Avoiding Personal questions from BPD MOM and BPD MIL

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Hi
So my BPD Mom has always tried to take away friends, control my life and make herself fully enmeshed in my life. She thinks she owns and controls me and even though I'm pretty much low contact and know to avoid any personal details of my life she is constantly trying to get details out of me. The one childhood friend I made the mistake of mentioning to her 7 years ago she looked up contacted and told her all of my problems she knew about so my old friend started mailing me sympathy cards. I have been with my fiance on and off 20 years and she just learned his last name and was mad in the past I would not hook her up with his father who she is always asking questions about. She is always telling me we need to live with her or my future BPD mil who we actually have to crash with several weeks (our apt broke and they can't fix it with us in it) and my Mom is all "oh poor thing" about his mom "you need to live with her" which his upbd Mom expects us to do or at least her grown son to do the rest of his life with no privacy. My Mom is asking oh "by the way whats her name?" etc... any info she can get out of me to intrude on my life which she thinks she owns she will try. Its like a game to her and also a way to pick fights because she knows I don't want to tell her. I usually am good at keeping the peace and boundaries but she is starting this game up with me again all the time now. In my 20's its funny I would tell her my deepest secret and she would talk over me trying to ask me everything about my life like a detective and I would catch her digging thru my purse. I don't know how my future mil will use the info yet but she is the same way super nosey and asking what my health insurance is? She loves to insult me with the questions. I put on like 20 pounds in one year which I need to get off but I'm not super overweight by any means but the second I bring my dog to her house she says " You think you would be skinny if you walked your dog all the time?" Two insults in one sort of with a possible threat I'm not caring for my dog she knows nothing about. Again I just ignore and keep the peace. We are both like fake friends. She says she loves me but its bs. She wants me out of the picture and her son alone with her even if it means him being drunk all the time which is never going to happen as in in his 20s but she is fine putting me on the spot out of nowhere asking me personal questions she has no need to know. So bottom line both Moms are looking for info and to mess with my life and know they are trying to push my buttons asking questions but its one of the harder situations to get out of without answering or stirring up trouble. They both want to make it be like I'm their best friend and an open book but know its not true and try to mess with me asking questions I can't just say "I don't feel comfortable answering that" bc they will see that as a negative and put me on their vengeance list or paint me black. I'm sure others here have this problem when keeping the peace any thoughts?

[Star0009]

Hi
So my BPD Mom has always tried to take away friends, control my life and make herself fully enmeshed in my life. She thinks she owns and controls me and even though I'm pretty much low contact and know to avoid any personal details of my life she is constantly trying to get details out of me. The one childhood friend I made the mistake of mentioning to her 7 years ago she looked up contacted and told her all of my problems she knew about so my old friend started mailing me sympathy cards. I have been with my fiance on and off 20 years and she just learned his last name and was mad in the past I would not hook her up with his father who she is always asking questions about. She is always telling me we need to live with her or my future BPD mil who we actually have to crash with several weeks (our apt broke and they can't fix it with us in it) and my Mom is all "oh poor thing" about his mom "you need to live with her" which his upbd Mom expects us to do or at least her grown son to do the rest of his life with no privacy. My Mom is asking oh "by the way whats her name?" etc... any info she can get out of me to intrude on my life which she thinks she owns she will try. Its like a game to her and also a way to pick fights because she knows I don't want to tell her. I usually am good at keeping the peace and boundaries but she is starting this game up with me again all the time now. In my 20's its funny I would tell her my deepest secret and she would talk over me trying to ask me everything about my life like a detective and I would catch her digging thru my purse. I don't know how my future mil will use the info yet but she is the same way super nosey and asking what my health insurance is? She loves to insult me with the questions. I put on like 20 pounds in one year which I need to get off but I'm not super overweight by any means but the second I bring my dog to her house she says " You think you would be skinny if you walked your dog all the time?" Two insults in one sort of with a possible threat I'm not caring for my dog she knows nothing about. Again I just ignore and keep the peace. We are both like fake friends. She says she loves me but its bs. She wants me out of the picture and her son alone with her even if it means him being drunk all the time which is never going to happen as in in his 20s but she is fine putting me on the spot out of nowhere asking me personal questions she has no need to know. So bottom line both Moms are looking for info and to mess with my life and know they are trying to push my buttons asking questions but its one of the harder situations to get out of without answering or stirring up trouble. They both want to make it be like I'm their best friend and an open book but know its not true and try to mess with me asking questions I can't just say "I don't feel comfortable answering that" bc they will see that as a negative and put me on their vengeance list or paint me black. I'm sure others here have this problem when keeping the peace any thoughts?

