BP mother and a house FULL of stuff

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi BPD family,
I feeling slightly less scared since joining this board. I haven’t been on here much but I know it is here and that there are compassionate, aware people out there beyond this screen. That helps me feel a little better. A little more grounded.

I could prattle on about the steps I am taking to take care of myself, and no doubt I will do that eventually , but for now I narrow my question for you guys to this house full of stuff I live in.

Everywhere are things that I have been lectured about how important they are. How fancy they are. The amazing important life of the person who acquired them, and, thus, how amazing and important the BP mother is ~ she’s the person lecturing me.

Even when she’s gone many months my ears ring with her lectures. The stuff surrounding me feels like it has a power of its own. Partly because there’s so damn much of it. Partly becauso much of it is placed in ways that everyone living here (5 kids, myself, my fiancee, his BP mother) has to angle around it.

Mostly because of the extreme, terrifying outbursts that came from the BP mother when something was moved.

When she’s gone, I raise the blinds and let light in. We are all happier. When she returns, I put the blinds back to the exact height she keeps them at. God fear the consequences if the blinds aren’t at the right level and appropriately closed.

It is a terrible way for me to live. But it is my present circumstances. Yes this is my fiancé’s mother, not my own, and this is her house. The house where she raised her kids.

 I’m starting to generically just refer to her as “BP mother” on this board because this new experience of living here this past year has made me realize that my own mother was BP. She lives in an apartment a few blocks from where I live now.

I haven’t set foot in my own mother’s living space for a dozen years because it is so crammed with objects laden with family history. I didn’t see, when I was moving in here, that I was moving right into a parallel situation. I think I didn’t see it because the BP mom here is so much higher functioning than my own mom. This house is clean. This BP mom cooks. My own mom leans heavily towards depressive. Not physically active at all. This BP mom is extremely physically active, so long as she has someone to attach to to accompany her.

I know I brought up a lot. For now somewhere in here is a question about the confines of this house ~ the scary experiences I have associated with all the objects in this house, being yelled at, made to believe I caused a tremendous tantrum, then made to sit next to her and listen to her lecture me ~ like she was teaching me to behave and giving me a second chance to get it right ~ crazytown is what it felt like. And it worked. It’s all in my brain now.

[I am scared]

Hi BPD family,
I feeling slightly less scared since joining this board. I haven’t been on here much but I know it is here and that there are compassionate, aware people out there beyond this screen. That helps me feel a little better. A little more grounded.

I could prattle on about the steps I am taking to take care of myself, and no doubt I will do that eventually , but for now I narrow my question for you guys to this house full of stuff I live in.

Everywhere are things that I have been lectured about how important they are. How fancy they are. The amazing important life of the person who acquired them, and, thus, how amazing and important the BP mother is ~ she’s the person lecturing me.

Even when she’s gone many months my ears ring with her lectures. The stuff surrounding me feels like it has a power of its own. Partly because there’s so damn much of it. Partly becauso much of it is placed in ways that everyone living here (5 kids, myself, my fiancee, his BP mother) has to angle around it.

Mostly because of the extreme, terrifying outbursts that came from the BP mother when something was moved.

When she’s gone, I raise the blinds and let light in. We are all happier. When she returns, I put the blinds back to the exact height she keeps them at. God fear the consequences if the blinds aren’t at the right level and appropriately closed.

It is a terrible way for me to live. But it is my present circumstances. Yes this is my fiancé’s mother, not my own, and this is her house. The house where she raised her kids.

 I’m starting to generically just refer to her as “BP mother” on this board because this new experience of living here this past year has made me realize that my own mother was BP. She lives in an apartment a few blocks from where I live now.

I haven’t set foot in my own mother’s living space for a dozen years because it is so crammed with objects laden with family history. I didn’t see, when I was moving in here, that I was moving right into a parallel situation. I think I didn’t see it because the BP mom here is so much higher functioning than my own mom. This house is clean. This BP mom cooks. My own mom leans heavily towards depressive. Not physically active at all. This BP mom is extremely physically active, so long as she has someone to attach to to accompany her.

I know I brought up a lot. For now somewhere in here is a question about the confines of this house ~ the scary experiences I have associated with all the objects in this house, being yelled at, made to believe I caused a tremendous tantrum, then made to sit next to her and listen to her lecture me ~ like she was teaching me to behave and giving me a second chance to get it right ~ crazytown is what it felt like. And it worked. It’s all in my brain now.

[Zabava]

It sounds like you are in a very suffocating and toxic environment. Stuff can have a  heavy weight, especially if the person who owns it links it to their own importance like your mother in law.  It also sounds like everyone in the household feels the tension.  Are there circumstances that prevent you from moving?

