Possibly BPD sister-in-law- what to expect?

[jbk90]

Hi! First time poster but boy am I glad I found this board. I have been with my husband for four years, married for a year and a half. We are happy and going to be trying for children soon! I get along well with his family, and we are fortunate enough to live in the same town as his parents.

 His twin sister (and only sibling) lives an hour away and I highly suspect that she may have BPD. While my husband and his family have become accustomed to her behavior, she hid a lot of it from me for the first couple years. Now that it’s showing I feel like I unknowingly stepped on to a minefield that I don’t know how to navigate. I’m so anxious that I’ve started getting hives. Luckily husband is great and super open to communicating about it and I’ve started seeing a therapist to try to get a better control of my anxiety.

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The backstory (sorry, it’s long):

SIL is extremely shy and has had emotional and behavioral problems since she was a kid. She would throw epic screaming fits when she didn’t get her way. This led my FIL and MIL to give in to her just for the sake of keeping the peace. She is extremely lonely and has no friends, not even at work, because she refuses to reach out to the folks she knows in the city where she lives. This has resulted in MIL driving an hour to take a class with her just to get her out of the house.

While she doesn’t have frequent explosive tantrums per se, there was an incident at Christmas the year before last where she arrived at 2 AM, close to 12 hours late, with no warning or explanation, knowing we had to leave for an event at 7 AM the next day. The next morning she screamed profanity at my husband for knocking on the bathroom door while she was in there, and also because she tripped over our dog’s crate when she had arrived that night and it was dark.

Fast forward... .Around Thanksgiving this year, she unloaded everything (mostly untrue claims)  that has been bothering her for the last *five* years.  For example:
-she wasn’t involved enough in planning our wedding
- we like my family better than theirs and see them more often
- husband doesn’t talk to her (he calls her; she never answers or returns his calls)
-  we (myself and my husband) never want to go on trips with *just* her, and we never invite her to hang out (she was literally invited to come over 5 days after that for my birthday)
- she and I never hang out one on one, and once when she asked a year ago I told her I was going to be out of town and then sent a Snapchat and I was actually home (I was back early from a conference)

After talking this over, I was hopeful that Christmas would be better. It wasn’t. The Friday night before we were out to eat and I slid in the booth first while she and my husband went to the bathroom. She came back first and sat next to me, and refused to move when my husband came back from the bathroom and asked to sit by me.

Then on Christmas Eve (MIL birthday) she showed up hours late again. When she got there FIL got up to get the door. She was visibly pissed that we all didn’t stop what we were doing to greet her, and when my MIL tried to keep the peace and asked for a birthday hug, SIL refused. And didn’t talk or say anything for another 20 minutes or so.

On Christmas Day and husband and I got there after church in the morning to find MIL in a horrible mood stressing in the kitchen and SIL nowhere to be found. She stays missing for a solid 45 minutes before coming up and went in to watch tv with FIL and my husband, anddid nothing.

Fast forward to the weekend after Christmas, my family had our get together and went to a concert. I posted a video clip to Facebook, and minutes later SIL posted a quote from Robin Williams- “I used to think the worst in life thing was being alone, when the worst is actually people who make you feel alone”.

Husband sees that and worries she may self harm as she has threatened that in the past, so he called MIL who had the same concern. MIL mentions how SIL is struggling with adjusting to the different dynamics and is jealous of the relationship I have with her (MIL). Apparently she was jealous that I was helping MIL in the kitchen on Christmas.

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I am close to my wits end, because it feels like we can’t enjoy time with my family without setting her off, and I can’t even help her mother without it causing a problem. I know all we can do is set firm boundaries.

When I talked to my therapist she warned me that SIL may try to put a wedge in between my husband and I/the family and I, since she sees me and my family as the catalyst for all of this change/her no longer being the center of attention. I see this already in small things she has done-physically forcing herself to sit between husband and I,  telling my husband that their parents feel the same as her (that we favor my family) but are too scared to say it- which is not true... .it all makes sense.

What I’m most scared of is when I am pregnant/we have kids.If she’s jealous of the fact that I peeled potatoes for 30 minutes with MIL, how will she react when there’s a baby in the mix to be jealous of?

I guess I’m just looking to see if anyone has any similar experiences with this and what I might expect in the future. I know situations can all vary but any insight would be appreciated!

[Harri]

Hi and welcome.  You are not alone.  We have several members dealing with In-laws here.  It is difficult enough to interact with 'new' family (your in-laws) without having one of them acting in ways that make it even more difficult.

It is good that your husband is open to discussion and can see his sisters behaviors for what they are.  That is important as the two of you will have to work together to come up with strategies to cope with some of these instances.  It is not uncommon for people to triangulate others in the family to try to feel better in their position.

One thing that helps is to understand that with pwBPD, feelings = facts.  So if she feels invalidated by you then she was invalidated by you (in her eyes).  Trying to get her to see you differently at that point only tends to feed the dysregulation.

Do you see the above example of feelings = facts in your SIL?  Have you and your counselor talked about ways you can communicate differently that will help you to cope and help you reduce the chances of having to deal with her dysregulations?

[jbk90]

Thank you for the response and feedback! That makes a lot of sense; I do see how feelings= fact for her. Logic does not affect her, because her feelings are her reality.

Since logic and explanation don’t really help do you have any suggestions on how best to handle the situation without playing in to what she wants? For example- say she brings up time spent with my family again and that she thinks we like my family more. What can I say in that scenario that’s helpful  (or at least not going to make things worse) and also isn’t pandering to what she wants (ie us apologizing profusely and saying we should spend more time with her when in reality we are doing the best we can for everyone)?

I’ve only had two appointments with the therapist so far and my husband actually came with me to the second one, so a lot of it has been laying the foundation out and coming to terms with the fact that the family dynamic with his side isn’t going to be what he/we pictured. She had some great things to say and it was really helpful for us both. She did recommend coming up with a game plan going in to events with SIL, but I’m not totally sure what that looks like because I still feel like I don’t know what to expect quite yet.

[Harri]

 

For example- say she brings up time spent with my family again and that she thinks we like my family more. What can I say in that scenario that’s helpful  (or at least not going to make things worse)

  She is probably feeling left out regardless of whether it is true or not.  In that moment she feels that way though.  A lot of people with BPD have a fear of abandonment and since feelings = facts, well, her feelings, for her, are very real.  Validating her feelings rather than the facts of what she says will help.  You can say "I would feel very sad if I thought you were playing favorites too" or "I hate feeling left out of things too".   Use your own words so it feels and sounds natural to you of course.  If you focus on what is driving what she says rather than trying to explain your side, it can validate her but, more importantly for you, it can diffuse many of these situations before they escalate.

Validation can be tricky and sometimes it is hard to find a validation target.  It takes practice though.  Sometimes the best we can do is to stop invalidating by trying to convince them to see things differently.

Does that make sense?