Feeling confused about my parents' relationship to me.

[Notwendy]

Lnl- I realized my parents were a single unit too. I didn't think so but then realized they shared an email address- which meant they both read each other's email- so anything I emailed to my father was sent to my mother as well. They still kept the old style telephone at home and if I called my father, BPD mother listened in on the extension. There were times I called, and he'd pick up, hear her pick up a second later, and then he'd get off the phone quickly, presumably he wasn't supposed to talk or he was concerned I'd say something to upset her? I knew she was listening though.

What's interesting is that now when she says somethings, she sounds just like him. So was he sounding like her or vice versa? There's no way to know.

[Riv3rW0lf]

My parents were separated and hated each other. They didn't love each other. Your parents were a single unit, but not a safe, loving one. A single unit filled of resentment, fear, obligation, guilt, shame and abuse. There is no way our fathers were emotionnally safe, even for us, because an emotionnally safe person would not remain with a person with BPD (at the level of our mothers that is, a person with strong BPD traits, not interested in therapy or improving themselves), they would seek another way to go over time. Someone can become emotionally safe over time, but I reckon this was not our fathers' case.

My stepmother told me recently that one of the safest thing for her growing up turned out to be how her parents loved each other, how supportive they were of one another. It gave her the possibility to explore, to be herself, to be free and independent, knowing they were taken care of each other, and of her.

Whether our parents were separated or together, I don't think any of us experienced that safety of having parents who love each other, and treat themselves how they should be treated. And I think we underestimate the importance this has to provide a safe nest for our children.

I think all family has some level of dysfunction, there is simply no perfect family. But respect and love within a married couple can mitigate the effect that trauma or hardship will have on children, because it set out a healthy standard of what partnership looks like, of what self growth within a mariage looks like.

I remember the light I felt when I looked at my great aunt and uncle. They weren't perfect but I remember, as a young child, looking at them and knowing this is what love was, and I instinctively knew I wanted that for myself. Now I understand it was always a choice they made, every single day, to love one another, to support one another. Them against the world.

A choice that our BPD mothers are incapable of making. And one that our fathers were also unable to achieve, because of others reason that we may never know about.

[zachira]

Notwendy,
It seems the older we get the more we begin to remember and see dysfunctional behaviors of our parents. I look upon being more aware of all the family dysfunctional behaviors as becoming more self aware. Your being more self aware has allowed you to protect your children from your mother and allowed you to go lower contact with your mother. What does understanding that your parents were a single unit, sharing one email now mean to you and what does that change for you if anything? Are you grieving also the loss of the father you never really had? I adored my father, who has been deceased for many years yet as time goes on, I am starting to see more of his faults and how he enabled my mother, put my sister on a pedestal making her the golden child, made my brother the scapegoat, and how he put me down and anybody else who was not as brilliant intellectually as he was. My father did many nice things with me after my uncle's wife talked to him about how unfairly he treated me. Was there ever any change in your father's behaviors for the better, or did it get worse, of just stay the same?

[Notwendy]

Was there ever any change in your father's behaviors for the better, or did it get worse, of just stay the same?

It changed over time. I think he got drawn into the hurricane. Eventually his personality changed over time as he seemed more enmeshed. There were times when I was younger that he appeared more invested as a Dad, yet he still enabled BPD mother and turned the other way on her abusive behavior. So yes, on one hand I think he loved me and also wonder if it was just one big lie, an illusion that she was the cause of the issues but in reality, he went along with it.

I do have good memories of our time together. I think as Methuen said- he had his moments. But BPD mother has no affection for me, and this eventually took precedence as he reflected that too. Even my H noticed he didn't treat me well, even though I adored him. But for me, love, fear, and abuse were all bundled together.

[zachira]

"For me, love, fear, and abuse were all bundled together."

My challenge: It is not a loving relationship if there is abuse involved. Pedaphiles, narcissists, borderlines, and other dysfunctional types are some of the most charming people around and use love bombing as a primary strategy to enable their abuse of others.

It is so hard and confusing when we have grown up in homes in which love and abuse are bundled together. To be healthy ourselves, we have got to set the boundary that abuse is abuse and not love. It is really painful to look at relationships with our parents and realize that we were abused and did not have unconditional love even though at times they did things for us that felt like they generally loved us in the moment. Was your father able to seem to be more loving when your mother was not around or when he was around people he wanted to impress upon that he was a great father?

[Notwendy]

Was your father able to seem to be more loving when your mother was not around



He was a different person when she was not around. My best times with him were when she wasn't around. He was relaxed and funny. With her, tense and controlled.

or when he was around people he wanted to impress upon that he was a great father?

Not at all. He didn't do it for show. I don't think he cared if people thought he was a great father. The #1 mission for the family was to present my mother as great. The rest of us were lowly serfs.

Outside the family he was accomplished in his career and got recognition for that. He didn't seem concerned about being recognized for his role in the family. I think his motivation for taking care of us was more that he believed it was the right thing to do, not for recognition.

[zachira]

It seems your father had to hide his love for his children from your mother because she would feel abandonned if she saw him being too loving with his children. Many dysfunctional marriages really fall apart when the children are born because one or both spouses cannot accept that they are now number two, that a parent generally loves his/her children more than they love the spouse, and that being a parent is supposed to be a permanent loving relationship whereas marriages end at some point either through death, estrangement, or divorce.

[livednlearned]

Do you see patterns, either ones your observed or that he shared with you, about his own family of origin?

My father's mother had BPD hermit/waif traits. I can map almost exactly how his views of women and family were shaped.

I wonder if your dad felt he was performing the regular duties of his given role, to mollify a difficult mother at all costs.

[Notwendy]

I see narcissism in my mother's family. My father's seemed pretty normal.

I think he was naive. He didn't grow up wealthy- they had limited means. BPD mother grew up privileged. The only thing I have heard from her relatives is that "she always got her way".

She was also extremely attractive.

Dad succeeded with his intelligence and hard work, got a high paying job, he was a good catch. BPD mother knows how to be charming. He was smitten and probably naive. She expected a certain lifestyle and he assumed this is what he had to provide for someone from her background.

But a young couple has a lot more disposable income than a family with kids when the earnings are the same. By my teen years, Dad had taken out loans to maintain their spending level and his stress was evident.

I don't think BPD mother ever loved him. I see pictures of them on their honeymoon. He looks smitten. She is gorgeous but she has that look in her eyes. We all know it. Steely eyes.