[Turkish]

They both want to make it be like I'm their best friend and an open book but know its not true and try to mess with me asking questions I can't just say "I don't feel comfortable answering that" bc they will see that as a negative and put me on their vengeance list or paint me black

Star009,

I read your post several times throughout the day thinking about how I could help,  yet I just come to this what I quoted above.

I think that you might be left with just the option you say of you want to seperate and enact healthy boundaries so you can move on with your life,  and it certainly sucks to have two unhealthy moms in your life.  In order to have a healthy marriage,  both you and he will need to set boundaries. This is crucial as you and he should be each other's priorities, not mommies. You will get blow back, but this is to be expected.

[Star0009]

Thanks for thinking about it so much! I think I will get some blowback but its a storm when I really call them out on abuse which ends up being ten times the abuse so yeah I try not to rock the boat that is what they want too. Like my mother in law prob weighs like only 15 pounds less than me and is the same height. I put on some extra weight literally because her husband passed and she was abusing him while sick and it knocked me out and I ate lots. I'm fine with it and will work it off soon but recently she has used this to pick on me saying "you would think if you walked your dog you would be thin.", called us pigs when we ate all of the biscotti she bought us, took us to her favorite restaurant where she knows I love the bread which disappeared when I got home from the table. This was on purpose. My bf agreed. She is sending me diet emails. Never mind her husband who passed and was the sweetest guy ever was very overweight and cute that way but and she made daily fast food and bakery runs for him and she has always been heavier than me until now. Not that I care but the point is she is trying to get to me. Just like my mom they poke and poke in order to get a dramatic blow up. So yeah breathing and boundaries without giving them their blow up. Its a delicate balance.

[Star0009]

UGGGG ok like 5 mins after posting this I blew up on my BPD fmil because she sent me a fyi email from the other room telling me that carbs make me fat. I came out and told her that was inappropriate and so is sitting in the kitchen talking to me and her son about who she wants to sleep with in see thru underwear and she needs to respect peoples boundaries or I will not involve myself with her. I went into the other room and closet the door. She played the victim and said what am I doing, all I ever wanted to do it help you. She then called her son into the other room to talk. I'm sitting her terrified. I'm used to my own mother getting violent at this point. This women broke us up in the past and has been abusing me and her son for 20 years. He just takes the anger out on me and himself. This is the first time I ever stood up to her.

[Turkish]

Good for you!

Wait, what? She wants to sleep with her son in see through underwear? Lingerie?

[Star0009]

Uggg we are staying with her but she is leaving for a month in 2 days. My bf wants me to apologize. No the other night she sat out in the kitchen in see thru underwear where I could see everything and went on and on about the man she is trying to seduce (her late husband's . best friend. When I told my bf this he got mad and said I know she has done that to me all the time. She also said when I knocked on her door "we are family now you don't need to knock" I told my bf this and he said watch out she will be spread eagle naked on her bed. She has always been sexually inappropriate with her son. He is mad at me bc she is about to leave and wants me to apologize. Its like my mom it might be best to smooth things over back to fake. I'm terrified of her. She brings up her other son at dinner which is creeping me out even more now who is in jail for murdering her very rich parents like 25 years ago. It was all over the news. I have no idea the depths of this women as I do my own mom. I'm really scared right now that I just did that but I hit my limit like i do my own mom. Should I apologize? I'm scared here! and I have my dog here. I don't want her to hurt her.

[Star0009]

god i want healthy people in my life.

