Don't know how to help fiancé with BPD young adult daughter

[old97]

Hello all

I am a mid-50s guy, divorced about 12 years ago. I have two kids in their 20s, both of whom have some medical challenges, but fortunately no significant emotional ones.

I have been together with my new partner ("Sue" for purposes of this post) for 10 years. Her daughter ("Jane") is in her early 20s and we suspect Jane is suffering from BPD.

Sue and I live separately, just a few miles from each other. Our relationship is, by far, the best I have ever experienced. We have talked about marriage for several years, but agreed to wait until the kids were out of out of high school before taking the step. I gave her an engagement ring a year and a half ago to signify my commitment.

When I met her 10 years ago, Jane (an only child) was an outgoing kid with a ton of friends, an interest in art and music, and a good student. Over time, Jane has evolved into an angry, fragile recluse with practically no social life, no direction, and bare-minimum responsibility for herself. She graduated high school a few years ago (but it was a struggle), has attended a few classes at the local community college but hasn't been enrolled in anything for over a year, and hasn't had a job since Oct.

About 4 years ago, Jane threatened suicide to one of her friends convincingly enough that the friend called the police. This resulted in Jane being institutionalized against her will for about a week. While Jane now frequently talks about wanting to die, she hasn't made any attempts or threatened suicide in a serious way.

What Jane does, periodically and more frequently in the past six months, is fly into fits of rage. Most of the fits are directed at Sue, but I have been on the receiving end and so have members of her now-alienated extended family and a number of her former friends. These rages are very similar to what I have read in other posts here - blame for her situation directed at her mother (as well as anyone else involved), anger at others for not recognizing her unspecified needs, imagined slights, hysteria about perceived abandonment, refusal to recognize the selfishness of her behavior, etc.

Jane has been on and off medications, she's now off and has been for 6-8 months. She has been seeing a psychologist for the past 2 years or so, but doesn't talk to Sue about the therapy, and her behavior has got significantly worse over that period.

Over the past couple of years, I have spent less and less time at Sue and Jane's house. For the past 6 months, Jane has claimed to be "triggered" by me and I have spent practically no time in her presence.

If I sound angry, it's because I am. Sue and I had hoped to be married last Sept - it has been put off to sometime in the to-be-determined future. At present, Sue and I see each other maybe twice a week, as she is not comfortable leaving Jane alone any more than that (I should note that Sue has been working from home since March, so it's 24X7 with Jane except for the once or twice a week she comes to my place to escape). Sue is exhausted and stressed out - I worry for her health.

With help from a therapist I'm seeing, I have come to recognize that Jane's behavior is not by choice. I am less angry than I was. But I remain frustrated with my inability to help.

I have made the commitment to be in this relationship. I am with Sue 100%. But I don't know how to support her. I want to help make the situation better. My motivation is probably more selfish than anything - I want to marry Sue and be able to live with her. But I also want Sue to be happy, which means Jane has to be part of our life. I want us to be a family, along with my 2 kids. I have no idea how we get from here to there.

Apologies for the length of this post. I've edited and re-edited and tried to be as brief as possible. But this has been the sole source of friction in my relationship with Sue for a long time, and it's getting worse instead of better.

Thoughts, questions, suggestions? I have taken a great deal of comfort reading other posts and replies on this board, and look forward to engaging with the group.

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

[PearlsBefore]

I wish I had some magical advice here, but I don't - it's a tough situation definitely. Likely one of the triggers for Jane's behavior is her fear of abandonment, she acts out and wants to accuse you (be careful of that btw, false allegations of sexual assault are sky-high) and alienate you because she's worried she'll lose her mother's love and maybe the roof over her head, etc.

If you two were onboard, you could try countering that by having Sue make a couple of references over the next six weeks to "Bob said he wanted to take the two of us to the park for a picnic" or "Bob was wondering what your favourite flavor of cake/candy/icecream is?", etc...reassuring her that a marriage would DOUBLE the amount of care and attention she'd get, not lessen it.

[old97]

Hi Pearls. Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the insight.

Thanks for the advice - I haven't been alone with Jane in years and will be careful about that in the future. I have long thought that I've been viewed as a threat.

Sue and I have been together long enough, and our relationship is fundamentally strong enough that the status quo is acceptable, at least for a while. I struggle with how best to support Sue, how I can be helpful and not a cause of further stress. Any thoughts you (or anyone on this board) have about how you would like a significant other to engage with you or your pwBPD would be very much appreciated!