Intervention on my brother whose wife has bpd traits Part 2

[Jareth89]

Mod Note:  Part 1 of this thread is here:  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=343090.0;all

Hi stolencrumbs. I haven't read any of the other posts yet since I was last here, but could you describe the impact your wife had on your FOO and how many years that went on for? Did your wife try to separate you from your FOO? Did she encourage you to be hostile/antagonistic towards your family? How did your relationship with your family members change?

I knew what was going on, I knew my W's behaviours, I knew she was mentally ill...I knew how it had impacted my family. They literally told me nothing that I didn't already know. There was no light bulb moment to be had and their apparently sincere belief that talking to (at) me about it was going to yield some grand ah-ha moment was, frankly offensive

Did you ever discuss your wife's obvious behaviours with your brother, mother/father and SIL, or did you deny it or refuse to be drawn on the topic? In those years before the intervention, did your family try to talk to you about what they witnessed and if so, how did you respond to them?

I see where they were coming from and I can appreciate that...but it isn't what I needed...and heaped on more guilt that I also didn't need

Where were they coming from, why did they intervene (in your case)? What did you need? What did you feel guilty about?

[babyducks]

could you describe the impact your wife had on your FOO and how many years that went on for? Did your wife try to separate you from your FOO? Did she encourage you to be hostile/antagonistic towards your family? How did your relationship with your family members change?

I won't try to answer for stolencrumbs but I will throw my two cents into the pot.

 My partner tried very hard to separate me from my family.    Sharing love and affection was not a concept that she had a grasp of.   in her world there were never enough resources to go around.   there was never enough love and affection and she horded it, in a way.        being highly sensitive and with harmfully intense emotions she had a positive genius for finding the parts of the family dynamic that bothered me.   and then would highlight those.    my cousin has physical limitations and I do not,  so my cousin would often rely on me to do chores that were difficult for her.   taking out the trash.    95% of the time I didn't care about taking out her trash but every once and a while I would find it annoying.   and guarantee you … that was the day my partner would notice and make comments.   should could find the grain of truth... the thing that bothered me... that thing that was slightly off and build it into a mole hill and then eventually a mountain.

I have to say that I never really grasped how difficult it was for the family to because exposed to this level of mental illness.  how much damage it did to them, on the periphery of it all.   what I think now is that being in contact with the disorder was hard on all of us in different ways.

I refused to discuss the topic with my cousin after a while.   it was incredibly counter productive.     another explanation of the "facts" was absolutely the last thing I needed.

what I wish was that my cousin had attempted to strengthen her relationship with me.   to focus on our relationship … and make that better … not focus on the relationship I was having with my partner.      I wish that my cousin had modeled some of her own 'healthy choices' and 'healthy communication skills'...   rather than focus on where the deficits were in my life.   something as simple as "you know I love you, you are important to me and I will be right here should you need me",.. would have gone a long way.

'ducks   

[I Am Redeemed]

I had many people try to intervene in my relationship. To the point where some of my family actively worked against me in some areas because I refused to cut contact with him. I also had staff members at shelters (during the few times I did try to physically separate from him) that alienated me because they talked "at" me (as stolencrumbs mentioned) and it just pushed me further into isolation.

The thing is, I had to come to my own conclusion that it was time to go. Was it long overdue? Yes. Was it because anyone else told me it was what I should do? No. For years I had people telling me he would not change and if I stayed I would just get more of the same. I had to see for myself because I was stuck in the belief that I had a responsibility to him. I had never been taught boundaries and my own family had tried to emotionally manipulate and control me from birth, so I saw it as a huge betrayal when they blamed me for being in a situation which they had inevitably set me up to experience.

What did I need? I needed people who could be patient, supportive, and gently lead me to my own conclusion without telling me what to do. People who could be by my side while I walked my own journey and people who were safe for me to share with , where I felt no judgment, only caring, concern, and support. I found some of those people at my place of employment, coworkers who turned into friends. I found the rest of them here on these boards. Even after I left my (extremely physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive) relationship, I had trouble setting boundaries with my ex and I continued to let him intrude into my life to the point that I found myself in danger of possibly being assaulted again. The people on these boards encouraged me to protect myself and seek help from a DV agency and I did, even though I had misgivings about it because I found the local services here to be lacking the two times I reached out before.

I don't think I would have taken that step if I didn't have people who were willing to gently stand beside me and encourage me while I made my own decisions. People who carefully and considerately validated me while highlighting the truth in a nonjudgmental way.

As an abuse victim, I was frozen in fear that there was no way out that I could live with. It took a long time for that distorted view of my own to fall away. Trauma and stress make us frame things in ways that seem irrational to others.

