Mother in law uBPD getting worse

[Forrestanimal]

Hello, I’m new here but need some help dealing with my mother in law who is an uBPD er. My husband has been in therapy for years now and his therapist have both agreed that this could be it also one of my co workers who is a psychologist confirmed this. Reading the books and on this site is has been an eye opener and a constant feeling of recognition.
This is gonna be a long story sorry in advance and sorry for the not so perfect English I’m Dutch but we don’t have this kind of support site over here.
We’ve always known something was off but never quite figured out what and my relationship with her has always been difficult( my husband fiancé died months before there wedding I was friends with both of them and a few moths later we fell in love which was a complete mind___ to bottle of us) she after hearing of this claimed she always knew I had a crush on her son( so not true he was way to kind and soft to my liking and he thought the same about me in a different way)When we got to know each other better in grieving the loss of his fiancée and one of my best and sweetest friends this changed. Dealing with here has always been difficult but manageable most of the time. The last few years this has changed my brother in law heard he was terminally ill( he was a fighter according to Pete Walker my husband is a fawn) from what I hear from my sister in law their childhood was a terrible one( mom chasing my brother in law with a knife he ended on the roof, her smashing the living room and only leaving everything in front of the window untouched etc... He left the house at 16 leaving his younger brother my husband( mom’s favourite) he and his mom were never close and he had a lot of unresolved anger. When she heard of his illness it was al about her again her losing her son( my father in law was never mentioned in this) For the record my father in law is a massive enabler right know he stopped fighting years ago except a few tries a few years back( unhappily married for 50 years last year does that to people I think) On top of this we were expecting our daughter around the same time as my bil was got diagnosed with cancer so all the first drama happened in the last moths of my pregnancy and pulled in as I was at that time I still tried to help them. After our daughter was born after a delivery of 45 hours ending in c section she never offered help( not that I wanted her to I was to exhausted to deal with her so my mom helped a lot) my mil is very jealous of my mom and the bond we have( my dad was an alcoholic so we had to stick together) In the first year she was always complaining of never seeing her granddaughter and always jealously asking if and when my mom has been around. When you ask her to come over she has stuff to do( lots of volunteering and we believe she is a different person over there where she is needed. She lost contact with all siblings and partners including their kids due to her behaviour and has one friend left, fil got kicked out of his family for marrieing my mil so they have not many people left in the world just us and my sister in law)
For the last moths my brother in law has gotten worse and she accused my sil of not caring for him and if she didn’t my mil would take care of her son( sil was at that time in treatment for reoccurring breast cancer and did the best she could but my bil refused treatment because it was useless the cancer was all over his body already) He decided that he wanted euthanasia before he got so bad he had to go to a hospice and would be so sedated and out of this world he wanted to say goodbye in his own way. This all on his own terms and no mom involved witch she couldn’t handle she tried to mingle in every decision including us in the conversation and trying to get us at her side( brothers were never that close first because of different personalities and two because different reaction to trauma end three I suspect my mil of playing them out to each other( my husband the favourite my bil the bad son who did everything wrong)
This strategy didn’t work because the two of them had a good conversation 1,5 years back and got to understand each other at least a bit better and we as brothers and sil got along quite ok at the end luckily.
In the end when things were planned for the euthanasia mil called my sil was coming over to bring them up to speed in some way of what was going to happen and mil wanted us there. I was on the phone and asked her if my sil knew she was also inviting us also ,which my mil dindn’t ask so I offered to ask if it was ok with sil. And mil asked if we were going be there when my bil died so We told here we would when invited she then told us she was going to be there no matter what it was her! son( married for 17 years already and 48 years old so it was between him and my sil I told her and not us to make that decision and that it was going to be difficult enough and they didn’t need more drama) My husband was bringing our daughter to bed so when he got down I handed him the phone and the same question she asked me she asked him also answers where the same form both of us. We were trying to keep the drama away from bil&sil they had enough to deal with. Eventually she hung up but wulithin half an our my fil called on my husband mobile phone and started arguing right away( he wasn’t there when I had the conversation with mil nor was my husband for the largest portion of time) I could here him screaming and arguing as I was sitting next to my love. He was angry that we were not going to be there to support them(especially  my mil and her opinions of how al should be arranged for the cremation and the ceremony beforehand, also was about her and her loss and how she wanted it to be arranged. Mil and Fil had an ongoing fight already from what I heard from my sil later)for them the evening my sil was coming over. He kept screaming that I was mingling in things that didn’t concern me( why ask me my opinion then. All we were doing is trying to keep mil a bit sane in this difficult time and keep the drama away from sil and bil
