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Author Topic: Maintaining a relationship w/ Dad and stepmom with BPD  (Read 289 times)
yellowballoon
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« on: March 16, 2023, 05:34:45 PM »

Hello everyone,
I need some advice to help me navigate and maintain a relationship with my dad. His wife of 8 years has BPD and my father enables her and I feel that often he endorses and encourages some of her negative behaviors.

I am 27F, diagnosed with autism/ADHD and I deal with severe anxiety myself. My mother passed away from cancer when I was 10 so it was just me and my dad for a long time as I have no siblings. We've always been very close and had an amazing relationship. However, he's had a history of dating women who emotionally/verbally abuse me and make me feel unsafe. Unfortunately, he's never stood up for me and will often watch as this happens. He would even put me down in front of others to make his girlfriend/wife feel better. Calling me stupid, weird, yelling at me to act normal, making me feel that he's embarrassed of me. I'm very quiet, shy and kind to others by nature so I've never been the type to fight back. I've had my moments because I'm human, but I never do anything with the intention of hurting someone or causing conflict.

The relationship that my dad's wife has with me was difficult from the beginning. She would get into fights with my dad when he would spend time with me or talk about me. She would then call me to vent about how horrible I am and how I always get in the way, while simultaneously crying and asking me to talk to my dad for her. And I would do this... vouch for her, ask for second chances for her, try to figure out what I was doing wrong so that I wouldn't ruin their relationship. I genuinely thought it was my fault that their relationship wasn't working. I've been out of the house since I was 18, aside from around 3 months that I lived with them at 19. She made my life a living hell, and when I moved out, she was mad at me because I left her. She would send extremely personal and hurtful texts to me out of nowhere on a weekly basis. I would be at work when I received these and would start to uncontrollably cry because I thought we were doing ok, then boom, I'm the cause of all things bad in this world according to her.

I've always gone out of my way to tell her I will not abandon her, I'm here for her and she is family. I guess I did this for my dad but also because I naturally love people and want them to feel accepted and loved by me. Then she physically attacked my dad. I happened to be at the house during this incident. She attacked him, covered him in scratches and bruises, then ran to me crying and hiding from my dad. He threatened to call the cops and I physically put myself between the two because I had no idea what happened. He never has/never would lay a hand on her, but I still felt that I needed to protect her. I drove her to a safe place until my dad calmed down. Somehow, they stayed together but the patterns of emotional/verbal abuse towards me remained for all these years. And always, I was the person she would go to when she needed something.

I've tried everything with her, but I have come to terms with the fact that we simply cannot have a meaningful relationship. I'm always kind and polite towards her, even though it is not reciprocated. She will act like my best friend when she wants something from me, but treat me like I am garbage any other time.  Throughout all of this, my dad has defended her actions, twisted situations to make me feel like the bad guy, even when all other witnesses support me, and stands by while she attacks not only me but my boyfriend of 7 years, my family and my grandma (dad's mom).

All times I've tried to talk to my dad about this, he's essentially told me to let her abuse me because if I tried to stop it or stand up for myself, she would get more angry and make his home life worse. I feel like to him I am not worth the trouble and I am this burden that makes his life worse by being a part of it. It's easier for him to allow this to continue as long as his home life stays peaceful.  My self worth and confidence has been completely shattered over the years and what hurts the most is the relationship I now have with my dad. I have been going to therapy, talking to family members who've witnessed these things happen and trying to work on myself to build back my self-worth. I still fall into this spiral of feeling like I am worthless and the only way to have a relationship with my dad is to keep going through this. He is my only parent and I am not willing to give up our relationship.

I need help and advice on how I can deal with this in a healthy way. I've emotionally separated myself from his wife, but I still see them/interact with them often. She won't even make eye contact with me or acknowledge me when I say hello to her. My dad is a totally different person when she is around. When it's just him and I, we can talk and enjoy each other's company. The problem too is he isn't willing to go anywhere without her because she will text him excessively and I'm wondering if she's making him feel guilty for being away from her. I bought a house and have been living here for 2 years. He's been over a handful of times, and it's always for extremely short visits. Never more than 10-15 minutes.