[stolencrumbs]

Hi stolencrumbs. I haven't read any of the other posts yet since I was last here, but could you describe the impact your wife had on your FOO and how many years that went on for? Did your wife try to separate you from your FOO? Did she encourage you to be hostile/antagonistic towards your family? How did your relationship with your family members change?

About 16 years. Problems with my family started very early in our relationship. Early on, the issues seemed mainly about my family trying to make sense of and navigate my wife's behaviors. There are lots of examples. The second Christmas we were together, she got upset about something before we went (something to do with presents, I don't remember the details) and sent a pretty nasty email to my mom late one night (without telling me). We ended up still going there for Christmas, but it was tense and everyone walked on eggshells. There was no visit to my family that didn't involve a meltdown of some sort. She would lock herself in a bedroom while extended family were at the house. She would always insist that we go back earlier than planned. In general, there was a lot of her trying to force me to choose between what she wanted and what my family wanted, and there was a meltdown if I didn't "choose" her. At some point in our life, we had five dogs. My mom, understandably, didn't want us to bring five dogs to her house. My wife refused to board the dogs. So my mom found a pet-friendly house to rent that was less than a mile from their house. Problem solved, right? Ha. My wife hated the rental house and refused to stay there. So I stayed at the house with the dogs and my wife stayed at my parents' house. But she hated being there and we ended up leaving early, with my mom paying for a house we didn't even use. For the past four or five years, my wife hasn't seen or talked to my family at all. So in that time, the issue shifted from them trying to deal with my wife, to them dealing with me trying to deal with my wife. She never wanted me to go visit, and would orchestrate some kind of crisis every time I was supposed to go visit. So I would either cancel my plans or be stressed the whole time I was there, and always looking to leave so I could deal with whatever meltdown was happening at home. So I didn't see my family very much, and they weren't "allowed" to come visit.

Yes, she definitely tried to separate me from my family, with some success, and she definitely encouraged me to be antagonistic. Again, in almost every case, it was about me choosing her over my family. That's how she framed everything. I care more about them. My wife isn't my "real family." I always choose them. My job was to prove those things false at every turn. My wife is also chronically suicidal, so that was always either an explicit or implicit threat when I would go visit my family.

As far as my relationship with my family, I'm really grateful that they have, for the most part, been really patient and supportive. I've maintained a good relationship with my parents, though not as good as I would like, mainly because I didn't see them very much. My relationship with my brother is less good. It's not bad, it's just more superficial. We have never been good about keeping in touch outside of me being present, and I wasn't present very much. So we've drifted apart. It's not at all hostile, but we don't know a lot about each others' lives, and I missed a lot of my nephews' childhoods.
 

Did you ever discuss your wife's obvious behaviours with your brother, mother/father and SIL, or did you deny it or refuse to be drawn on the topic? In those years before the intervention, did your family try to talk to you about what they witnessed and if so, how did you respond to them?

I generally refused to have conversations about it. My SIL probably brought it up the most, but my mom would also try to talk to me about it. I would get defensive. I am an expert at explaining and rationalizing my wife's behaviors. I think I got defensive, in part, because they didn't at all have the whole story. Yes, they saw some of the behaviors, but they didn't really know her. It's one of the things about BPD. My wife is not an awful person, and my family's interpretation of why she did what she did seemed way off the mark to me. I could see where my wife was coming from in a way they couldn't, and I would defend her whenever it came up. My family is also not perfect, so there were also times when I would shift blame to them. And I still think there was some truth in that. They did things that I think would annoy a lot of people. The problem was my wife's reaction to those things. But yeah, I deflected, avoided, defended, attacked, etc.

Where were they coming from, why did they intervene (in your case)? What did you need? What did you feel guilty about?

They intervened after some of the secrets stopped being secrets. I told them about some of the things that were really going on. That my wife had destroyed our kitchen with a hammer, smashed holes in the walls, burned things inside the house, broke windows, doors, and furniture, pushed and hit me, destroyed my clothes, kicked me out of the house, was suicidal, and that I had been living in my office for quite a while. The intervention was after that. I think it was mainly motivated by them seeing how miserable my life was. If they could hold onto some belief that, despite hurting them, I was at least happy (or somewhat happy), I think they could live with that. Knowing how bad things were, they thought they needed to intervene.

