How do I protect my young child?

[AboveWaterToday]

Wife has BPD as diagnosed by our marital therapist.  Wife thought for a long time that it was I who needed fixing. Wife then got angry at therapist and refused to see her anymore. Married 17 years and BPD has only been an issue in the past 5 years. Walking on Eggshells book describes her almost perfectly.

We have one daughter, 7yo.  She is in chronically stressful environment with wife raging at her every couple of days  Daughter breaks down easily to intense criticism.  Wife is primary care giver and so daughter is in weird conflicted state often where she is frustrated at mom and but doesn't know how to self-soothe w/o mom. Afterward daughter doesn't really like to talk about negative emotions with me but I know it is killing her. Daughter and I have excellent relationship otherwise and we love spending time together playing and exploring stuff.  I have relatively thick skin toward wife's raging but am not sure what best next steps to protect daughter are.  I am thinking therapy for daughter? How can she learn the skills to cope with BPD mother while mother is in denial? Thank you thank you thank you.

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[once removed]

hi AboveWaterToday, and

this isnt an uncommon scenario in marriage therapy, unfortunately.

I have relatively thick skin toward wife's raging but am not sure what best next steps to protect daughter are.  I am thinking therapy for daughter? How can she learn the skills to cope with BPD mother while mother is in denial?

very broadly speaking, there are two separate approaches:

1. protecting your daughter
2. working to get on the same page with your wife, in terms of parenting.

it will help for us to know more.

what started happening five years ago, and what led to marriage therapy?

can you tell us more about your wife raging and criticizing your daughter? how do you respond?

[Harri]

Hi and welcome!  I want to join once removed in saying hi, I'm glad you found us.  Lot's of parents are here with the same questions as you regarding your child.  Same with the issues in your marriage so you definitely are not alone.

More details about how your wife talks with your daughter will help us help you.   I am the an adult daughter of a mentally ill mother (undiagnosed BPD traits and possible schizophrenia) just to give you an idea of where I am coming from.

One of the best things you can do as a healthy parent is to validate your daughter.  Validate her feelings, let her know it is okay to be upset, or confused and be a safe person she can go to to talk.  Listening and encouraging her to talk about her feelings and to even try to come up with some solutions for how she can self soothe will do a world of good for her and allow her to build resiliency.  Some kids are more resilient than others but they all can use help.  Part of that will come from you validating her.   When she is upset what do you say to her?

Share more when you can.  We get it here.

[Ozling]

Hello, 
I hope AboveWaterToday does return to this thread soon.  I have very similar issues.  I am also new to BPDfamily. 

My daughter just turned 6 (I think I've seen that written as D6 - is that right?).  Her father has many BPD symptoms and also seems to have attachment trauma issues and his therapist has mentioned PTSD.  He has "episodes" (as I call them) of varying degrees which range from being irritable and/or withdrawn to raging, verbally/emotionally abusive, sobbing, having panic-like attacks, etc. 

He has never been physically abusive to either of us.  The most dramatic it has gotten physically is when he punched a hole in the wall a couple months ago.  That was the only time that he's done that (so far). 

He has insight into his "condition" to a large extent and is working with a therapist and has very recently agreed to work with a psychiatrist on finding a medication. 

My biggest concern right now is protecting my daughter through this whole process.  He speaks harshly to her, sends her the message that she should "cut it out" when expressing emotions, tells her to stop crying, has said "I don't care" when she has told him that he has hurt her feelings or something similar.  (Like, "that's not fair" = I don't care, "You made me sad/cry" = I don't care, etc.)

Also, as a role model I am not proud at all.  She sees me placate him, basically hide from him, never call him out on his verbal abuse (at least not in the midst of an "episode" as it would only escalate things).  She will see that I have been crying and doesn't even bother to ask me about it any more.  I think I used to say that nothing was wrong or something to that effect in the past but now I can't even remember those days.  Very very often his anger at one of us turns into anger at both of us. 

I am afraid that she will learn to repress her emotions, develop unhealthy outlets.  She already won't talk to either of us about how she's feeling.  She will literally say, "I don't want to tell you." 

As it seems is common he also has an extremely sweet and loving side as well and can be very kind and supportive but can quickly turn from that to the opposite sometimes without much warning. 

There is a conflict for me because I want to be supportive to her but cannot appear to contradict him. 

I do not want to divorce.  Sometimes I ask myself if divorce would be better for her but then I think that of the times that she would be alone with him on a regular basis and that makes me think no.  Currently they are very rarely alone together without me around. 

Any guidance that anyone has for AboveWaterToday I will gladly horn in on if s/he doesn't mind!  It is really nice to hear that I am not the only one with this concern (I knew I couldn't be but hearing a specific story feels much more real).  Thank you for sharing and thank you for listening/reading. 

Ozling

[AboveWaterToday]

Hi all - thank you for the warm welcome and now the very belated response from me. It has been an insane 2020...

Wife mentions she was holding it all in for the first 2 years after our daughter was born (during that time she was a pretty good mother I thought).  But then she couldn't hold back her frustration anymore.  She was frustrated at her perceived lack of support system since child birth, and esp. from me.  We don't have any family members nearby to help.  She has a strong tendency to say "If you don't like my way, then don't live with me" to both me and her daughter, for even the smallest issues.  It is really surprising but does match descriptions of behaviors in Eggshells book.