Loving our niece and nephew

[Spindle0516]

The more that I learn about BPD, the more I can see how mental illness and disordered thinking has affected most of my husband's FOO.

Husband's FOO:

Dad: was an alcoholic and severely abusive to his mom. Sober for about 10 years now.

Mom: uBPD, PTSD, anxiety, depression

(Mom and dad are now divorced and his dad has become a very stable and reliable person in his life)

Older Sister: DBPD, Bipolar, and possible schizophrenia. Crack addict for years and disappeared for a large chunk of H's childhood. Even though she is 41, she still seems to have the mental capacity of someone in her teens. Clean for about 5 years.

Maternal Grandmother: Legitimate hoarder, and I think uBPD (At the very least, significant BPD tendencies) Story goes that hoarding behavior began after she lost her home and everything in it to a fire. Prior to that, she was and is an enabler of abuse to my MIL.

Maternal Grandfather: Nothing I can pinpoint, but he was severely abusive to my MIL. Definitely has some anger issues and continues to be particularly cruel to my MIL.

Niece/ "younger sister": Her mom disappeared when she was young due to the crack addiction.Was raised by MIL's parents in early childhood and then moved to my MIL's for her teen years.  Believe that she is uBPD or has severe tenancies due to how she was raised. She and my husband are only a few years apart and was raised more as siblings than niece/uncle. Her partner is emotionally abusive and I think has the potential to be physically abusive. She has a 2 1/2 year old daughter, and 6 month old son.

How my husband and his brother escaped the clutches of this is beyond me. While they both struggle with anxiety and depression, they are very level headed and have placed appropriate distance between themselves and their FOO. They both live in the NYC area while the rest of the family live near each other in FL.

Anyway, my question is really in regard to my husband's young niece and nephew. They are being raised by 2 unhealthy parents and they are surrounded by people who are unwell. My husband's FOO all use the 2 kids as pawns to manipulate each other. His niece is already the GC and I worry about how this will affect his nephew as he grows up. They all say such wonderful things about the niece and then go on and on about how the nephew is a "crybaby," and how he isn't as good looking as his sister. I know they are too young to notice, but I don't think this will change.

We live in the NYC area, so we are not physically close to them, but we do visit 2-3 times a year. My husband has placed appropriate boundaries with his FOO, but we both adore those kids. We have both struggled with how to be there for them without engaging in the chaos that comes with interacting too closely with his FOO. They are surrounded by people who are not well and we are hoping to be examples of life apart from the chaos. I am struggling with words right now and do not know how to articulate what I want to say. Basically, we just want them to know that we love them and we are there for them. We hope to be a haven if or when their FOO becomes people who aren't safe or loving or supportive. We wish we could prevent them from falling victim to the same abusive cycles as the rest of them and that we could prevent them from developing the same disorders as the rest of them. We cannot save them from their FOO, but we desperately wish we could protect them from what they will definitely experience due to the BPD"s they will grow up around.

Am I making sense? Does anyone have experience with this or has anyone struggle with something along these lines? Any ideas on how to navigate this?

[zachira]

Your concerns for your niece and nephew really touched my heart. I was raised in a highly disfunctional family with a BPD mother, two BPD siblings, and many other first degree relatives with mental illness. You really can't predict what the outcome will be for your niece and nephew as so many factors play a part in what kind of person we become. My maternal aunt, a paternal aunt and uncle, who were scapegoats in their families, were very kind to me as were many other people, and these people made big differences in my life. I think I would have probably committed suicide without all these people looking out for me, as I was mercilessly targeted (and still am) as a scapegoat by both the immediate and extended family. I have so many memories of people reaching out to me and being kind for just a few minutes; sometimes when I was being abused, it was just a distressed look on the face of a caring stranger, that made me see myself as a person worthy of love. Although you do not live close by, you cannot underestimate the positive impact you can have showing your niece and nephew that you care and love them. You may have some mixed reactions from your niece and nephew due to pressure from their parents to dislike you. I am not exagerrating one bit when I say I listened to hundred of hours of my parents badmouthing their scapegoated siblings. I mostly was not taken in by the badmouthing though at times I was.
I have a niece and nephew who were raised in a highly dysfunctional home. My niece was raised to be a narcissist, told it did not matter how she acted or treated people because she was smarter than other people. When she was young, she was disliked by both her peers and adults. She went through many years of heartbreak, yet she learned and now talks about how her parents raised her did not do her any favors in life, and she has genuinely become a fine human being, light years ahead of her parents. Her brother seems to be finding his way, though he has inherited some of his parents' issues so I don't think life will ever be easy.
So I think what really counts here is you do the best you can, and know that a little means a lot to children who are raised in dysfunctional homes. Hopefully, the children have the ability for self awareness. I think self awareness is the key to whether a person deals effectively with the challenges in life that come their way. These children are certainly different people from their parents, and it is important to validate their feelings and unique talents. Part of being raised in a dysfunctional home, is the parents do not see their children as separate people from themselves, and the children are not allowed to become people in their own right.
The scapegoating continues in the younger generations in my family. I try to speak up and help in any way I can when I see a family member being abused.
You are not alone in your concerns. It is people like you that can make life long differences in the lives of abused children.