[Turkish]

It sounds like he's coped by normalizing her inappropriate sexual behaviors.  To you,  I, most people: *barf*

From what you've said,  it doesn't sound like she'd hurt your pup.  Or has she made comments?

[Star0009]

Like I said she abused her dying husband for attention. She wanted a cat bc the man she loves has cats and she always goes on how her father was a surgeon and she should be a doctor. She reads medical texts books and reads crime books all day she claims bc they talk about the medical aspects yet when she just took her cat to get spayed and took its cone off so it licked its wound so its got infected and the cat had to get a second surgery and she threatened to take the new cone off again. She has made off handed comments like if the I say the dog woke me up she will say "Run the dog over". Lets put it this way she may not hurt the dog but she would be happy for the drama if something happens and is reckless with the cat. She acts loving but its non stop fake and manipulation.
I am like barf to her sexual behavior. It grosses me out now it just turns to anger at me with my bf. He won't deal with it and ignores it thats why I finally lost it on her. It makes sense why my bf has aggression towards women or he keeps blaming me with his mom for complaining about her behavior saying "he has had it with all the women in his life".

[Turkish]

Did you see the discussion on Silently Seduced?

When Parents Make Children Their Partners - Kenneth M. Adams, PhD

I don't know if he's open to reading this,  but I think it might help you.  The author talks about how male victims of emotional incest repress anger about their parent and how they may act it out later in life. 

[Star0009]

He knows. I lived thru that and told him about it. She is highly sexual almost to be defined as sexual abuse. I have read on it but not this book yet, I just learned about the term from this sit. I'm constantly trying to heal from my Mom but he does not want to work on himself. He refuses to work on himself until we move out of town in a month and see a therapist but that may be an empty promise. All he is is anger for the 20 years I've known him. He was a hardcore alcoholic for many years to deal with all this and she keeps encouraging him to drink behind my back bc she knows if he starts he won't stop and she can keep him here. He told me about it and luckily has no desire to drink anymore but it just shows her level of abusiveness. Thanks though I will read it again with him in mind. I knew it would be hard staying in a house with her a few days but she is really pushing it and he is like "what did you expect"? Thanks for chatting with me. I'm in the thick of it right now. My anxiety is thru the roof.

[Turkish]

Have a good night Star, and keep yourself and your pup safe 

[Star0009]

Thanks my bf made me apologize which I did but said I was abused in the past by people not respecting my boundaries so I'm sensitive to that. Last night she was in victim mode nor she is being cruel. After I said this and apologized she responded "well people are going to not react to you well if you talk to them the way you talked to me last night." I told her I don't like people passing judgement on my body. She said "Oh I would never do that"  and then went on to tell me 'its a good diet and its about time my bf and I get our lives on the right track.She does nothing herself. Now she is giving me the silent treatment or responding passive aggressively. I already knew she has no love in her heart and if there is any there is none from me. Its all been a fake relationship. I will be having no contact with her once we move out of here. The only thing I gain from her is her throwing expensive gifts at me or dinners but usually its stuff she wants me to have not stuff I need or want. She is very toxic and always has been. Its my bf's Mom and she is his problem. Not mine. He can chose to communicate with her how he wants. I know he wants be to deal with her and be part of her life but she is nothing but abusive and manipulative and I have had enough of that in my life. I'm tired of faking it with her.

[Star0009]

My bf is actually mad at me I didn't stay home while she was cooking for the man she is trying to get all day and clean the house up with him. He says its' my fault bc she is trying to drive a wedge between us and I should have kept my mouth shut because now I have a check against me.' I asked what kind of check and he said revenge. She is loving giving me the cold shoulder and being all sweet with her son and he is blaming me for not knowing better than to speak up to her.

[Turkish]

It sounds like he's aware of how it works to handle her while at the same time implicitly acknowledging that she's difficult (to put it mildly), rather than being in full denial.  Am I reading it right?