) This alley ending up in my brother in law calling his mom and getting angry with her about trying to set us up to each other me and my husband and brothers email against each other. After that we got a lousy app messages  saying sort sorry sorry. Warned my sil she could be at the door at the time of the euthanasia luckily she didn’t do that. After that drama continues we’ve met a few times we both decided to be without an opinion around the both of them and they notice that now she is playing the sad mom card who lost her son( which I quote my fil called an ok guy but one who always did it his way. This is your son you are talking about my jaw dropper that moment and can you blame home for being like that when you have witnessed his youth and did nothing didn’t leaf his mom, got her help and the kids) After the cremation they also declared our daughter( almost two so way to young to understand luckily but also ultimately young to carry this burden) the only light in their lives and if they would lose this her und us live would have no meaning anymore for them( they must have noticed we keep a distance and don’t talk that much anymore to them)
I couldn’t just hug them the first time we met after that phone call. Every time you give them and especially her another chance only to end up being stabbed in the back again and just trying to mess with a marriage and not just call and ask how the conversation went with the person who talked to your wife( or let her call herself if she is mad instead of calling for her en enabling her and confirming in that way she is right to behave like this.
Instead immediately started arguing and screaming I’ve had enough of this for now and blocked them both on what’s app and on my cellphone. Now she is texting my husband if there is something wrong or if my WhatsApp is not working. He did react he doesn’t know and he’s at work. I really don’t now what to do and what to tell her because she will deny all that has happened but I don’t have the energy to read and react. Also not taking the phone when she calls and no one is around to listen to the conversation.
I want our daughter to have a grandmother but not like this. At some point she will notice that her grandma is not ‘normal’ and she is a smart one and very sensitive( husband and me are both HSP) Also I don’t trust her babysitting ,it’s just a feeling can’t explain it but it’s there, husband doesn’t share that feeling so we need to word that out. On the play and food level she will be fine but emotionally I don’t know, she always over pushes when daughter is already tired and very busy she keeps pushing to the point she can’t sleep for being to tired, this is just an example. Also because oil is really enabling right know so no one is keeping her grounded at the moment. She refused treatment in the past everybody is crazy except her also threatened to kill her self multiple times. She is 73 right know and getting worse in claiming also because she doesn’t have manny family/friends left.
My husband she always put in the grown up position in their relationship leaning on him instead of her husband( unhappy marriage) this messed him up quite a bit but he is getting there and he is setting boundaries finally at 45 and she can’t handle that. He is definitely a victim of emotional incest sadly. I came across that article over here last night and it was such an eye opener so thanks for that, it also explains quite a lot why our reaction mil and me never worked.
I’m considering going no to low contact but love isn’t ready and I don’t now how to go there with here with not so much drama.
Sorry for the long read this is by far not all as many of you can confirm I think. Bps is a terrible illness but makes it also hard to see the two apart the person and the illness.
We both just don’t know where to go from here and we want to protect our daughter from this. My own grandma used to be very intrusive and curious about my parent especially my dad because he was an alcoholic ( I didn’t know at that time, new there was something wrong but not what was wrong) I was under ten at that time and she was always questioning me about my dad , this behaviour is what i see in my mil and i’m afraid of what that will do to our daughter in the future. Trying to tell her not to and explain why doesn’t work we tried that on multiple occasions. My husband has I ‘m afraid of confronting her and getting mad or cry( also because all of the hurt she has caused other people and especially her kids through the years) and still refusing treatment and denying they’re youth( to her it was a good stable loving one

