Not allowed to see our Granddaughter less we meet them at a fast food restaurant

[grammywudbpdil]

What would you do?  Our son moved out of state with his uBPD wife, her three children, and our newborn grand daughter. They were down to visit her family around Thanksgiving, at which time we were able to keep our granddaughter overnight. When they came to pick her up, my son’s wife was in a full blown rage within three minutes of their arrival accusing my husband and myself of all kinds of things. She grabbed the baby and screamed at my son that this was all his fault because he made them leave the baby with us for the evening and that we would never see her again. The rage moved from the house to their car, with all 4 children inside the car. This lasted close to an hour and no one else could get a word in. My son quietly made his apologies and they left for home. Her rage continued non stop for 8 hours until they pulled into their driveway and by that time our son was accused of everything, including being a raciest!  This is a bi racial marriage and to make this worse my husband is a retired police officer.

Anyhow, we have been on communication silence with our son since then. The only time he can talk or text is when she isn’t with him. Then he has to erase any evidence of the communication from his phone. She has blocked me from seeing anything, pictures of the kids, my son, etc. on Facebook so I hear things from other people that she hasn’t realized are also on her list of over 2500 people.

So, a friend let us know that they were coming down today, the day after Christmas, to see her family. Well, our son needed his dad’s  help with his truck so he called him from their barn. Our son said they would be making the trip down and hoped to see us. At that point my husband handed me the phone so I asked if he had any idea what day since I had several appointments to go to. (I now see a biofeedback brain therapists, a psychologist, and chiropractor weekly because the situation has all but destroyed me, mentally, physically and emotionally.) Hesitantly, my son suggested that maybe we could meet at Chic-fil- a or at a park.

This is my problem. This feels like dangling candy in front of us and saying you can look but you can’t touch. She has no Intention of letting us hug or hold, or get close to our only grandchild. Our hearts are broken. I don’t know how much more heart break We can take. We have always been so close to our son. He has always been very open and talkative with us both.  He now understands that she is probably undiagnosed but at the same time he is so afraid of loosing his baby. He understands that he is in an abusive relationship and that he has been brainwashed into believing that everything is his responsibility and or his fault.

So back to my question. What would you do? Meet them for thirty minutes somewhere where you know you won’t get to hold the baby or decline the visit to protect yourself.

We feel like a piece of us is dying everyday.  Any advice is appreciated.

Merry Christmas to you all. I pray for peace for you all in the New Year.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Resiliant]

Hi GrammyW,

First of all, welcome to the group.  My heart breaks for you.

All I can say right now is for you to recognize that this is a mental disorder.  Your heart must be wrenching for your son, and for the children involved but please remember that nobody chooses to have a mental disorder.

Once we accept this, we can move on with less hurt on our ends.   I understand that right now you feel like a victim, you feel like your son is a victim and also the children are victims.  These are valid feelings.  They hurt much less when we realize that the person with the disorder is also a victim. 

The only advice I can offer right now is to learn the tools and read as much as you can about this disorder.  If you can, separate yourself from the drama.  I know that you love your grandchild and your son, but if you can try not to be drawn into the drama.  Stay strong and hold onto your values.

Does your son understand that this is not normal?   Would he be willing to consider a book such as "Walking on Eggshells"?

All the best to you and your family
 
R

[MyaRose]

I am so very sorry. I understand as my granddaughters are my joy n life and my bpd daughter is always threatening to keep them from me. My situation is very hard with my daughter right now and the only thing I can do is to stop communicating with her so I don't say something that will make her keep me from seeing the kids.

[SCM]

That's what happened to me seven years ago. My teenage grand daughter asked me what was wrong with her mom -my bpd daughter- and I made the mistake of saying she had a personality disorder. Wow, that did it for me. This happened in December 2012 and since then I have not been allowed to see my younger grand children nor her parents, that is my bpd daughter and her husband.  They don't respond to emails, messages or calls.
Horrible disease.

[Juki]

This is an all too common tactic used by personality disordered individuals - they love weaponising children simply because they can. It is a show of power and control and I can assure you that your DIL would use the same threats with your son if required, and more than likely already has this threat hanging over his head.  Often this is an individual's way of seizing control over someone they perceive as a threat, even if there is no sound or logical reason for it.  Children are weak and unable to defend themselves in such a situation and therefore make an easy target for an individual to use as pawns of manipulation.  The person here who needs to step up is your son as he has equal rights. Unfortunately, this may take some time and he may not be ready to do this and as Resilliant pointed out he needs to be made aware that this is not normal and could benefit from reading "Stop Walking On Eggshells".  I am concerned that he has found himself in a high conflict and toxic relationship and feels powerless.  I was in an unhealthy marriage for many, many years and wish I had the knowledge to recognise it for what it was, and the strength to get out of it, much sooner, but as you know people suffer in silence, live in hope that things will improve and stick it out for the children.  In the meantime I would take the 30 minute visitations and present as "normal" as possible.  Regardless of whether you can hold your grand-daughter or not, she will recognise your faces and voice.  This situation is very divisive and it is imperative to support your son  as best you can as he would also be suffering enormously with these conditions.  All the best x

