seen the fakeness and the ability to pretend like nothing happened many times in the past, but this felt so different.  SIL 1's bf was there and he was also eerily pleasant.
SIL 2 and her boyfriend were over the top nice as well.  We were given some drinks and then ushered to the table where I realized that no one else was joining us for dinner.  It was just the family.  I felt so set up, despite everyone being really nice. 
The dinner went fine.  Everyone chatted about various topics and my H and I were asked appropriate questions about our jobs.  There were quite a few narratives being told along the way, but I am used to that so I just played along.
We left and I oddly (maybe oddly?) got upset.  I felt like I was hit by a bus.  I never know what to expect, but that was not what I had attempted to prepare for.  It was beyond fake.  It was a total lack of awareness that we had essentially missed several months of each other's lives because of horrendous behavior that transpired.  Maybe I would have felt better if I got pulled aside and told, "I know we have stuff to address... ." or even "I know we were on bad terms but let's fake it for today."  I honestly don't know.  It was sad and overwhelming to think that they can behave this way.  That we can be pushed past where we set a boundary. 
What scared me even more is what this could mean moving forward.  Does this mean SIL 1 thinks everything is okay?  My sister told me today that SIL 1 came back onto Facebook after shutting it down in December.  It is one more possible sign that she now maybe thinks things are fine.

Has anyone else experienced this?  A part of me feels, well... .at least it was nice!  The other side of me is hurt and another side of me is angry.  I have no idea how to act or even what this means... .if anything.  The narrative telling, the total lack of acceptance/accountability are all symptoms of BPD and I cognitively understand that, my feelings just can't keep up.

[Skip]

Has anyone else experienced this? A part of me feels, well... .at least it was nice!  The other side of me is hurt and another side of me is angry.  I have no idea how to act or even what this means... .if anything.  The narrative telling, the total lack of acceptance/accountability are all symptoms of BPD and I cognitively understand that, my feelings just can't keep up.

I'm sorry that you are going through this. Family should be accepting, safe, protective and nurturing. Part of your family doesn't have the ability to be this.

I've experienced the type of thing you mention, many times. I believe that it is more common with "in-law" and "professional" relationships where there is a level of continuity, and at the same time, significant gaps in time between interfaces.

A pwBPD traits often chases new or better situations and in the process, reinvent themselves to fit in. When we periodically enter into their lives we are dealing with the most recent incarnation. They may relate to us in a rescuer mode, "rescue me" mode, victim mode, or persecutor mode. I have dealt with the same scorched earth, take no prisoners attacks that you experienced.

It is hurtful, off putting, unsettling at times and the best of times are superficial. It feels like an irresponsible game. It is "BPD" as you say.

Has anyone else experienced this? A part of me feels, well... .at least it was nice!  The other side of me is hurt and another side of me is angry.  I have no idea how to act or even what this means... .if anything.  The narrative telling, the total lack of acceptance/accountability are all symptoms of BPD and I cognitively understand that, my feelings just can't keep up.

I have personally dealt with it by not emotionally investing in persona de jour... .whether it is over-emoted high or low. I know it can change and change again and it will. When it's coming at me positive or neutral, I enjoy it, but I am careful not to invest in the belief that it will sustain. Conversely, when it goes into scorched earth mode, I diplomatically exit and let the person return to baseline and recover themselves.  I won't fuel the battle or burn any bridges or try to save the day. My focus is to carefully extract myself and leave the door cracked open for future recovery.

Is this a rewarding peer relationship? Absolutely not.

Side story - I have volunteered on a dementia ward listening to music with individual patients. If I find the right songs, they absolutely love it, love me and love my dog. If I don't find the right songs, they turn off. Either way, when I return, they don't remember me. It is really hard to learn to accept and grasp this reality. It's been a good life lesson.

Someone with BPD traits is not as impaired as someone with dementia, as you well know, but there are parallels for accepting and finding our way in our in-laws "reality".

[Turkish]

Hi Furbaby Mom,

It sounds like your and your husband are caught up in the narcissistic family dynamic in that the needs of the individuals are subsumed into the needs of the family unit.  Given individuals in the family who may be high conflict or have BPD traits, those that don't are in the one- gown position of doing a lot of work to keep the family dynamic together see more here:

4.02 | Family systems--understanding the narcissistic family

My H and I were ready to visit her and had it on the calendar.  Mid week, she reached out to my H and told him that since they were away for Easter this year, she is deciding to make Earth day Easter.  She asked if we minded for her brother, sister in law, her old friend and "everyone else" being there.  I mean, what could we say?  We said okay, but both of us were really thrown off.  

