Staying to break a multi-generational cycle..

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

Hey guys... .I've been gone for a bit (that story will come later... enjoyable trip)

I'm slowly trying to catch up and I noticed this post from Enabler in another thread.

This thinking matches my own in so... so many ways.

My hope in this thread is that we can look at our partners families and our own families (FOOs) and look for multi-generational "themes" that have contributed to our current relationship difficulties (in most cases) and perhaps relationship "blessings".

I'll come back later and post my own.

  and hopefully break the family cycle which is 3 generations old now.

FF

[formflier]

Hey guys... .I've been gone for a bit (that story will come later... enjoyable trip)

I'm slowly trying to catch up and I noticed this post from Enabler in another thread.

This thinking matches my own in so... so many ways.

My hope in this thread is that we can look at our partners families and our own families (FOOs) and look for multi-generational "themes" that have contributed to our current relationship difficulties (in most cases) and perhaps relationship "blessings".

I'll come back later and post my own.

  and hopefully break the family cycle which is 3 generations old now.

FF

[I Am Redeemed]

Not sure about my FOO... .my parents were each married and divorced once before they married each other. My mother's first husband had a drinking problem and was unfaithful. I have also heard stories that he was verbally and emotionally abusive, and one day she had enough of it so she took my two sisters (this was years before I came along) and moved back into her parents' home. Later on she met my dad and remarried.

I don't know very much at all about my dad's first marriage, other than he did not have any contact with his ex. He claimed she turned his kids against him and as a result he had no contact with his son (my brother, whom to this day I have never met) and very little contact with his daughter (though they did resume contact and repaired their relationship a few years before her death from cancer.)

Maternal grandparents were married 60 plus years until my grandfather's death. By all accounts they seem to have had a happy marriage and partnership, despite raising 7 children during the Great Depression and losing one child as an infant.

Paternal grandparents... .I don't know anything about them other than they were married in the 1890's and stayed married until 1931 when they died within six months of each other. My father was only two years old at the time and was raised by his older siblings.

My parents' marriage was not great. Dad had an explosive temper and was very critical. I think he suffered from anxiety and depression way before he was diagnosed with them in his 80's. His way of handling anxiety and negative thinking was to blow up and yell at people. There was high conflict in my house when I was growing up. Mom had mental health issues of her own. She was diagnosed with manic-depression and hospitalized in 1979; shortly upon her release she attempted suicide. For the rest of her life she remained on heavy medication. My father was verbally abusive to her for the rest of their marriage, which ended when my father passed in 2014.

UBPDh's family... .that's another story. MIL was married twice, I believe, and then had two other long-term relationships. Marriage to FIL was incredibly abusive, as was her subsequent r/s.
Not sure about the first marriage.

FIL was married five times and had at least eight kids by these five women. There was also a string of gf's, as he was never faithful to any woman ever. UBPDh most likely has siblings he has never met that are unknown.

UBPDh's maternal grandparents' marriage was a nightmare. Grandfather was an alcoholic who was violent and who had affairs. His wife finally made him leave the home (by physical force of her adult son who got sick of seeing his dad beat on his mother). Grandfather then murdered "the other woman" and ended up dying in prison.

UBPDh's paternal grandparents... .Grandmother was married three times. First husband was a veteran and had mental health issues. He used to leave home on an "errand" and not show back up for weeks. Eventually he disappeared. Searches on Ancestry.com found his gravesite in Kansas.

Husband number two of UBPDh's grandmother was an alcoholic who was also violent. He ended up burning to death in a house fire after they divorced.

Husband number three... .no stories of him being abusive to Grandma, but there are stories of him beating uBPDh's brother and sister with a belt. Also MIL says that he had affairs and was a "creepy old man." She suspects that he sexually abused her daughter, but never had proof.

Grandma herself probably had a personality disorder from the descriptions of her that MIL and Step MIL have told me. She was extremely jealous and controlling, and they say she had a breakdown after losing an infant daughter. Said she was verbally abusive to her family. She claimed she could see spirits, and sometimes she would say she could see faces of ghosts on the wall. UBPDh's superstitious nature and fear of the paranormal comes from what he witnessed in his grandmother's behavior as a child. She also apparently lied to everyone in the family about being adopted. Said she was really a Native American. Ancestry.com research and a DNA test proved that to be false.

I could go on and on about the destructive patterns in UBPDh's family; I don't know how far back dysfunction goes in my family, but it seems mild compared to uBPDh's FOO> those roots run deep in that family tree.

Redeemed

[Red5]

... .and hopefully break the family cycle which is 3 generations old now.