[Star0009]

Yes.He is aware and tries not to rock the boat yet each individual thing she does he denies or gets mad if I talk about it or in this case call her out on it. She is speaking to me again. In a way I feel better bc we had a fake relationship. She is trying to lay guilt on me saying her son, me and the man she is trying to seduce (her late husband's best friend) are all she has. Which is somewhat true but she has a rich family members, lots of her own money and some people who see her as a helpless widow she can go to. She wants the whole world centered around her. My bf says this and I see it. She really expects us to live here forever which we was never gonna happen but she refuses to hear that. I'm leaving after she comes home. He will follow shortly. I would take care of her but she is very messed up. My BPD mom wants us living with her forever too. I think I did scare her a bit by saying "If you sit around the kitchen in see thru underwear around your grown son again we will pick up and leave that second." She responded "you are being unfair. All I want is to help you." playing the victim. As much as she got mad and liked the drama I think she didn't expect that out of me as I'm very shy and go with the flow and nice to everyone usually. I hope if one thing I stopped her from doing inappropriate sexual things or saying things around us as she has done for years.

[Harri]

hi Star.

It sounds to me like you have a pretty good handle on the dynamics between your bf and his mom and can see the dysfunction between them quite clearly.  Your bf and his mom are playing out roles they have had for a very long time and his asking you to apologize and not rock the boat pull you in even more than is already happening.

Are you able to step back and say no, and set boundaries for yourself?  To not react when his mom talks about diets or to get up and leave, or better, not sit in the same room when she is half naked? 

I am looking at how you can help yourself and protect yourself and hopefully reduce your anxiety and frustration.  At this point, your bf relationship with his mom is his to deal with.  I think you have your hands full, right now, trying to get a handle on your own responses to her.

Waht do you think?

[Star0009]

Yeah. It was just what she wanted was a response. She is gone now for a month across the globe. We will be staying in her house. I still feel fear and bad energy staying here even though she is so far away but hopefully it will settle. She has the idea even though we told her no a thousand times that we will stay living here forever and moving our stuff in which is in storage to be shipped. I will now be gone by the time she gets back and moving back to my home town. My bf will follow shortly after. I want no more contact with her. My bf agrees and says he is hers to deal with and seems serious about therapy when we move. She has always been inappropriately sexual around him and me at times and has made sexual comments about him to me in the past. Almost every time we are alone she tells me the same stories about his dad she divorced prob 30 years ago and how he had all these women and how her son is just like him and abusive and how I need to leave him and even suggesting other men she knows to put me on a date with. This week since I said something she has been telling him behind my back to leave me and asking why he puts up with that. As if I was mean to her and am a mean person. Its always been games with her and no love. I will be having no more contact with her. Its hard because I can see now how years of my bfs anger issues have come from her. I don't want to influence what role she will play in his life from here on out bc it does affect me but at the same time unlike her I don't want to be the one to come between him and his mom. I'm hoping he finds a good therapist so I can stay out of it. I would like to order the book emotional insect as I dealt with that too but he is really still dealing with it so I'm hoping he will at least read that and figure out from there on his own how to have as healthy a relationship with her as possible. Thank you both for your help!

[Harri]

I am glad you will be getting out of your MILs house.  She sounds very toxic and abusive.

 

[Star0009]