[grammywudbpdil]

Thanks everyone for your input. We are still waiting to hear back from my son. So far they have not given us a time or place to meet. I sent him a text this morning suggesting a picnic lunch at the playground nearby. I have read Stop Walking on Eggshells myself and my husband has asked if we could send it to his place of employment. He said that he wasn’t quit ready to go there.  That was before her last fit of rage at Thanksgiving. If we do not get to see them while they are down on this visit my husband plans on calling him when they get back home...of course, while he is at work away from his wife.  He is going to once again offer to pay for our son to talk with a counselor that has a great deal of BPD knowledge. We are praying for the best. And I believe you are right Julie, any time with our grand daughter is better than no time.

[TDD]

Hi GrammyW,

Your story sounds so much like mine,it truly breaks my heart. Our dil has got progressively worse over the past 7 years. We have 4 beautiful grandchildren that we see maybe 3 times a year. Dil always has a million excuses why we can't visit, have to plan visit so far in advance, won't let us babysit, and heaven forbid if my son wanted to bring them for a visit! The past 6 months she has stopped all contact with us, which means we haven't seen our granchildren. No reason except all these crazy ideas in her head. My son knows it's not right, but is totally caught in the middle.I meet with my son to give birthday presents, Halloween presents, Thanksgiving presents, and now Christmas presents. I gave her presents too and absolutely no response, while doing nothing to reciprocate for my husband and I. Even a thank  you card would be nice. I know she has a problem but at this point I am so very angry at her cruelty not only to me and my husband and the rest of my family, I am tired of trying. So please know you are not alone. Of I will keep trying because I love my son and miss my grandchildren terribly. I have never met any one like her in my life.
Praying for you GrammyW.
TDD

[grammywudbpdil]

ThanksTDD.

We ended up meeting my son’s family at the playground on Saturday for a couple hours. My dil never said a word to me. My youngest son, sister and her husband, and my father joined us. My Dad is 87 years old and had to sit outside in the cool weather, on the hillside, just to get a chance to see his great grand daughter. Like you said, “I have never met anyone like her”.  Because of that I think it really throws me for a loop.

Yesterday my son called and asked if we could meet them on their way out of town. ( They stayed they last 4 days with her parents and visited with her sisters and their families, less than an hour away from us.) He said they had something to give to me. I’m just guessing, but I have a feeling that it might be a family picture. My gut wrenched at the thought of seeing her face on my wall. I know that sounds horrible but that is how bad I feel. Just the mention of her shoots my anxiety through the roof, even though I have been on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs for 6 months because of her BPD attacks on me.

Anyhow, I guess whatever it was wasn’t ready by the time they needed to leave on their 8 hour drive home so we didn’t need to meet them.  When my son called back he said that his wife really wanted to reconcile the situation.  That just means that she is telling him what he wants to hear and that I need to apologize once again for something I didn’t do. UGH!  That ticked me off again and I spent the rest of the day in tears. I am so tired. I love my son and my grand daughter is the sweetest thing in the world but every time I talk to him I get depressed. I am better today. Tomorrow I see my therapist again and the next day we start the new year. God I pray that things will get easier.  Thanks again for listening.

[Skip]

The path to your grandchild runs through your daughter-in-law's extremely fragile ego and self defeating coping skills. Gaining her trust will increase your access time to your grandchild. That will likely take time. She is very easily invalidated.

She knows that she can't manage her relationship with you and that she will eventually do things that will turn you against her and it will threaten and complicate her relationship... so she is reducing you as a potential threat to be safe.

Any normal reaction to her (your reaction) will likely make matters worse. "Handling" a person with BPD traits is a lot like handling a bomb - one wrong move...

The good news is that she is not in your everyday life - you can be on most accommodating when needed.

This book is different than  Stop Walking on Eggshells. It is a "tools" book that explains how to communicate.

Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder Author: Shari Y. Manning, PhD Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (August 15, 2011) Paperback: 253 pages ISBN-10: 1593856075 ISBN-13: 978-1593856076

People with BPD are very perspective... if you don't like her, she will pick up on it.

I have some people in my life with BPD, largely as a function of this website. When things are good I cement as much of that as I can. When things go bad, I exit without invalidating, wait, give a clean slate (like the problem never happened), and move forward.  Rewarding? No. But it allows a working relationship.