I have a "fishing story" to tell.

I was going to start a new thread, but it will go here... .

So... .I went flounder gigging, fishing with udx wife's; sister's husband the other night... .yeah,

He "told my head a mess"... .wow!

The more beer he drank, the crazier the stories got... .he has been married to SIL#2 for thirty years... .wow,

I've heard portions of, pieces off some of these stores before, over the eleven years I've been married into this foo, but wow... .and holy moly !

Got to go for now, will come back later and tell the story... .but "generations old"... .is spot on!

Red5

[formflier]

It was helpful for me to understand I married "the nice one".  Seriously... .I have heard with my own ears the other women talking about how they can "show a man"  they mean business better than my wife.

And... from what I've seen.  They can.

My wife and I have the only intact marriage in "her generation" (her parents and aunts and uncles are all still married).  Her siblings and cousins are all on multiple marriages and relationships.

Good to have perspective.

FF

[I Am Redeemed]

I may have stayed the longest of anyone who has had a relationship with uBPDh.

I am wife #3 for him, not counting other dating partners before and in between marriages.

Siblings have similar history, though two half sisters are still married.

Both my sisters are still in the first marriage. Nearly forty years for one, and over twenty years for the other.

Redeemed

[Notwendy]

It's hard to tell. In my family, I think the dysfunction was most concentrated in one person- BPD mom,  but still, my parents had an intact marriage and did not divorce and so did most of their family.

On hubby's side, his mom appears to be a saint and his parents stayed married but hardly any one else did. We stayed together but there's several who "had to get married",  multiple unstable marriages, abusive spouses on his side.

The common theme - what matches us- is enabling- huge enabling on both sides and a tendency to not talk about or acknowledge any issues in an appropriate way. As far as my H knows, his parents never had an argument. There was raging and screaming in my house and then we had to pretend it didn't happen. In my H's house, they just pretended all was well and didn't talk about issues.

I think our families represent two opposite ends of dysfunction. Neither of us had a role model of two people working out their differences, and both ignoring them and raging are not functional ways to work them out. Working things out in a marriage is an important skill and it doesn't seem present in either of our families.

[juju2]

good topic f.

Out of four children, foo, the oldest, and i are the only ones divorced... .
my now ex spouse, his foo no divorces,
until ours, and before that, his sister ...
my separated dx bf his gp were divorced, the only ones, until dx bf, no sibs, he has two divorces... .(many r/s, we are the longest, prior to that, his longest r/s is five yrs... .)... .among the grandkids=all the next gen kids, his kids, mine, my siblings kids, there are 3 divorces among
9 , so one third of next gen... .when i look back, all these families, mine included, are dysfuntional... .some more than others... .
Am working on myself, to become the person i can be. When i get healthier, everyone around me gets healthier... .

 i agree enabling was present in my foo. 
back then, it was not considered a disorder... .it was almost invisible... .

[byfaith]

Interesting topic,
I tried to stay in my previous marriage hoping to break a cycle that she repeated. I was husband number 6.
There was a dysfunction of the males in her family which spilled over to her and it probably is the reason her son developed paranoid SZ when he was 27. She was physically, mentally, emotionally, verbally and sexually abused by males in her family. When she was 15 years old she lost her virginity to her half brother and at the time she didn't know he was her half brother. She was devastated when she found out. I didn't know the extent of everything when I married her. I tried everything to break the cycle of divorce and even on my parents side my mom is on her third marriage (which has lasted 25 years).
I have been divorced for a year now... .I know now never try to fix someone or rescue them.
 

[Red5]

... .” I know now never try to fix someone or rescue them.”

Me2... .very similar circumstances; scenario in my first marraige which lasted for almost twenty two years.

I believed for many years that I was the one who could save her from her demons... .

Apparently I learned nothing, after the divorce, I was a single father for five years... .and then I found another damsel in distress... .we have been together for eleven years and married for seven.

And it’s been a very rough ride... .smh... .

Red5
 

[Red5]

Generational appearance of BPD traits (of)…

So, the fishing trip…

I went flounder gigging with my uBPDw’s BIL the other weekend, he is married to S#2 (sister no.2).
S#2 is about fifty’ish+… they are about the same in age, and have been married for over thirty/three years now, neither ever married previously, no kids…

Got over to his place about sundown, S#2 (we will call her C) comes out of the house and gives me a hug, and asks how uBPDw is doing, and my Son, pleasantries were exchanged, and so we preflight the boat and trailer and we were off.

