Realizing it will never stop...

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Some context, and a vent... .

My DH is 68 years old, retired military, now a investment advisor. I am almost 65 and close to retirement. We have four adult children, two grandaughters. While none of our children are setting the world on fire, none of them have ever had a drug or alcohol problem, no legal problems and all are stable and employed... .but definitely some relationship challenges for DH's three children, largely due to damage from their uBPD/BPD mother, whom DH refers to as The Dark Princess.

So TDP has a long-term SO who has the patient of a saint  (and the high blood pressure to go with it). We pray every night for his continued health and well-being. When things are bad between them, it's bad for EVERYONE.

TDP and her SO are no longer intimate, and now she is accusing him of infidelity. (This is such a projection based on her history, I can't even express the level of projection!) So in desperation, SO told her he would find a hypnotist who would hypnotize him with her present so she could hear the "truth." He found a psychologist who works with hypnotism, met with him, and spent a good hour describing the situation.

The psychologist's reaction? "It sounds like the wrong person is in this office."

 Snort! Well... .yeah.

I hope he can get her to meet with the psychologist. When she goes off the rails with SO, everyone in the family is disrupted. DH gets the phone calls, I get insulted, and the daughter takes the brunt of living nearby. DH has talked her down from taking her gun out of the safe. She is a miserable human being, in many senses of the description.

I am repeating my mantra of "boundaries, boundaries, boundaries."

At our age, I would have hoped she'd have mellowed... .but this happens about every two years or so.

Just looking for some sympathy and a reality check. It is what it is.

[GaGrl]

Some context, and a vent... .

My DH is 68 years old, retired military, now a investment advisor. I am almost 65 and close to retirement. We have four adult children, two grandaughters. While none of our children are setting the world on fire, none of them have ever had a drug or alcohol problem, no legal problems and all are stable and employed... .but definitely some relationship challenges for DH's three children, largely due to damage from their uBPD/BPD mother, whom DH refers to as The Dark Princess.

So TDP has a long-term SO who has the patient of a saint  (and the high blood pressure to go with it). We pray every night for his continued health and well-being. When things are bad between them, it's bad for EVERYONE.

TDP and her SO are no longer intimate, and now she is accusing him of infidelity. (This is such a projection based on her history, I can't even express the level of projection!) So in desperation, SO told her he would find a hypnotist who would hypnotize him with her present so she could hear the "truth." He found a psychologist who works with hypnotism, met with him, and spent a good hour describing the situation.

The psychologist's reaction? "It sounds like the wrong person is in this office."

 Snort! Well... .yeah.

I hope he can get her to meet with the psychologist. When she goes off the rails with SO, everyone in the family is disrupted. DH gets the phone calls, I get insulted, and the daughter takes the brunt of living nearby. DH has talked her down from taking her gun out of the safe. She is a miserable human being, in many senses of the description.

I am repeating my mantra of "boundaries, boundaries, boundaries."

At our age, I would have hoped she'd have mellowed... .but this happens about every two years or so.

Just looking for some sympathy and a reality check. It is what it is.

[momtara]

Repeatedly accusing someone of infidelity, and making them prove themselves again and again, is a form of emotional abuse.  So sad that she has control over him. I get it - he thinks trying to prove his love will work, going as far as to get a hypnotist, but a person with mental illness is still not going to believe him until she somehow just changes her mind. I hope eventually he can get out of this tar pit he's in. Maybe she'll finally get help if he's going to leave her, but maybe not. He probably loves her and wants to do his best, but yes, the bad times can be pretty bad.

[GaGrl]

Thank you, momtara. I needed that.

I do need to deal better with my resentment of how many people are affected by the ripples of her behavior. Her SO takes the daily brunt, but each of our adult children and the teen granddaughter get caught in the second wave. And when DH's cellphone goes off, it's either the adult children looking for advice, or God forbid, the Ex with a crisis so bad that she's ready to reach out to DH. Or... .as has happened several times, an arrest due to her violent behavior with various boyfriends.

[ForeverDad]

Maybe she should hire her long-term SO?  I mean, if her line of work isn't infidelity, then if he's working in that line of work too then he's not doing (or abstaining) infidelity.  Like, what's good for the goose is good for the gander?

[GaGrl]

Maybe she should hire her long-term SO?  I mean, if her line of work isn't infidelity, then if he's working in that line of work too then he's not doing (or abstaining) infidelity.  Like, what's good for the goose is good for the gander?

ForeverDad, that's what is ironic. The Ex was severely uneducated when DH married her and brought her to the U.S. in 1974. She is "smart like a fox" but could never hold jobs other than alterations or restaurant hostessing... .until she was offered a job with one of her Asian friends in a massage parlor and realized how much money she could make doing what she had been doing for free since 1976. So she opened her own AMP, and that's how she met the current SO.  (Thank God my DH was well out of it by then, although he always feared her being arrested and having her activity plastered across the front page of the local newspaper).

So now the Ex is retired from her business in more ways than one, and if SO met her at an AMP, that's how he must be cheating on her now. BPD logic.

Our granddaughter has no idea of her grandmother's history, so she doesn't understand all the dynamics - just that her grandmother is "off" and not like most women she knows.

Part of it all is that when there is no drama, we know that drama is right around the corner.

[DreamGirl]

My boundary would be -----


 I don't want to hear about any of this. Ever.

[GaGrl]

Thanks, DreamGirl... .most of the time, and for most of the past 7-8 years, that's how it goes. DH gets an occasional call, and I never know about it nor hear about it. Then something happens that is outside any level of crazy, usually involving one of DH's three children, and the cellphone blows up. Once it was 1 AM on Christmas morning, another was a 3AM call. I have spent odd hours taking bubble baths with the door closed.

DH has the patience of a saint. His friends have called him St. DH - but he has no boundary in getting involved or telling his children to deal with their mother, that he's out of that business. I guess that's where my weariness kicks in... .how long will he be rescuing his children from their mother, or talking their mother down from threats of violence?

For the time being, I just need to restate my boundary - don't want to hear even this side of the conversations - and go take a bubble bath.

[Panda39]

Calgon take me away! 



Panda39

[GaGrl]

Calgon take me away! 


Panda39

Thanks, Panda - that is the laugh I needed to start my day!