First timer struggling with stepdaughter

[EvilStepmother]

My stepdaughter is ruining my marriage. After multiple hospitalizations and suicide without intent attempts, she finally had a psych evaluation. Although at the time she was only 15, she was diagnosed with BPD, bipolar, and anxiety disorders, as well as severe depression. She was smoking, drinking, drugging, engaging in promiscuous sex, and other risky and impulsive behaviors ignored or condoned by her divorced parents. A few months before her diagnosis, I had to get away from the destructive toxic relationship and reclaim my life, so took a job out of state. I had hoped my husband would follow, but initially, he stayed behind to keep the drama triangle alive and functioning with his daughter and his ex-wife.  After her diagnosis, realization dawned on both parents that neither was equipped to handle the teenager. The psychologist recommended a place specializing in BPD, but her parents didn’t or couldn’t accept that their youngest child was mentally unstable. Instead, they found a church-based home for troubled girls and sent her there. Instead of the daily therapy advised by the psychologist and in-patient facility where she was diagnosed for her BPD, she does Bible study with the other girls and sees a therapist monthly. She’s manipulative and charming to the people who run the program, but she struggles in her relationships with the other girls living there. Her parents go visit her monthly, but I’m not welcome because she’s identified me as the cause of all her problems. I have only been in her life since 2012 and haven’t even seen her since 2015. She is clever, funny, charming, mean, violent, and manipulative. She wreaks havoc on all her personal relationships. I’m tired of her playing her parents like a puppeteer pulling the strings on the marionettes. Although I put several states and hundreds of miles between us, she is the major player in my marriage. Will her father ever take off his rose-colored glasses and see what everyone else sees?  I’m tired of walking on eggshells (and yes, I’ve read all the books, but my husband won’t). There are no boundaries with my husband and his kids. Some background: my husband’s ex suffers from histrionic personality disorder, both his daughters struggle with substance abuse and depression; my husband is a non confrontational people pleaser recently diagnosed with depression. He engages in reckless behavior and has difficulty with honesty. My family of origin includes BPD and depression, which causes me to struggle wIth trust and abandonment issues. I’m also a problem solver but strive to NOT become a codependent enabler. Been there. Done that. I just want a husband who sees through the BS and is honest about what’s really going on. I don’t want him to devote all of himself to his manipulative family, so there’s nothing left for us. Back to the title of this post:  the stepdaughter continually strives to break up our marriage. She has blamed me for all her issues. When my husband is with her, he takes off his wedding ring and has no contact with me. I’m tired of it. If you’re in a similar situation, I’d love to hear how you handle things. I go to counseling and couples’ counseling,as well. Our therapist sees the problems, but my husband is blind to them. The stepdaughter turns 18 next year and be done with HS and life at her current placement. Her mom does not want her daughter living in her home again, and my boundary in my home is the same. My stepdaughter has dangled this cherry in front of her dad:  get a divorce, and the two of them can live happily ever after. This from the manipulative girl who twice falsely accused her dad of abuse for which he was investigated by DFACS!  Hopefully, this meandering post gives you a perspective. I’ve left out the majority of the inappropriate and often illegal things that have happened since becoming a stepmom six years ago. When we married, I jokingly referred to myself as the ESM (evil stepmother) because I’m the furthest thing from it. However, that’s how my BPD now portrays me. I’m tired of the turbulence. Will it ever end, or is this par for the course as long as she’s in our lives?

[livednlearned]

Hi ESM,

Being a step mom is hard enough, then you add a BPD adolescent and boom pow.

I'm so sorry you're being targeted like this  

Will her father ever take off his rose-colored glasses and see what everyone else sees?

Maybe. I found it is impossible to change someone else. I had to change how I was doing things. If you're feeling too exhausted or too resentful, it can feel like an impossible climb to get up that hill.

How often do you two see each other? When you communicate, how much of the conversation is about SD15?