So you were going to visit the same day she unilaterally decided to come visit you,  and bring her entourage? Hard to get out of by saying "we had plans elsewhere"  

Aside from that being inconsiderate, it sounds like you are most struggling with the normality of the gathering,  for them,  while you and your H basically stuffed your feelings rather than risking an incident. Major invalidation!

The white sundress thing is odd.  It may be nothing,  or it could be something.  It can drive us nuts trying to interpret behaviors when we are upset and hurting.  

My T once referred to my ex as "limited" (emotionally). He didn't say this exactly about my mother,  but something similar. If I could condense his overall message to me,  it would be something like,  "a lot of your anger [hurt] stems from expecting them to be who they are not." If this "set-up" was maybe the best that they could do, might this help going forward? You have a right to decide things too.

T

[Furbaby Mom]

Hello,
Thank you both for your support! 

It sounds like your and your husband are caught up in the narcissistic family dynamic in that the needs of the individuals are subsumed into the needs of the family unit. 

This.  I just read through the link and yes, this.  After having a day or so to process, I am feeling like this was a need of my MIL.  She has mentioned in the past that she needs me and my H to "be the bigger people because the girls can't," and just move on from whatever occurred.  It has become obvious to my MIL at this point that she cannot get to my H without him communicating with me, which is something we worked really hard on since we got together.  My MIL knows that if she blows it with me, my H is coming with me.  My SIL's have not quite figured this out.

In looking back at the experience, I believe my MIL probably told the girls to be overly nice to me.  I think my MIL is scared of losing my H as she has seen that he CAN AND WILL put up boundaries if things get too chaotic.  She witnessed us being strong together.  She also knows that we are in the stage of our marriage when we are talking about the possibility of kids and I know my MIL wants to be involved.  How this makes sense to me is the idea of the narcissistic family and the function of everyone involved is to please the parents.  This has always been underlying in my encounters with my MIL.  Anything happening tends to be linked back to what would serve her best. 

So what is her goal here?  She mentioned that she is about to get laid off and money has ALWAYS been a very weird topic with his family.  My H, before I even came along, was incredibly successful.  Now that I am in the picture and have my own career, it has opened even more doors for us.  We are very fortunate, but also work our butts off.  His sisters and mother chose to only see the vacation pictures, our wedding venue, the car we drive, etc.  and for a very long time would pull at his heart strings and would benefit greatly from his generosity.  Things changed when we got married, as they typically do, but his sisters and mother were very upset by those changes.  We were saving for things that were important to us, like a house.  Things that they do not have and quite frankly I am not sure will ever be capable of having sadly. 

My anxiety: can we have a "normal" life moving forward?  Can we have children and shield them from this?  Too many things have happened at this point that his mother and sisters would not be babysitting for a child due to safety concerns and my H is on the same page.  I just don't want to hurt them.  With the narratives that get told, I get really worried about how in touch they are with the past.  Do they rewrite it so many times that they are incapable of remembering actual details?

There is also a deeper side to all of this.  Whenever SIL 1 comes back into our lives, some odd coincidences happen with my business. 

I have a very visible presence on the internet in order to have customers of my own so my work phone number is easy to find.  In the last two days since I have seen my SIL I have gotten some VERY odd text messages and voicemails from random numbers.  Just really nonsensical things at this point, but I get nervous.  Back in late summer when things got pretty bad with my SIL 1 between my H and I and her, my blog got essentially attacked.  Timeline was: we cut SIL 1 off, silence, she comes back into our lives by our choice, my blog gets these crazy scary threatening messages.  They were from different IP addresses so we couldn't trace them.  In total I got about 5 messages that were vulgar and mean about me and my H (things only really someone close to me could know), then the last message was threatening enough we went to the police.  We opened a case, but nothing could be made of it because of the differing IP addresses.  My H who is good at IT stuff ended up blocking them somehow then it stopped.  To this day I have MAJOR suspicions about it being her seeking revenge. 
I don't want to be paranoid, but I also have to protect myself, my business, and my relationship.  This feels like so much sometimes. 

[CollectedChaos]

I felt like I was hit by a bus.  I never know what to expect, but that was not what I had attempted to prepare for.  It was beyond fake.

I've felt this several times over the years, so I can definitely relate.  When my uBPD mom and I were still in contact, I would always "prepare for the worst" before seeing her.  And I think it was always somewhat of a relief when something crazy happened and I could point to it and say "yep, I expected that."  But when she would lay on the charm and be sickeningly sweet to me, I would feel totally blindsided and it would make me incredibly paranoid and upset.  I always felt like the nice side of her wanted something from me and the other shoe would be dropping soon (needing money, support, what have you).  And that gut feeling was usually right, it was just a matter of time.  It was also very frustrating to have all of these issues floating around between her and I, and she would act as though everything was great and none of that happened.  Makes you feel like the crazy one, for sure.