I needed them to just be supportive. To let me talk with them about things without getting mad at my wife, or telling me what I should do. I needed to be able to come to a decision about how to handle things on my own. I needed them to just listen and say "we love you, and we're here for you." I needed to feel like it was safe to talk to them about things, and to not feel like I had to keep hiding things from them. My dad did eventually say that, and adopt that mindset, and I think he more or less convinced my mom to act as if she had done the same. That was and is more helpful to me as I go through this.

I felt guilty because it felt like they were doing roughly the same thing as my wife. Instead of having one side frame it as making a "them or me" choice, I had both sides doing that. I already felt guilty about how I had treated my family, but having them intervene really amped up those feelings. It also felt manipulative. They wanted me to be in control of my own life, but it sure seemed at the time that the method was to force me to do that by forcing me to make a choice I wasn't prepared to make. I'm sure I'm hyper-sensitive to it, but it felt like countering my wife's use of FOG with their own version (mainly obligation and guilt.) That just put me in a worse head space.

I guess the thing I would suggest is to consider that this might not be about your brother not seeing or recognizing what the problems are. Of course, that might be part of it, but it might be that your family doesn't see or recognize all that is going on in the relationship, or what might be motivating your brother to do what he does. In my case, the biggest thing was my wife's suicidality. It was constant and very real. And my family didn't know about that and they still (happily) don't have any idea what it's like to deal with that for years and years. It would have been more helpful for me if I felt like their attitude was "we don't know what all is going on, but we want to know, and we're here to listen and to help however we can." The attitude of "we know what's going on better than you, and we know what you need to do" was not helpful. I don't know if that's what they actually thought, but it's how it came across, and it made me defensive and shut me down. So maybe don't assume your brother has joined a cult and needs to be rescued from it. Start with the assumption that he's a good man dealing with a very difficult situation and is doing his best to keep his head above water. Be there to help him get out of the riptide and swim to calmer waters, and maybe eventually to shore. But don't come in with Coast Guard choppers to airlift him to safety.

Just my 2 cents.

[Jareth89]

I generally refused to have conversations about it. I would get defensive...I'm an expert at rationalising my wife's behaviours. I think I got defensive in part because they didn't at all have the whole story. But yeah I deflected, avoided, defended, attacked.

... I knew what was going on, I knew my W's behaviors, I knew she was mentally ill, I knew how it had changed me and my life, and I knew how it had impacted my family. They literally told me nothing that I didn't already know. There was no light bulb moment to be had, and their apparently sincere belief that talking to (at) me about it was going to yield some grand "a-ha" moment was, frankly, offensive.

I guess the thing I would suggest is that this might not be about your brother not seeing or not recognising what the problems are...it might be that your family doesn't see or recognise all that is going on in the relationship, or what might be motivating your brother to do what he does

Stolencrumbs as difficult as it is to read in places (for me as a sister), I appreciate your honesty in your reply. A big problem is the secrecy, denial and blame shifting...and the antagonism towards family members. The sudden shift in behaviours is obviously noticed by family (especially sisters) and it's very hard to watch my brother adapting to the disturbing dynamics and approval seeking, instead of confiding in me about the difficulties. I have never given him a reason not to trust me, but he has given me every reason to intervene. Because of the secrecy, there is a lack of information and this only causes more anxiety and concern about the extent of the problem. It's natural for family members to want to intervene when someone's wellbeing appears to be under threat. His adaptation to her behaviour and acquiescing to her demands to 'keep the peace' is as dysfunctional as her illness in my view. His denial implies he is struggling with the reality of his circumstances. I don't imagine that he will have researched personality disorders, so I assume he doesn't know the reason behind his wife's behaviours and that he may benefit from knowing.

I still don't understand how this option is more attractive than being honest with family member(s) about the difficulties:

For my DH's part, he admits that he let it all happen. He let his wife treat his mom very poorly and then would tell his mom she needed to apologize to the BPD. He did this to keep peace in his marriage.

[stolencrumbs]

I still don't understand how this option is more attractive than being honest with family member(s) about the difficulties:

It's easier. Or it at least seems easier. I saw my wife every day. I live five hours away from my family, and on a good year, I might see them for 15 or 20 days. So I could do something that upset my family, but otherwise made my life easier, or I could please my family and live with the consequences of that daily.

And I knew my family would be fine. They weren't going to try to kill themselves if I didn't come visit, or destroy the house, or stop talking to me, or whatever. My wife would.

And if your brother's wife is anything like mine, telling anyone else about what goes on inside the marriage is huge no-no, and he would be very aware of that.

I also didn't think there was much they could do to help. Knowing everything would just alarm them more. And they'd worry. And they'd tell me what I should do. And it would be a topic every time we talked. And I didn't want all of that. 