[Harri]

Hi and welcome!  Your story was not too long at all and your English is just fine!

I am so sorry for all the grief you have had to deal with on top of having your MIL make things more difficult by inserting herself in things she does not belong in and making them all about her. 

You are not alone in dealing with an In-law and we have several people who are currently posting in similar situations.  We can all relate to having a relative with BPD or BPD traits.  We also have several parents who struggle with the question of whether or not to allow the pwBPD (person with BPD) to watch their kids unsupervised.  It is a highly personal decision.  A lot of us have leaned towards not having them be alone with the kids.  Emotional abuse, including pushing a child beyond their capacity to cope or pressuring them to love them more, is not uncommon. 

Maybe your husband can talk about his fear of saying no to his mom with his therapist?  It can be a big struggle for the spouse to deal with the fears and learned behaviors of an adult child of a pwBPD but it can be done.  Do you know if he has been working on trying to separate emotionally from his mother?  Is it an issue for him?

What sort of support do you have in dealing with all of this?  I mean other than us now?   

I hope you settle in and keep reading.  The article you mentioned on emotional incest is excellent though hard to read.  I also hope you feel free to jump in and post in other threads too.  Building a sense of community is important and we all benefit from posting to each other as we all learn.

[Forrestanimal]

Thank you Harri for your kind words and the welkome here.
At this moment only my husband is going to a therapist she is not specialised in working with adult children from BPDers but from what I get she is doing a good job. For the rest this is all at the moment and reading the books and the articles over here. I’m triangle to get us into training program about dealing with family members with BPD but so far no luck the person affected by the disease needs to be in therapy with them for us to participate and that is never going to happen. Treatment was offered multiple times by her physician but her respons was i’m not crazy ( everybody else is though so recognisable from my own dad who was an alcoholic and sufferd at least from ptss after seeing his 11 year old brother being shot in ww2)

Since a few months he is handeling her differently and not reacting to everything she tells us and where she is always the victim(everbody left her ,no one is there to support her grieving she pushes everybody away we are the only families left except a sister from my fil and my sil) My husband is saying no to her but accepting that has been a challenge for her she just isn’t used to him doing so I think she partially blames me for this

[Forrestanimal]

Half of what I typed didn’t get posted sadly enough.
 Reading the article about emotional abuse was hard andmakes me sad for my husband and his brother. I’m letting him read it right now in hope he can get a better perspective on his your and being able to move on even more. He deserve that so much he’s the sweetest person even and needs to stand up for himself more he is so worth it and she ruined that in him and I blame her for that especially being a mom myself. The article explained a lot also my relationship with her and her relationship with her husband wich is unhappy and her relationship with my bil&sil him bey the bad kid. And now we are al she’s got left and how she and my fil put it the only reason to live and be happy   Especially our daughter and that creeps me out her putting that much weight on the shoulders of a toddler.
We’ve been out of contact for a few days and she is trying to wriggle back in and getting attention by firsts asking how my husband is doing after losing his brother and then immediately after that she dives back in her victim role and telling that she is really not well and no one is there for her( my fil doesn’t exist so it seems)
For now i’ve blocked her on WhatsApp and cellphone now she calls anonymously on the landline and leaves no messages but she’s noticed me not reading and reading her texts. Soy now know how to tell her but I needed that peace after being yelled at and called all nasty things for just trying to keep her away from my dying bil and doing her crazy things.
It’s a terrible disease and for now unsupervised watching our daughter is for me out of the question I don’t want her suffering from it and being pushed beyond her limits just for grandmas sake( she used to be mad about our girl sleeping so much as a baby and blamed us for putting her to bed when they came over) last they watched her when we got to a concert she was up when we got home at 12 o’clock apparently she couldn’t sleep( never happens here and we don’t keep her up if she has trouble sleeping) I hope I can convince my husband to agree in this it’s just a gut feeling but I don’t trust her with the emotional well-being of an almost two year old.

[Harri]

Hi!

First, I want to ask how you and your husband are doing given the recent passing of your BIL?

My husband is saying no to her but accepting that has been a challenge for her she just isn’t used to him doing so I think she partially blames me for this

It is good he is saying no and changing the way he responds.  The thing is, the pwBPD will often not take this well and may increase their behaviors temporarily in response or lash out in other ways.  This is something called an extinction burst.  It is unfortunate but it is important that you and your husband stand firm when setting boundaries and changing the status quo.  Going back to old ways will only reinforce her behavior.  She will need time to adjust and may never get to the point where she likes the change.  The good news is this is not about her liking it.  It is about you and your husband having a healthier relationship with and around her.

And now we are al she’s got left and how she and my fil put it the only reason to live and be happy

This is a heavy load to carry for both you and your husband never mind a toddler!  Are you familiar with Fear, Obligation and Guilt? 

I don’t trust her with the emotional well-being of an almost two year old.

Sadly, I have to agree with this. 