Thanks. I just have to vent. I plan on leaving before she is back and wanted no contact. Since she is half way across the world I finally was able to relax a bit. She is there to have surgery but its not a necessary surgery but a mild one which will improve her life and she finally sends me an email on her progress so I thought I should respond that I'm happy for her so I did and do wish her the best with love and she responded "I'm trying to behave myself over here. See you soon." She will not have peace now and I know is resolved to make my life hell. I want to get away from this women. She is still fighting with me for putting my foot down and now not acting passively abusive but actively abusive. Ugh my bf won't let me vent bc he just keeps it in so if I say anything he blows up on me in anger and says she is group messaging him and the man she is chasing and her other close circle so he is getting every text and apparently she is loving all the attention. Its very frustrating because he gets abusive towards me instead of blaming his mom and says he is "wide awake to his mom" 'so its my problem that I can't keep my mouth shut about her when she bugs me.' Then I'm getting mean remarks from both of them or he will lump me in with his Mom and say "I have to manage both of you." He is mad at me because he is feeling guilt that he will not stay as a grown man and live with her in her home forever and I feel none now. I'm done. This women has tons of money and much more support than me. On top of it I always left town on the fly with my Mom chasing men my whole childhood and moving around to bad home life situations. I'm grown now and have developed a loving friendship with the women I take classes with and some of the other women. She is sad I'm leaving. She made a whole class dedicated to what I want to study even though I kept warning her I might be moving out of state for months now. She seems hurt about me leaving and keeps trying to convince me to get a cheap apt in town. I managed to take the first one of these classes but I might have to leave again to flee some drama and miss the last class because I cannot stay in this women's house a minute with her here now. I feel so guilty. I truly love my teacher and would like to be better friends even though I'm leaving but I don't know how to make that happen especially because I know she is upset with me for not staying in town after she designed this class based on my interests. I'm so deeply emotional and used to people pleasing. This is all stressing me out. I'm still learning how to make friends and I want to keep this one and even come back into town to study with her but I just can't live here to take her class. Any thoughts/advice would be great. I'm feeling overwhelmed.

[Turkish]

Being part of the group text is his choice... .as I know you know. 

Maybe I missed it, but are you leaving your bf, too?

[Star0009]

I keep telling him that but it just makes him scream at me. No I'm not leaving him at this point. He says he just wants to get away from his Mom and then get therapy once we are in another city. He says me keeping my mouth shut about her even if she is sending me messages is what he wants and telling her not to message me will make it worse he says. Even if she is abusing me he doesn't want to hear about it. He just wants to get away from her and deal with it with a therapist. Its very annoying because if my BPD Mom was abusing someone else and me in my life at the same time which has very much happened we vent about it to each other or even make jokes to get thru her acting out. If my Mom was bugging him I def. would not be screaming at him. I would make sure he was ok but and make sure she left him alone as much as I could. I have also protected my him from my Mom for 20 years. He would go to dinner with us on occasion or say hello on the phone but he has made his toxic Mom part of daily life. Maybe this should now be in relationship posts but I'm getting it from both of them. He is 42 and will not put her in her place or set any boundaries with her but will yell and curse at me saying that works to make me shut up and thats just when I'm complaining that she is intruding on my life in manipulative and or abusive ways. I'm usually very easy going.

[Turkish]

Is he on board with making the break for freedom? Do both of them comprehend it, that you're taking her baby boy (how she sees it) away?

[Star0009]

We are both on board for leaving. We have a security deposit down on a place for a month for now. His dad knows. He has not told her yet. I don't even know what the backlash will be from that. He is too scared to tell her. I will be gone before she gets back. He is gonna stay and meet me. We told her a zillion times we would not live with her but she ignores it every time. Its not her baby. She makes sexual comments about him. Half the time I'm alone with her she tells me he is just like his father and I should leave him. She did break us up 20 years ago because she tricked us to move in with her (I did not know her then) I told her he is a serious alcoholic and  I helped him stop drinking. She said I should have called her and shouldn't have dealt with that alone and blamed his father. Her behavior was so insane at the time and he shut down so I left to go to school. She bought a cooler after I left and kept it stocked with alcohol so he was drinking non stop and peeing on the floor. She has been trying to get him to drink again luckily he has no interest. She always brags about coming from money and high education but his half brother, her older son has been in jail since I met him because he brutally killed her parents in their sleep in their million dollar home. It was all over the news.  I knew this but being around her now its super scary and toxic. There is some serious deep stuff going on in this family. I have my own deep stuff but I'm trying to deal with it. I hate her even knowing who I am.

[Turkish]

I hope that you both make the break successfully. Even if he still keeps on contact at least you will have physical distance.