They live down a graded road, about a quarter mile off the main highway, so as we turned out, he (BIL#2, we will call him V) did not accelerate, but just creeped down the old dirt road… he reached into the glove box, and retrieved smokes... .and lit one, “Man, C is ____ driving me crazy Red… $hit, she just has to start $hit all the time, boy I tell ya”… We continue to creep down the dirt road, barely at idle… he takes in another long drag and says, “C thinks I quit, what she don’t know won’t hurt her… we been putting up lights in the garage all day, what shoulda took an hour took six hours, cause of C butting her dang head into my business”… he continues… “Red, you just don’t know man, that woman is a real “bi@tch”, she’s just down right mean man”…

I have to add here, me and BIL#2 (V) are not exactly buddies, nothing other than family get together’s, so to have him divulge his classified information seemed to me quite something(?)!... .

It got even more interesting, as he described himself and his W interacting (fighting) about how to mount the suspect lights up into the ceiling of the garage… I did add… “yeah man, me and “Q” (uBPDw) cannot even change a light bulb without getting into a fight… yeah”… “I know what you mean man”…

So he continues… still creeping down the dirt road, smoking his cigarette… “you know Red, If Q would not have let you go (smile), I had another buddie that wanted to go tonight, and me and her have done everything except _____”… (he meant intercourse in the french)… “yeah Red I tell ya , I had to tell her to leave me alone”… [ I was like wow! ]…

... .ok, what is this… me and this dude never talk, and he is telling me the whole shot here… so I respond… “so “V”, how long have you and “C” been married now, twenty something?”… V responds… “$hit no man, we been ____ married for thirty/three… and she closed that $hit off right after we got married”… “she put a lock on it… but I know where to get it”… [ V is not talking about cigarettes here ]… wow,

So we are at the highway now, and pull out onto the road… I ask another question, in order to try to adjust the conversation subject matter… “so how long has S#1, and “R” been married” (R is BIL#1)… He responds… “$hit, I dunno, longer than me and C, so going on forty I reckon, and CL is crazy too!”… (CL is S#1)…

So, I’ve been with BIL#2 for a whopping ten-fifteen minutes, and have been read in to all this… wow !

We stop for gas, and more cigarettes, and then we go to the burger joint so he can get something to eat… he discovers that he forgot his spot light, so he calls his W, and she brings it up to the burger joint from their house just out of town… then we go to the boat ramp, and launch... its quite dark outside now…
We go down the causeway to the bridge at Atlantic beach, and anchor for a while under the pilings to wait for the tide to finish going out, and we start fishing… and then we start to crack a few beers… I wonder what will be brought up next…

So he starts talking about “dad”, this is the foo father of the three sisters, and their younger brother who passed away at forty from a HA right after “dad”… “dad”… who passed over ten years ago now, on Thanksgiving… we will call him BZ… “you know Red, did you ever meet BZ?… he was a huge man, pretty fat in fact”, “MIL waited on him hand and foot you know… yeah, hand in foot… I wish C would do that to me”… “does Q do things for you?”… I laughed, “no not really V, yeah, I met BZ two times before he passed”… “he seemed like a nice old guy”… V responds, “No he weren’t!”… he was a selfish basterd”… [ ok, Red5 I getting an earful now ]…

I just said  … “wow”… “yeah V, I’ve heard stories”… we continue to fish…

Then V starts talking about MIL’s second H (#2), who himself passed just a few months ago now… and left her pretty wealthy… “yeah Red, ole STN (MIL’s H#2 now deceased) was loaded, and now MIL is set”, I responded, “yeah, that is pretty cool, and good for her”… V says, “all that $ is burning a hole in her pockets”… “you seen them two boats behind my shop Red, they are both STN’s, MIL wants me to fix them both up for her, C is in my @ss about it too… but she better come up with some $, I ain’t footin the bill for all that $hit”… I agreed with him, and asked if the Carolina skiff was going to be given to R (BIL#1) so he could take his grandson out on the local water-ways… V says “ yeah that’s the plan, but I ain’t paying for no repairs, MIL got the $, she better cough it up!”…

I try to change the subject again… “so how is R doing, I heard he is with his daughter out west and the grandkids right now”… V says… “yeah, he is, and their doublewide got all tore up in the storm, but it was a piece of $hit to begin with, you’d think him being a builder, and carpenter, that he woulda fixed the $het-hole place up”… I said, “maybe so, want another beer V?”… I continued, “I heard R, and CL are going after a short sale up in New Bern now”… V responds… “they are, but R don’t want to move, he likes living in that old trailer… but he will do whatever CL (S#1) tells him to do, like always, she wears the pants in that family!”…