We have a several tools that can help you communicate and cope with your MIL.  You can find a lot of them here:  Lessons which is tacked to the top of the board.

See what you think might work and we can talk more about them.

[Forrestanimal]

Hi we are sort of in a survival mode right now trying to cope with everything. This afternoon we sat down and started to write down some ground rules of wat we need right now to be able to stay in the relationship. They need some fine tuning and we need to think about consequences when they break those rules( they are at the moment also for my FIL who is completely turned around and is supporting her in every crazy decision she makes)
Somebody on facebook suggested telling my uBPD MIL that we suspect strongly that she has borderline personality disorder do you have any thoughts on that because from what i’ be read in the book “ stop walking on eggshells “ that was not considered a wise decision

We are since i’ve read the book familiar with the term FOG and  trying to use that knowledge to make this relationship work while keeping a healthy distance and not being consumed by FOG. For me personally i’m beyond the guilt rand obligation fear not completely I fear how she will take al this and especially I fear her lashing out to my husband and how my reaction will be when she does that. Being a child of an alcoholic i’ve been there done that got the T-shirt in al the FOG sadly and I don’t want to be in the middle of that drama again. Twenty years I stopped  al contact with my dad for that reason I couldn’t handle it any more as a 19 year old now back in the same situation I know my husband daughter and me come first and my husband sees it that way to but for now we are willing to give her one last chance to have a relationship with her granddaughter. We will see how she takes it the new boundaries.

[Harri]

Hi.  sorry it took me a while to respond.  I wasn't on the boards much the last few days.

Somebody on facebook suggested telling my uBPD MIL that we suspect strongly that she has borderline personality disorder do you have any thoughts on that because from what i’ be read in the book “ stop walking on eggshells “ that was not considered a wise decision

We do not recommend telling anyone we think they have BPD.  It is a pretty hard thing to hear from someone even if said with kind intentions.  BPD has a lot of stigma associated with it as well.  Telling someone often does not help a relationship either, rather it makes things worse.

The rules you mentioned above, what are they?  Often people will impose rules or conditions on another person rather than set and enforce boundaries as we use the term here.  Boundaries protect us and are about us and how we will respond when someone threatens our safety.  they are also based on our personal values.  So for example, if you have a personal value about communication such as:
Value:  I value respectful communication and will not allow someone to verbally abuse me
Boundary and action: I will take action to protect myself and will request that the person stop.  If that does not work, I will say I am leaving, we can continue this conversation when things are less emotional and then leave the room, house, hang up the phone etc.

You can state a rule of "you will not verbally abuse me or yell at me" but you have no way of enforcing that.  In effect, it is an attempt to control the behavior of another person and that does not work. 

Can you see the difference?

[Forrestanimal]

Hi Harri, thank you for responding

We went over there last Wednesday and started by saying that we’ve noticed things aren’t great at the moment and that there is some tension and we love them and would like to be in good relationship with them and for them to be have a good relationship with their granddaughter but for us all to get to that point we needed  things to change to a more positive vibe. And that we needed this for our own family of three and my husbands health. The boundaries we have I is to be treated like adults, communicating in a normal way no shouting and arguing and if that occurs  we would ask them to stop if not that we would leave or ask them to leave, respecting us as parents and no arguing and fighting around our little girl for her sake. And also treating her with respect and respecting her self and not what she did to my husband and BIL crossing al emotional borders and.
We’ve talked about it a way that this is wat we needed to have a relationship that works and that we love them and it’s something we are telling them because of that.
This didn’t go so well they didn’t understand and didn’t listen it even my FIL. He started arguing and saying I didn’t want to be in the family in the first place( just found out ( in the back of my mind i’ve Always known)Thursday my MIl and BIL have been trying to get my out of the family from the start of our relationship and did the same with my husbands fiancé years ago he apologised for this the day he died and had changed his behaviour 1,5 years ago. My MIL has not and my husband being the favourite child and the victim of her emotional abuse and her treating him as the adult when he was just a kid makes it difficult for her to even tolerate another woman in his life and her behaviour towards me and his fiancé is proof of that I think. My FIL over the years also has done enough to drive me away and also drive the brothers each to a different direction and still he kept saying I want us to be close and we need each other, his actions spoke a different language.
He knows my MIl is uBPD and tried Wednesday to let us tell her that of course we didn’t because at that moment she was all over the place and it’s not up to us he needs to talk to her and trie to get her some help. My SIL spoke to both of them yesterday and she reinforced what we already told them that things needed to change that my husband deserves to be treated like an adult and they need to respect us as parents and that going to therapy is not a bad thing and she could benefit from it on more than one level. Dealing with grief is the thing she aimed for and dealing with the feeling she has she is curses and everybody is leaving her. She also told them to go together and deal with al the drama and los together and I hope they do follow true on that. My FiL was open to the suggestion from what i’ve heard from my SIL so fingers crossed they will go to therapy together he needs it as much as she does espy on the dealing with grief part.
I’m so proud of my husband for doing this and finally after al these years starting to break the ties of the emotional abuse was hard on him but he says it feels so much better to finally be able to stand up for himself and hopefully  breaking the cycle of emotional abuse , bad marriages, and alcohol abuse which occurred on both side of the family. Both my parents grandparents and my husbands parent and grandparents weren’t happy in their relationship there was also from at least two sides PTSS involved and my dad was an alcoholic this need to stop for our little girl.
Let’s hope we do get her to therapy and hopefully they will treat us with more respect.