You have a nice physical boundary around you for now. Are there plans for your H to eventually move to be with you? Maybe I missed that in your post.

My SD21 was 18 when she came to live with us and it nearly ended my relationship with SO. There are BPD family dynamics in my family of origin, and I was married to and divorced someone with BPD/bipolar. My SO's ex is also BPD. With all this 360 degree BPD, I can never tell if it's not as bad as it sounds, or if it's worse    

This is not my first rodeo, as it were.

We are in a much better place now, though my SO was willing to go to couples counseling with a therapist and a child psychologist, together. The child psychologist was very skilled -- he explained how having no boundaries with SD21 (then 18) plays out with regard to suicidal ideation. That having no boundaries is terrifying for a child because it reinforces that no one is in charge, least of all the child who is at the whim of her terrifying emotions.

That was a wake up call for SO. The two therapists were so skilled at demilitarizing the issue. It also helped me develop compassion when the child psychologist said that enabling someone with BPD increases the fatality rate, that it is a disease with a high fatality rate, which can be corrected with lifestyle changes that are not easy and must be followed.

No one ever mentioned BPD, except my T to me. SO can see it in his sister, his mom, and his ex. He cannot tolerate seeing it in his D so I do not press it.

We worked out boundaries with the two therapists and then agreed on ones we could do easily, ones that we would practice, and ones that we would work on over the summer she lived with us and going forward. One of my boundaries was I would go out for a nice dinner if SO's phone didn't come out while we ate. I know it sounds easy but that one was hard for him. He could check it before he left, and when he got home. Same for being intimate. If he could turn off his phone, then let the games begin   otherwise, not tonight honey.

Other things took more practice. SD21 is a hand holder and was overly affectionate with her dad, which I found disturbing (he did too). She would run to the door to hug him when he got home, like a toddler. One of his boundaries to practice was holding her arms down gently, getting her to wait while he found me and said hi, then engaging her. Basically, reparenting.

I also came up with things I loved doing with SO, but didn't like doing when it was the 3 of us, like walking the dog or hiking or cooking or watching something on TV together or socializing with friends at our house. She took up what I referred to as spousal space and he needed time to learn how to skillfully assert boundaries with her so that we could carve out what was ours, explicitly. Too many at once would trigger abandonment issues and just make things harder for everyone so we had to work gradually on things.

With the T's help, we came up with ways for me to have alone time with SO, and to accept that it would take SO time to work on some of his boundaries.

I kind of had to take care of my own needs, which to be honest I resented at first. When SD21 (then 18) was getting for work in the morning, my god the chaos. I started to do mindfulness with headphones and guided meditation until she was out the door, otherwise I had nothing left for her at the end of the day.

I looked at it like my cup was full first thing in the morning, and it was my job to keep that sucker full all day long, and to do what I needed to do in order to keep it filled, which felt selfish but for the most part, worked. The two Ts asked if I could work my way up to spending some quality time with SD21 and eventually I have been able to do that, although I don't find it easy or enjoyable. I try to make it very structured: Does she want to do xyz together? If yes, then here's the time we go, how long we'll be, what time I need to be back, etc.

What you have with your SD sounds like classic Karpmann drama triangulation. To her, you are the persecutor so that she can be the victim and your H the rescuer. I had some of that with SD but fortunately she does not externalize to the degree it sounds like your SD does.

Another thing that helped was to read the book/memoir Buddha and the Borderline. It's written by a woman who is BPD. I also read Loving Someone with BPD by Shari Manning and Overcoming BPD by Valerie Porr. Both of those books allowed me to tap into what can be fleeting come-and-go compassion. My compassion is 100 percent tied to how full my cup is. When SD is here, I go back and read them. I have a child on the spectrum and that has helped me have what I think of as tolerances for differences, and all of the books mentioned above are written for family members who must support a BPD loved one. If your cup is bone dry empty, then it can be challenging to read books about BPD that enlist compassion.