[Kwamina]

Hi I am scared

Well I am glad you feel slightly less scared since joining our online community

We are indeed here for you when you need support and advice.

The environment you describe sounds quite unhealthy and I can see how this would affect you so.

How does your husband feel about the 'lectures' his mother gives you and her verbal abuse of you?

The Board Parrot

[Turkish]

Caught between two hoarders,  though at least your MIL is cleaner.  I grew up with a hoarder, the filthy type. Getting a hoarder to change is a Sysiphian task.  Basically, a no-go. You have my deepest sympathies, truly. 

Do you and your H have a plan? How does he view things? Do toy see the kids being affected?

[I am scared]

Thank you for responding. You’re right. I am living in an unhealthy, toxic environment. I have had trouble accepting this because in the beginning it felt like a big family home for my kids. I bought into the charade.

The things keeping me from moving are money and fear of creating more chaos for my kids.

I moved twice in the last 18 months - the first time to my own apartment from the home I shared with my sons and ex, the second time into the house where I am now.

I had to improvise and scramble to pay the rent each month for my apartment. It was a relief to move into the home where I am now. But my friends and my therapist have been giving me the same feedback you guys just gave me about this being an unhealthy environment.

My kids and my own health are what is most important to me. I can make any life change I need to in order to protect our collective health. I keep holding out that my fiancée will make the right choices for our family ~ his kids and mine.

I don’t know if he will. His mother just pulled another stunt today. Persuading him to do a big project on the house. He’s a carpenter. Which means he will be working for her and at the house with her all the time.

I asked him to consider delaying this project till fall. I said this in a phone call this evening. He replied that we could talk about it.  In a follow-up text I told him I need this boundary, for our finances and work life to be separate from her. I haven’t heard back.

No, he is not conversant in the dynamic that is happening ~ he knows the language, borderline, personality disorder, because his step-dad was a therapist and his mom, a nurse, has some type of specialization in mental health? They both, his mom and step dad, talked fluidly about other people being borderline ~
my fiancé’s ex, for example, and my fiancé’s grandmother, his mother’s mother.

It wasn’t until months after my fiancé’s dad’s sudden death that I clued into the problematic personality of my fiancé’s mom. The late stepdad was a lovely, lovely man who absorbed A LOT, I now know. At the time I got to know him ~ only six months before he died, all I saw was how lovely he was, how much he loved and accepted his family for who they were, and how deeply devoted he was to his wife. He liked to have fun and he brought out the best in his wife. When he died I
stepped in to take care of her and help keep her happy. Nine months into doing that, I realized with the help of my psychiatrist that I was indulging borderline behavior.

So it seems obvious that I should move out. My resistance is for the kids and my fiancé’. I’m open to seeing through the end of summer ~ through the end of July, really, what choices my fiancé makes in establishing his own boundaries with his mom and protecting the boundaries I have set.

I rationally think this is less disruptive than moving again. Emotionally, I’m inclined to run as soon as I can.

[I am scared]

How does your husband feel about the 'lectures' his mother gives you and her verbal abuse of you?

The Board Parrot

Hi Board Parrot, to specifically answer your question, he responds with anger if I express frustration or express anything, really, regarding all the objects in the house and the lectures I’ve been given. He subscribes hook line and sinker to the party line, I would say. My observation is that he has been deeply conditioned to view these objects and their professed importance as hot potatoes that must be revered to avoid his mother’s wrath. He does not care about any of the objects for their own sake. He’s commented about getting rid of it all when his mom is gone. But in the moment, in the present, there is no sense of humor or light-heartedness about the weight of these objects in our lives. It is very very serious business ~ that’s what it feels like.

So I guess the real answer is that he echos her lectures.

[Kwamina]

Hi again I am scared

It does sound like your fiancée is very much walking on eggshells with his mother and is also very much in the FOG (fear, obligation, guilt):

...fear, obligation or guilt ("FOG") are the transactional dynamics at play between the controller and the person being controlled.  Understanding these dynamics are useful to anyone trying to extricate themselves from the controlling behavior by another person and deal with their own compulsions to do things that are uncomfortable, undesirable, burdensome, or self-sacrificing for others.

Do you feel like your fiancée is letting himself be controlled by his mother out of fear, obligation and/or guilt?

I asked him to consider delaying this project till fall. I said this in a phone call this evening. He replied that we could talk about it.  In a follow-up text I told him I need this boundary, for our finances and work life to be separate from her. I haven’t heard back.

Have you since talked to your fiancée about this?

Take care

The Board Parrot