… then BIL#2, V comes out and says it… “Red, I think CL is tryin to talk MIL into loaning them the $ to get into a new place… they’ve been doing that for years and years now… always lookin for a handout… $hit, they followed BZ, and MIL around for years now”… I just said “wow”… He continues… “CL ain’t got no common sense, she gets into one bad deal after another… she can’t handle $, and neither can R… you know she’s was married before she met R don’t you?”… I said…“yeah I heard that”…

The tide is out now, we weigh the anchor, and head up the causeway to gig flounder in the shallows… And drink some more beer…

I am feeling pretty good now, and V is now chain smoking… And he tells me all about all his marital indiscretions, and how crazy his two SIL’s are (my W included), and how ‘F’-ed my own uBPDw’s marriage to her first husband was, and how much of a “low rent” crazy guy H#1 was… and how they all use to smoke marijuana together, and listen to BZ’s stories about “truck stop ladies”… The more the evening progressed, the wilder the stories got... .

I guess he just want to ”share” all that with me  !

He told me how C (his W) used to yell and scream, rage and stomp, throw stuff, break things…

He told me R (BIL#1) was an alcoholic, and still smokes mary jane… And how his wife (CL) don’t care… and that his dad (R’s) used to get drunk and beat all of them to within an inch of their lives… he told me about his own dad, who did the same thing…

He told me all about how BZ was waited on hand and foot, etc etc’ by foo mum (MIL) and how BZ did this, and that… he told me that he (V) was a “rebound” for his W (C),and that it was four years before he even met his father, and mother in-law, BZ, and foo mum…

... .he told me about the night that C’s former BF showed up at the trailer park, and threated him, and he had to whoop his @ss, and his new bride (C - S#2) became enraged at him for doing so… which had happened some thirty something years prior  …

He told me that C left for a little while to be with her former BF, right before they got married… but decided that he was trash due to the former “knocking up” another girl, so she (C) came back and told V, “I choose you”… wow,

It was an interesting night… to be sure,

What did I find out, I think I can see into the prizm of my uBPDw’s early years, her early life with her foo…

Maybe I now know why she left home at age sixteen to be with her first H whom was seven years older than her… hmmm,

Her ex, uBPDw, is also now deceased…

I was told that their younger brother who passed at age forty, was declared to be “chemically imbalanced” and had to be put on medication as a young boy, I hear all about the crazy things that happened in the foo home… uncontrolled tempers, all kinds of crazy stuff ; (

… stuff that I really should not go into here (?)… I found out that S#1&2 left (escaped) the home early as well, lots of stories… wow!

We pulled in about at twenty three hundred, and went back to his place, and hung out in his shed till after zero two, he continued to smoke his cigarettes, and we finished off the beer, we got three flounders!…
A very interesting night ?

I shared NONE of this with updw… I scrubbed the entire dossier…

Although I’ve heard her versions of most of the stories over the last eleven years we’ve been together…
Hmmm,

Ok, this went on and on, sorry… but what do we know, BPD is trauma based (yes), in childhood (sometimes, most times maybe, a percentage)… so as I connect the dots… there you have it, in this foo, this is generational, as it goes back through two family blood lines, maybe more… maybe four or five considering the in laws of the two other sisters, and the deceased younger brrother… yeah.

Can I break this cycle… hmmm,

Thanks for reading!

Red5
 
 

[AskingWhy]

My H's family is a crucible of dysfunction.  

FIL is most likely uNPD or uBPD, and MIL was an enabler.  MIL blissfully went through more than 60 years of marriage being her H's puppet, workhorse and housemaid.  She got nothing note worthy for gifts in those years of marriage, dying with only the thin gold wedding band she got on her wedding day.  (Of course, FIL used his money on himself for hunting and fishing trips, golf green fees, rods/reels, gun and clubs.)

H's X W is most likely uNPD, having cheated on H while he was overseas in the military.   She divorced her H to marry her lover, who was also married with children.

H's children are all in the spectrum of Cluster B disorders: S is likely BPD or schizotypal (substance abuse and homelessness), one D is uBPD (expulsion from the military, love affairs with military recruiter and instructors, suicide attempt), one D is likely NPD, having bullied a coworker so much the coworker had to be reassigned to another company branch clear across town--and the D bragged about it years afterward with pride,she henpecks her own H.

Wow, Red, just wow.  The apple does not fall too far from the tree.  Redeemed, you have such a great snapshot of your family, and it's an eye opener.