My mother was accepted into a psych ward after her third suicide attempt in the past 6 months. Things have always been touchy and she’s always been difficult, but we’ve all been able to have a decent relationship with her until recently. She started talking to a man she knew 40 years ago. Ive seen the kind of messages she sends him. Typical BPD stuff. She has him convinced that her husband is controlling and abusive. Her husband never asks anything if her but that she stop speaking with this man. She’s become attached so she refuses. Says he is helping her. Says he’s just a good friend. She sneaks around to speak with him. Has had long unexplained absences away from home for days. My father has always known she was sick so he’s put up with it. Still cooks for her. Provides everything she needs. Speaks to her lovingly. Urges me and my brothers to visit her and show her our love. She is convinced he is abusing and controlling her. There are times I’ve been with both of them all day and as soon as he leaves the room she says “do you see how he treats me!” when in reality, he never did or did anything at all. Never even became irritated or said much at all. On the contrary, he spends all day trying to please her and walking on eggshells. We only recently learned she has BPD although she is in her 60’s and has beenn married with my dad for 45 years. Her sisters, my dad, my brothers, our wives, are all doing everything we Can to learn about this disorder so we can try to help her. She hates my dad for “putting her” in the psych ward although it was the decision of the doctors at the hospital after her last suicide attempt. She says she’ll kill herself or leave him and go to her boyfriend (who is also married and doesn’t seem to be in any plan to leave and be with my mother). Her suicide attempts have all been after my dad tells her he loves her but she has to break it off with her boyfriend. She then blames him for the affair (he has admitted that he needs to get better at communicating with her but it’s clear to everyone he is not treating her badly ) then she storms off and when no one is around, she takes a bottle of pills and calls her boyfriend, who then calls my brother or my aunt and tells them to call an ambulance. After which they both tell us how he “saved” her while her husband did nothing (because he didn’t know she took the pills). We’re all scared she’s going to convince the doctors in the psych ward that she’s fine and that her husband is abusing her (she’s done this before with other therapists) and that she’ll be released or that the she gets better in the hospital but then continues the affair when she gets out and the cycle continues. If I thought she could leave my dad and be happy with this guy I’d say fine. Go for it. But he doesn’t know how dysfunctional she is and he doesn’t have any real intentions for her. And i can’t expect my dad to keep living with her while he is cuckolded. She is angry at everyone for “taking my fathers side” but in this situation, it’s obvious that she is responsible for these consequences. We understand she is sick and that this all stems from the disorder but we are still learning how to hold her accountable for her actions. So far after what we’ve learned so far from books is that we’ve been enabling her by tolerating her abuses. Oh I forgot, she’s abusive. She hurls terrible insults, throws things, bites, drives recklessly, and worst of all, threatens suicide at the drop of a hat. All of this has been true to a much smaller degree my whole life but lately it’s been constant. I understand that this affair has supplied her with the false sense of security, love, and acceptance that all people with BPD desperately crave and that asking her to end it seems worse than death to her. But it’s clearly a codependent relationship based on lies and is causing immense harm to her and her family by extension. Once, when he didn’t answer her messages for a few hours because he was asleep or something, she cut herself (which she’s never done before) and sent him pictures to try to force him to respond. He tells her that only he loves and understands her and that her family just wants to control her. Basically he’s exploiting her disease for his own self esteem. Or maybe he’s sick too. I don’t know. I just know she can’t get better while he’s feeding her lies. What can we do? Any advice? Sorry for the long read. Thanks.
Edit: I also forgot to mention, though it’s probably obvious, that she seems scared of losing her husband. She kicks him out of the room and then asks us to call and check on him. Stuff like that.