What can I do? I'm so exhausted and frustrated but I love and miss my dad. I also feel a lot of guilt for distancing myself from the wife because she does have BPD. My dad reminds me of this every time I try to talk to him. "It's not her fault because she has BPD." Am I giving up on her when I should be trying harder to support her? I don't think so at this point in my life, but I still feel guilty. I need to know if I am just not productive in the way I interact with her. I'm fully sympathetic to the struggle a person with BPD goes through daily, but I think there must be a point where I can say, this is the line and it's ok that I'm separating.

Thank you to anyone who reads this. I'm sorry if it's too long for the forum, but I appreciate having a space to get this out. It's good to know I'm not totally alone in this experience. If anyone has questions or needs further clarification, let me know. Thanks again.


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Notwendy
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« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2023, 05:51:10 AM »

Welcome to this board. My first thought when reading your post is that, in this family unit, you sound like the most adult of them all. However, you are the young adult child, not the adult in this family and the relationship between your father and his wife is not your responsibility- yet they have involved you in this.

This situation is not unusual in families where there is at least one disordered person, and I say "at least" because, while the step mom has BPD, your father is connected to her. This was a new concept for me too. My mother has BPD and I perceived my father as the "normal" one and the victim of her behavior. Yet, he also enabled her behavior, tolerated it and remained passive about it, even if it involved her children. This was hard to reconcile. My mother is very affected by BPD, and my father was the one who acted like a parent to me, so I perceived him as my only parent and felt we had a close relationship, yet, he'd push that relationship aside if it gained favor with my mother.

This is confusing. How do we reconcile that the most reliable parent we have isn't reliable? Do we have to tolerate the behavior of a disordered parent in order to be loved? As children we may have gotten that message. So while I will say that your father's behavior isn't OK, I will also say there's probably a reason for it and a reason why he's chosen to be in a relationship with his wife. That reason isn't you. Your father's got his own dysfunction and role in this.

It's a difficult decision to step away from this situation. I understand that you love your father. I loved my father too (he is deceased) but he's made his choice and it doesn't have to be yours. You are 27, and you can decide to distance yourself from this dynamic. I was faced with this choice for a different reason. My own children were becoming old enough to be enlisted as emotional caretakers for my BPD mother and there was no way I'd allow this to happen, so I began to have boundaries. Consider your role in your family. In a way, they benefit by your efforts to help them and your father has even admitted that his situation is better when you are the target of your step mother's abuse.  Why he does it is due to his own issues but these two seem to benefit from how they treat you and so they don't have an incentive to change this. You are the one who will have to step up to protect yourself.

To feel we have to choose between our own emotional well being, or that of our children, and pleasing our parents,  is not something we want, and it would not be this situation with an emotionally healthy parent because emotionally healthy parents have the best interest of their children in mind. Your father has his own issues with his wife and can't step up to do this for you. You will need to do this and it isn't easy but for your own emotional well being, you can do this. You can still love your father. If he makes his relationship with you contingent on serving his wife's needs, that's his choice, based on his own emotional issues. You can be the one to stay in contact, with enough emotional distance for you to feel safe.
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Methuen
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« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2023, 11:43:52 AM »

Hi Yellowballoon Welcome new member (click to insert in post)  Welcome!

I'm so sorry for what you are experiencing here.  There is a lot to unpack in your story.  It's great you have a T, and supportive family, and bf.  You also clearly have a reasoned analytical head on your shoulders, and as an adult you can see the issues now in ways that you couldn't see as a child or teenager.  It is fantastic that the veil has lifted and you are seeing the issues.  What you are hoping for now is to figure out how to navigate and stick handle your way through this in a way that you can remain whole and emotionally healthy. Am I close to having that right?