With the narratives that get told, I get really worried about how in touch they are with the past.  Do they rewrite it so many times that they are incapable of remembering actual details?

I think they find it more comfortable to "rewrite" history in their minds to be different than reality in order to serve their own emotional needs.  If they paint themselves in a better light it allows them to feel as though they are the victim and not the problem.  They don't want to feel as though they did something wrong, and don't want others to be able to view them as being in the wrong.  Example:  pwBPD gets irrationally mad about a relative having plans and not being able to meet them for dinner and yells at them.  pwBPD later will likely view that event as the other person being rude and uncaring towards them (and could even rewrite the whole conversation to have the other person yelling obscenities at them, etc.) in order to not focus on the part where they had a highly emotional reaction about something insignificant. 

Hang in there!

[cedarview]

Hi Furbaby Mom,

Yes I can relate to the ability of the BPD to "turn on a dime" and go from vicious to all sweetness and light in a split second. At one point my uBPD mother was bullying and threatening my wife, waving her arms around, spouting off ridiculous unreal accusations. As soon as my children and I entered from the other room she immediately switched it off and welcomed them with open arms and hugs and kisses. My wife still says that it is one of the single most disturbing things she has ever experienced, watching how easily my mother can go from attack mode to acting like everything is great.

You felt like you were hit by a truck because you witnessed human beings acting in a completely nonsensical and make believe manner. Through her actions your SIL is trying to act like the past "never happened" and this also gets her off the hook for any responsibility for hurting you. I believe you are right to be wary; they want something from you and your husband and it sounds like there is some jealousy involved as well, which is never a good thing.

[Turkish]

Emotionally I get, but would your child not be physically safe with your mother baby sitting?

I found out years later that my mother bemoaned the fact that her grandson couldn't come stay with her (I and my ex didn't trust her? Yes!).

This was while she was living in her filthy (animal waste, black mold, second hand smoke and mildew) hoard shack. My son was 2-4. I would have gone to jail to leave him there.  She was still somewhat functional at the time, but her reality as different than... .reality. Keep your kids safe!

[Furbaby Mom]

I so appreciate and very much needed the validation I am receiving for my feelings.  I can relate to so many of you with the "switch" reference you are all making.  It scares me very much so.

In terms of safety, this is something my husband and I have talked about at length.  I came into his life at an odd time.  He didn't really mention SIL 1... .ever.  I knew she existed, but that was something "I'll tell you about later" he would say.  SIL 2 lived with him at that time so she was very much so (probably in retrospect to an unhealthy level) involved in my life.  SIL 1 I found out was incarcerated because she called my now H, then bf while we were both in the car together from prison. 

SIL 1 has an extensive almost hard to believe past.  She has been incarcerated quite a few times to my knowledge mostly due to behaviors around her heroin addiction.  When I came into the picture, she was in jail for stealing.  She and her ex husband had been on the run for a while still actively using.  They supposedly squatted at various places.  Just before that point, she lost custody of her two children.  The reason is all VERY unclear as the blame is passed all around.  I understand the system in our state well enough to know it was the last straw and that my MIL had gotten the children.  For reasons again, no one can explain, they were taken away from my MIL/she may have volunteered them for adoption.  During the time when custody was up for grabs of the kids, my FIL was receiving many threats from random phone numbers about the kids (threats to hurt the kids if they take them).  The kids were also displaying signs of abuse---sexual.  It was investigated, but nothing came of it. 

Needless to say, the past sounds incredibly chaotic and scary.  The kids were placed for foster care then adopted by someone close to my MIL.  That couple now only lets her and SIL 1 see the kids---my FIL and his wife are not permitted near the kids.  It's such a sad situation and what makes it sick is that there is a feeling of the kids visits being used to get my H places and also used to make my FIL feel awful. 

More recently, SIL 1 has done some very odd things like show up places she is not supposed to be  like at a wedding she wasn't invited to, she was flitting around a funeral which was really inappropriate.  She has recently (about a year and half ago) relapsed with heroin again.  Supposedly now she is not using that anymore.

So safety wise... .I am not sure.  Emotionally I definitely do not feel safe.  Physically?  I would say a part of me feels like that is unclear.  I believe the criminal side of her has come out while she was using drugs, but I have also seen a scary side of her on social media.  That side is very angry, very scary the level she lets things go to.  I have also seen how both SIL 1 and my MIL are with their own children and I don't see the loving caring side I would hope for.  That scares me in terms of physical safety because if I ever do have kids, I will throw myself in front of a bus for them when I am not sure either of them would.