[Spindle0516]

Thank you, Zachira. I feel like you and I have touched on this topic in other threads and it is something I think about a lot.

Thankfully, my husband and his siblings are cordial, so they haven't discouraged us from having a relationship with the kids. I guess we are LC with them. Communication is usually photos of the kids or minimal joking around with a visit 2-3 times a year when we go down to visit  FIL. (My MIL is moving back into her house and they are currently living in it. She told them they need to be out by 4/1, so I am not sure if that will change.)

We are aware of how cyclical and generational his family's tolerance for abuse is, and while most of them have been victims of it early in life, they all have been perpetrators of it later in life as well. We just want to do what we can to protect them. I especially want our niece to know that she doesn't have to tolerate what she is witnessing in relationships when she gets older. I don't want her to think that it is normal or acceptable. Unfortunately, her mom thinks that a family living together, even if everyone is unhappy and mistreating each other, is what a "happy" household looks like. She never had consistency or stable parents as a kid, so her philosophy makes sense, even if it is destructive.

My MIL does not see how she is mistreating them either. She clearly favors our niece and says less than kind things about our nephew. I pointed this out to her once and she was completely bewildered. She said, "You don't understand. When I first met "niece" I fell in love with her immediately. I won't feel the same way about anyone else." It just seems like a strange thing to say in regard to your grandchildren, no?

[gotbushels]

Spindle0516    

Thanks for sharing.

Am I making sense? Does anyone have experience with this or has anyone struggle with something along these lines? Any ideas on how to navigate this?

I have 3 siblings.

Sibling #1: Married, 2 children. I'm on civilised terms with him. We don't catch up because we're both very busy.

Sibling #2: Divorced, 2 children from first marriage (M and F within 15–20yo). I'm on civilised terms with her.

Sibling #3: I don't know what marital status, at least 1 child. I'm basically NC with him.

My husband's FOO all use the 2 kids as pawns to manipulate each other.

I know what this is like. I've had FOO members use children to cajole resource-holders to give them benefits; implicitly and explicitly.


I'll speak about my relationship with Sibling #2's 2 children (M and F within 15–20yo) from her first marriage.

Basically, we just want them to know that we love them and we are there for them.

I told both of them explicitly (almost every time I meet them) that they can approach me in person and by text; with issue or without issues.

We hope to be a haven if or when their FOO becomes people who aren't safe or loving or supportive.

My take on this is that I hope to be there for them when they have issues they struggle with. I told them both quite recently that if they think their families aren't normal, that I basically understand that and we can discuss it if they want to.

We wish we could prevent them from falling victim to the same abusive cycles as the rest of them and that we could prevent them from developing the same disorders as the rest of them.

I wish I could prevent them becoming like the disordered members around them. I look at this based on the blessings that God's given to them, rather than my role. I can only do X things to help them not have a fragmented self. I'm also limited in that I'm an uncle-figure, not a father to them.

We cannot save them from their FOO, but we desperately wish we could protect them from what they will definitely experience due to the BPD"s they will grow up around.

I wish I could protect them too. Again, this is very much based on what opportunities they have for themselves.



I look at it like this. If I have to pick a child to spend time with beyond my daily responsibilities, the "picking" order is my children, then everyone else's. If I don't have time to help X's child with their boyfriend/girlfriend/school issues, then that's just how it is.

From age 0 to about 11 are the child's main brain-formation years (along with nervous/limbic systems). It's not my job to save every child with the limited resources I have, although of course I have a desire to.

The job I've taken is consistent with the board one (for detaching); know your values, act by them, it's not your job to change others, though you can influence them accordingly, it's still their choice to act. So what this means is that I make myself available to them and let them know they can approach me if they want the help. In my view, this allows them to use their self-capacity of self-activation to pursue a resource that they think can help them. Even when that happens, I take quite a deliberate approach to coaching them (I've held an indentured faculty role at college). When they have issues in their lives, they've contacted me. Almost always so far, the issues have just been quite normal griping about school and relationships. And even though I've tried to help them understand I'm here for them for maybe 8y+ now, they only started approaching me in late teens.

So I've let them know how they can use me, but the executive functioning of their own lives is up to them and God.

Faith is a quite a bit part of a my life now, so I strongly support their walk as Christians, so I try to be more proactive in that space.


If anyone has any input / feedback on how they're dealing with nieces / nephews, me too, I'm interested in hearing your sharing.