[Star0009]

Just have to vent. I might have to be living here one week when she gets back. I cannot afford to move sooner. She is still harassing me from afar asking my bf/her son if I'm going to allow her back into her own house. I apologized, sent her off with a loving embrace and sent her a loving message in response to the one she sent me updating me on her trip and now I've gotten nothing but backlash. My bf still hasn't told her we are moving at all. She thinks we will be living here our entire lives. Plus he tells me every time he talks to her she continues to make some remark about his father showing up to visit him and will he sit outside the house and stare at it and wait for him etc... She has been divorced from his father for like 30 years and trash talks him constantly. His father respectfully says nothing about her. Whats worse is I stepped into the age old trap... .let me just call my Mom. My very BPD Mom and confide in her within seconds suddenly the conversation turned to her telling me don't I have empathy for her as my aging mother. She also came up with a numerical figure of all the money she claims to have spent on me my entire life which is actually very small and from money she got out of boyfriends. I had to hang up on her but had so much anger I almost broke something. I didn't though. I just can't believe I'm at this point in my life where I'm still dealing with now 2 mean mother figures and I have nobody to lean on emotionally. I really wish I was financially better off to rent a place for a month and not be staying in my toxic BPD mil house while she continues to trash talk me to her son and try to get him to dump me. I really need a new plan in life because I'm tired of ending up in bad situations.

[Harri]

Okay, so having to stay a week longer when she is there is a total disappointment.   

Star, she will be who she is and continue to do what she does.  She can't see you, she can't hear you, she won't listen, she will be who she is regardless of what you say or do.  All you can do is act in a way that is consistent with your personal values and set boundaries, and knowing where you begin and end in relation to her so she does not get you down.

I do understand the need to vent and even why you reached out to your own mother.  Been there and done that.  Some day you will get to the point where you stop looking for people to be something they are not.  Your mom and stbMIL are so similar.  Take what you learn with one and use it with the other. 

Let them be who they are and come here.  Reach out to us here.  We get it and we've got you.   

[Star0009]

Thank you so much. This will be a very helpful reminder. 

[Star0009]

So update. My update is actually pretty dramatic but I'm not gonna tell the whole story now though I might need to share later. Bottom line is I'm leaving the day before future BPD mil comes home. Yay! Her son/ my bf realizes he is in a toxic place with her and is not going to feed into her guilt but leave as soon as he can. Prob just a week after she comes home because he needs to heal himself emotionally. He sees this now and need to put himself before anybody especially his Mom's demands. He is planning when is best for him to tell her we are relocating far away and leaving because as he is even saying it will be a huge blow up and all kinds of games from her. He will remain in contact with her but will be seeking therapy. I want no contact. Any suggestions what to say by text or email when she contacts me? I don't want to call her out on any bad behavior,  give her any more ammo for me or make her feel bad. I simply want nothing to do with her.

[Turkish]

How successful and safe do you think (Or does he think) he will be there?

Do you have in mind a BIFF (Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm) message to give to her? I'm thinking she might think you Lilith incarnate for taking her baby boy away.

[Star0009]

Thanks! I hope he will be ok. The biggest risk is a relapse with addiction. He was a very heavy alcoholic who could not stop drinking until he was passed out for weeks on end and would go on benders and due to back surgery he was put on pain meds and a doctor kept prescribing them so he was addicted to pain medication to the point he just screamed and didn't get out of bed literally for a year. He would snort them too. His mom has encouraged all of these addictions and has provided him these substances at times to keep him under her roof. I think he will be ok though. He knows the dangers and does not want to be here. I know if he cancels his plane ticket he has relapsed in some way in which case I plan on contacting his father to help get him help and out of the situation. She will not become physically abusive like my mom . with him but tell him details of her sex life and her body, guilt trips, stories about how bad his father, tell him he should leave me which she is currently doing. The past 4 years here every time I'm alone with her she tells me he is just like his father and I should leave him. So yeah we have both had enough. I don't know a firm nice way to say please take care but don't contact me. I'm scared of her and don't know what she is capable of. I just want to get her out of my life as smoothly as possible. I guess thats why I'm asking here bc I know others have gone nc with the pbd person in their life and i'm curious with what they said. With my own Mom in the past I have just cut her off when her behavior got bad and she got the idea I was not talking to her.   

[once removed]

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