[Harri]

Hi.

Wow, that got complicated but seems to have gone fairly well.  I hope she does go to therapy.

I agree that your FIL also needs help so I hope they both go.  He is as much a part of the dynamic as she is. 

The boundaries we have I is to be treated like adults, communicating in a normal way no shouting and arguing and if that occurs  we would ask them to stop if not that we would leave or ask them to leave, respecting us as parents and no arguing and fighting around our little girl for her sake.

This is good.  The value of being treated and spoken to with respect and taking action when that does not happen is really all you can do. 

I’m so proud of my husband for doing this and finally after al these years starting to break the ties of the emotional abuse was hard on him but he says it feels so much better to finally be able to stand up for himself and hopefully  breaking the cycle of emotional abuse , bad marriages, and alcohol abuse which occurred on both side of the family.

  That is a great feeling and I am glad he is okay with how things went!  I think for us adult kids of, just speaking up is freeing and healing.  It certainly sets the stage for the future too.

[Forrestanimal]

Sadly enough they didn’t respond well to us putting boundaries in place in a loving manner. Kept hearing thing we were not saying. My husband had a conversation with his dad a week later he wanted us to go back to the old ways and he would keep her in check when there was something we didn’t like or crossed our boundaries. Still repeating thing we never said and not hearing what we are really saying. Didn’t want to go to therapy nor wanted my uBPD MIl to go through that alt her age(74) And told us it was important for her to be a grandmother so why would we drag in our daughter in all this( husband told him it was about her he did want her to get the same experience he’s had. Last he said was to contact them when we were up for it. So no contact for almost three weeks with MIL and FIL. My husband is struggling with what to do he wants contact and loves them but doesn’t know what his father told his mother about the last conversation they had and we just don’t know how she will react. The day we went there to talk about boundaries she ended with going completely victim crying suicidal threats etc. I got a glimpse of how it used to be when my husband was a kid and this was just the light version. She somewhat hovers between waif and queen behaviour.
Just don’t know where to go from here and how to restore some form of contact especially for my husband.
In some way I think they are blaming me because he changed but he did that himself and for not going with the manipulative behaviour I guess they don’t like that and said I didn’t want to be part of their family.
Is it possible for someone who is married for 50 years to a BPD person to start behaving like one? Because it seems my enabler afIL is going down that road. He used to be a sweet kind man with lots of humour and now he is angry , silent and just plain rude. Sad to see him like that but he had the opportunity to change things an refused and that is frustrating.

[Panda39]

Is it possible for someone who is married for 50 years to a BPD person to start behaving like one? Because it seems my enabler afIL is going down that road. He used to be a sweet kind man with lots of humour and now he is angry , silent and just plain rude. Sad to see him like that but he had the opportunity to change things an refused and that is frustrating.

People with BPD often think in black and white terms so it's likely that your MIL looks at your FIL like...if you're not with me then your against me.  If he goes against her she makes his life difficult so he likely goes along with her...keeps her anger off of him and directed towards someone else...you, your husband, your SIL whoever.

One of our other members NotWendy often describes the dynamic of her BPDmom and enabling dad as being one single unit.  Her father always siding with her mother no matter how controlling or irrational even in relation to their children.

Panda39