First of all, congratulations for your clarity and seeking support.  I didn't get to where you are until my fifties.  So I have a lot of admiration for you.
Excerpt
What can I do? I'm so exhausted and frustrated but I love and miss my dad. I also feel a lot of guilt for distancing myself from the wife because she does have BPD. My dad reminds me of this every time I try to talk to him. "It's not her fault because she has BPD." Am I giving up on her when I should be trying harder to support her? I don't think so at this point in my life, but I still feel guilty. I need to know if I am just not productive in the way I interact with her. I'm fully sympathetic to the struggle a person with BPD goes through daily, but I think there must be a point where I can say, this is the line and it's ok that I'm separating.
We get it that you love and miss your dad. Of course you do, he's your dad, and the loss of your mom made him even more important.  No, it's not step-mother's fault she has BPD, but regardless of what circumstances contributed to that, she is accountable for her actions as an adult.  Yes, you absolutely should draw a line in the sand, and separate yourself for your own emotional safety and well-being when that line is crossed.

My 87 yr old mom is uBPD (waif type).  I am almost 61.  My father died about 18 years ago. I now hold him in hero status but when he was alive, I didn't know how much he must have put up with. I believe he protected me from that.  My childhood with my mom was marked with unpredictability, and turmoil.  I have major trust issues.  I spent a lot of time in the trees behind my home.  That's where I went when I needed respite from her.  I too was an only child. Dad supported my mom, but I really can't say if he enabled her.  He was a work-a-holic so he wasn't always around.  It  may have been his escape.  But I do have many memories of him saying things like "why does there always have to be a crisis?"  "Why do you always have to twist things?"  "That's enough Jane!" (not her real name) in an authoritative voice (which wasn't at all normal for him). He was a kind person and very patient, and did hold her to account to some degree when she crossed a line.  She held a knife up to him just after they were married, and he told her if she ever did that again the marriage was over.   She was smart enough to not cross that line again.  He was a man of his word.

Fast forward to today, and the only way I can safely function in the same town as my mom is to hold a hard boundary for space.  By this I mean that I came out of retirement and went back to work to avoid her making me her personal caretaker for all her needs including meals, bathing, house cleaning, emotional punching bag, you name it.  If I said I couldn't do something, then she would say "You don't love me!" It didn't matter how much I did, it was never enough.  She's very weak and started falling.  After her first fall, I was there 3-5 hours a day trying to support all her needs.  That was WAYYYYYYYY too close.  I was a wreck.

It was a process for me to stop justifying myself, stop explaining, stop arguing how unreasonable she was, and stop defending myself.  The more I defended myself, the more she attacked.

When I came out of retirement and went back to work, she went nuclear.

That was 14 months ago, and I can tell you that taking care of myself by ensuring I have space from her was essential.  Today, my relationship with her feels superficial.  She has replaced all the tasks (physical and emotional) I used to do, with friends and paid workers.  I let her figure it out, because any suggestions I would have had would have boomeranged back in my face in an emotionally harmful way.  I see her once every week or two, usually in the company of my H or D26.  My H buys her groceries every Wednesday, and takes her to Dr appointments. Above and beyond that, she has found other caretakers. She texts and I choose which texts to answer; the others I ignore.  Last weekend I surprised her by picking up two ice cream cones for the visit.  This put her instantly in a good mood, and I got her going on an activity, and then left after an hour.  It's like when the dentist gives the child a prize for the visit to the dentist.  My mom has adjusted to me working again.  Trust me, they are very capable of finding ways to adapt to "have their needs met" by other people.  They use manipulation, and charm, and all kinds of tools.  She is really a child in an adult's body, and she has found numerous people who "feel good" by helping her.

I had to stop wishing my mother could be the mother I so desperately wanted.  I wanted someone who would love me unconditionally for being me.  I just couldn't believe this wasn't my mother, because sometimes she was ok, or even better than ok. The problem was the unpredictability and her sudden rages.  I couldn't accept that she was someone who would only love me if I "supplied all of her needs".  In the case of your dad, he is not only enabling his wife, but also using you in a way that is harmful to you, but makes his life easier at home with his wife.  This is not ok.  And yes, you should have a line in the sand.  And until you do, nothing is going to change or get better.  She uses you to dump all her negative emotion on so she can feel better, and he uses you so she has less negative emotion to dump on him.  He is probably afraid of her.  I was terrified of my mom.  That she physically attacked your dad is another whole level of escalation.  Getting in between them, and taking her to a "safe place" when he threatened to call the police also enabled her.  But in the moment, you did what you thought was right.  Now you can see the dysfunction.  Trust me when I say you can never fix those dynamics, any more than you can stop the tides from changing, or the rotation of the earth.  This is a job for a psychiatrist, and they will tell you that BPD is hard to treat.  The pwBPD often stops attending, and will likely blame the psychiatrist.