There was also the persistent thought that things would get better. So okay, I'll do what she wants this time, but next time things will be better. I'll figure out how to make things okay. Things won't still be like this. There was always something going on that I could point to as the cause of things being bad at the moment, and I'd have some hope that whatever that thing was would no longer be a factor and things would be okay. They never were, but that was always my hope.

And your brother may be in denial. Obviously, I don't know. He might also just be denying things when he talks to his family. I did that. I had done lots of research and had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but I didn't say anything about that to my family.

[Jareth89]

It's easier. Or it at least seems easier... So I could do something that upset my family, but otherwise made my life easier, or I could please my family and live with the consequences of that daily...And I knew my family would be fine. And if your brother's wife is anything like mine, telling anyone else about what goes on inside the marriage is huge no-no, and he would be very aware of that.

I also didn't think there was much they could do to help. Knowing everything would just alarm them more. And they'd worry. And they'd tell me what I should do. And it would be a topic every time we talked. And I didn't want all of that.

Surely it's better to give your family (or someone you trust) a heads-up about why you had to alter your behaviour towards them. I mean at least they wouldn't be left wondering why you were behaving like that, wouldn't take it personally and you would feel less guilty about what you were pressured to do. They would be sympathetic to your circumstances. You could still tell someone you trust without your wife knowing surely? I'm thinking about approaching the topic with my brother (just me and him) soon. Since I know about her condition and understand both of their difficulties (thanks to people on here sharing their stories), I think i'm in a good position to make it work - I hope. Yes he is also in pretty strong denial.

[Jareth89]

A family member can diagnose a PD in a millisecond...it's that obvious.

How did you come to this conclusion?

What I meant is that although family members are not experts, they are close enough to the behaviours to identify the undiagnosed disorder.

It may be recognized as beneficial (by the non) only well after the fact, in hindsight.  Well after the non has reached their own limit and have left or in some way resolved the situation on their own.  For every post you want to quote here about people who want to tell their son or brother about BPD, you will find just as many, if not more, that say a friend or family member did say something but they ignored it... for a lot of reasons, but usually because the person did not want or was not ready to hear it.

Yes, this is the risk I take, that he will not want to hear it or isn't ready to...and it's impossible for me to know how he will receive it or what the consequences may be afterwards...it's why I have done nothing for 12 months.

Considering how difficult it is for a professional to make an official diagnosis, and how complicated these family situations are- and of professionals are reluctant to intervene with your brother without him seeking out their help himself, if you still want to do this, it seems that you would need to do this yourself.

This is all true. It seems a shame that with such difficult circumstances, family members are left alone and cannot get practical help from clinical psychologists for the enabling spouse - I understand why.

[Notwendy]

I still don't understand how this option is more attractive than being honest with family member(s) about the difficulties:

It's easier. Or it at least seems easier. I saw my wife every day. I live five hours away from my family, and on a good year, I might see them for 15 or 20 days. So I could do something that upset my family, but otherwise made my life easier, or I could please my family and live with the consequences of that daily.

And I knew my family would be fine. They weren't going to try to kill themselves if I didn't come visit, or destroy the house, or stop talking to me, or whatever. My wife would.


This is how I think it was for my dad. Unless someone has lived with a severely BPD person, I don't think it is possible to imagine how hard it is to hold on to boundaries and point out the issues. It's very difficult for me to do that with my BPD mother and I don't live with her. But my father did, and so would face her behavior. One we kids were adults, he wouldn't be facing us daily, 24/7.

He knew we would be fine in the sense that we would not resort to BPD behaviors. I don't know if he was aware of the effect of this situation on us, or just couldn't face that, or just felt he was choosing between two very difficult outcomes.

Janeth, as much as this upsets you, unless you have lived with someone like your brother's wife, it's hard to put yourself in his shoes. I don't think he's choosing so much to hurt his family as to survive in the situation he's in.

[Enabler]

Jareth,

I would be inclined to see this as like trying to turn an oil tanker around. It (your brothers relationship with his wife) has a lot of momentum, very heavy with baggage and safeguards... if you stand in front of it with your intervention I can see the likely outcome as you being run over by the oil tanker having little to no impact on the direction of travel. It strikes me that at some point in the future he could be in a position where he's receptive to what you have to say... but you will likely have little to no influence on that happening given your current tack of tackling this head on.

Given what has been said here, could you tell me what your brother would appreciate, what he needs and how you could support him? Putting your own needs and desires (to have a close relationship with your brother back)  aside, what does that look like?

FWIW I have had some very ineffective and effective experiences of what could be called interventions in my own circumstance (on the boards here and off with friends and family).

Enabler