It is not your job to "rescue" either of them from their emotions or fear or anything else.  They are adults, and need to figure this out in their own way.  They are enmeshed, and each getting something from the relationship, even though you may not be clear what it is.  If your dad wasn't getting something from it, he would leave.  You also mentioned he has a history of being attracted to women who don't treat you well.  The only thing that is going to help you here, is using the principle of natural consequences. You can't help or rescue them from their enmeshment.

You already know all this, but still when I was at the point where I landed on this forum, I knew something was very very wrong, but hearing it from others still helped me because it was validating.  pwBPD keep telling us we are the selfish ones, "what's wrong with us?", "why are we have to hurt their feelings all the time?"  The gaslighting was awful.

So when I finally accepted that was who my mom was, and she wasn't going to change, and I accepted it was me who was going to have to change, that was the turning point.  Then, I had to figure out how to do that.  For me, returning to work out of retirement was one way, because that was somehow socially acceptable, since I wasn't available.  I live in a small town where everybody knows everybody.  I grew up in this town, so people who know her also know me.  My career was in this town, and I had a good reputation, so that helped me a lot.  But like you, I still felt intense "guilt" for not being able to "supply" my mom's "needs". The guilt is the kicker. Society sees an elderly person, weak and vulnerable, and expects family to step up.  My mom has refused to even consider viewing an assisted living facility, and cancels the home care I arrange for her after she starts to recover from one of her falls. I feel the judgement of society intensely.  But I let the chips fall where they may.  If I am at work, her friends and hired workers can supply her needs.  Eventually they will kind of figure some things out, because she is incapable of holding back on her emotions.  One of them once showed me a text she had sent: "I waited for you all day".  

Still, I have figured out a way to have a relationship with my mom.  I haven't given up on it. I totally get it that you still love your dad and want a relationship with your dad.  This is not the relationship I wanted or thought I would have with my mother, but it's one that I've adjusted to and can live with given the circumstances.  It's the least of all evils.

I think it's great you've already withdrawn and taken steps to protect yourself from your father's wife.  In terms of pragmatics, I would work on finding ways to not let her in your house alone, or maybe you've already done that.  Your bf should always be there, or if she wants to see you, meet in some public space for a coffee.  They don't mistreat you the same way when other people are around.  And definitely limit the interactions, and continue to reduce them over time.  

A big step for you may have to be to accept your dad for where he is right now. He's shown repeatedly that he's more concerned about her needs, and also his needs, rather than yours. "Meet him where he's at". And allow yourself the space to grieve through that.  It's all very difficult.

For me it was helpful to balance out the grief process by also redirecting my thinking to focus on the positives.  In your case, you have family that has some understanding, and supports you.  You have a T.  You have your bf.  Make a list of all the things you are grateful for in this world.  I found that helps to balance the loss, even if just a little bit.

I'm sorry if this is too long.  But I could hear your pain, and just wanted to say I think you are very much on the right track in figuring all this out, and I am hoping that by sharing a little of my own experience, there might be a thread that could be helpful as you continue on this journey. Hugs my friend  Virtual hug (click to insert in post), and again welcome to our forum.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2023, 12:27:15 PM by Methuen » Logged
Notwendy
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« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2023, 06:36:40 PM »

Methuen, you have summarized my feelings about my relationship with my mother. The main difference is that mine doesn't live close enough to me to involve me in her daily needs and has been willing to pay others to do it. This made the relationship feel empty because a relationship with her is contingent on what is being done for her. It's not reciprocal, so if I am not serving her needs in some way, there isn't much of one.

Still the guilt, the grief, the sense of not meeting expectations is there but the boundary is for my own self protection and I know yours is for you too. It's good that your father was supportive. Mine was supportive at times but also inconsistent as I mentioned.

I agree with you that yellowballoon has every right to have boundaries and to protect herself from the drama between her father and step mother.

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