New, 30+ daughter wBPD and responding to email

[KitKat68]

Our daughter is in her 30’s  with children of her own and she’s been on her own since she graduated high school. She’s was dx’d with BPD when she was much younger and is high conflict with an alcohol problem. Her actual father passed away many years ago and previous to that he was her target. After he died her stepdad and I quickly became her target starting with it being our fault my ex died (he had a heart attack). For reference, her stepdad and I have been married nearly 30 years and he’s been in her life for most of it. Both of us got along well with my ex-husband, he and I simply grew apart and it was mostly amicable. My daughter has been extremely difficult for as long as I can remember.

Whenever my daughter gets involved in a serious relationship it kicks off a devaluing process of us that in the past has lasted several months to a couple years. She divorced her 1st husband/father of her kids in 2020 and is getting married to someone else later this year. The devaluing of us happened with both relationships but this time it’s harder because she is the mother of two of our grandkids. We have not seen my daughter or her kids for a couple years now. At first it was her distancing but eventually we said enough is enough and stopped trying. We had helped her out substantially with money during the divorce, asked to see our grandkids multiple times and she either evaded our requests or flat out ignored them. Yet she continued to ask for money and other financial related favors even though we had already started telling her no. Things disintegrated from there and we’ve been estranged since by our choice.

This is by far not the first time we’ve been estranged but I think I’ve reached the end of the road trying and I have no emotional energy left to give this situation. I’m not even interested. I love her but I don’t like her behavior, I detest it and am very resentful,  and don’t want to see her. She has been abusive to mostly me and I don’t trust her.

Problem is, she likes to pop up out of nowhere and send me nasty emails and I never know when it’s coming, she sent me one a few weeks ago and it was full of accusations, lies, and things which were barely true. The last email before then was almost a year ago. I have her blocked on my phone but the last email was sent to my work. She is now blocked there too as the email was so aggressive my employer promptly agreed to block her from emailing anyone where I work.

I’ve strongly considered emailing her from a throwaway address but I know it’s not in my best interest and comes from a place of anger. However, I am tired of the lies and accusations she levels at me, however infrequent.

Is it ever a good idea to respond?

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

[AcheyMom]

Hi! I am new here and I can so relate to your post.  My daughter, also in her 30s drops us like a hot potato if she has anyone else of value in her life.  Only wants us when she is destitute so we can help out with money etc..  She also has Bipolar Disorder so she cannot manage her finances.  We also get rage texts accusing of us of all kinds of things out of the blue after not hearing from her in ages.  She likes to accuse us of abandoning her, even though it’s her that is not interested in us and makes big statements like “unfriending” us on social media.  She is so hateful to us, and it’s gone on so long that I’m not really interested anymore.  I’m tired of being beat up and falsely accused.  Since her teens, Any time we meet anyone she gets close to thinks we’re awful due to the character assassination she’s done on us.  When we meet someone we can feel the judgment.  Many people have later said they were told we were abusive which we were absolutely not.  I consider her dangerous at this point.  If anything we have helped her more than we should have.  I feel like walking away for good, even moving far away sometimes.  But I always get drawn back in when she manufactures a crisis.

[KitKat68]

I wouldn’t wish this on anyone but glad there are people who can relate.

We can’t have social media anymore without being harassed and she is blocked on both of our phones. She has zero way to get a hold of my husband and she resorted to using my work email this time. My employer has since blocked her email address. I no longer get sucked into her crises but I did for many years. Over and over.

Her nasty emails now pop up about once a year or so and I never know when they’re coming, there’s no pattern to her behavior we can determine because we have no other connections to her. We have other adult aged children but she doesn’t talk to them either. They are still connected to her on social media via old profiles but there’s no communication.

Like you and your daughter, I also believe my daughter is dangerous. I am very leery of her. Most of my concerns are anything she might pull behind the screen of a phone/computer but she has assaulted prior boyfriends and once purposely caused injury to me (whiplash) because I asked her to stop tailgating people, She also has attempted to use my SSN to obtain credit, that type of thing is what I’m the most leery of currently.

Anyway, the angry part of me wants to respond to her email but I know it isn’t a good idea. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to recognize intellectually I shouldn’t respond to her, emotionally I can be harder to convince.

Do you engage much with your daughter?

[AcheyMom]

Do you think that your daughter is trying to reconnect when she sends those emails?  That seems to be my daughter’s strange way of inviting me back in to her life.  We have been pretty consistent with staying involved to make sure our grandson is ok.  We’ve had to take him temporarily a few times because she couldn’t cope.  She hasn’t been speaking to me since the last incident in 2020. I told CPS some things about her and she was upset.  Until this past January, we were taking him 1 weekend per month.  She would never even wave to us out the window let alone come out and say hi. That is until her boyfriend left her and she spent all her money.  Suddenly she started sending long texts blaming everyone including me for her situation.  It’s always someone else.  I don’t know how she will ever change with that attitude.  Anyway, we had to take her to the hospital a few weeks ago because she really wasn’t well.  She has been very abusive to us so we stopped visiting.  I sent her a long text telling her that she needed to look in the mirror and stop blaming everyone around her or her life would continue to be chaos.  I told her that until she gets help and I see improvement, I would be protecting myself and my family from her.  I don’t know if that was a good idea or not.  Have you ever told your daughter how you feel?  It’s really hard because they always put themselves in a victim role so it feels like kicking someone while they’re down. 

[KitKat68]

I have told her how I felt, more than once. She either acts like a victim or tells me to eff off. If she does want to reconnect it’s odd timing because she’s cut us off along with her siblings (they don’t care anymore if that gives you any idea how awful she’s been) but is planning a whole wedding she’s invited none of us to. It’s probably also all paid for at this point so no use in charming me back for that, nothing left to pay for. She has a long history of using us for money. Rather I think she had a conflict of some kind with someone else and is dumping on me to feel better, definitely her MO there too.

It does kind of feel like kicking someone where they’re down but there’s been too many times where my daughter has seemed down and it just became evident she was just manipulating me, not down at all. I don’t feel much sympathy for her as I’ve been lied to and manipulated so often. I’m burned out.

[AcheyMom]

You need to take care of yourself first and foremost.  Also we both have other family that love us and need us. We need to enjoy life at some point.  I seem to have a hard time letting go completely.  Funny you should say that about "seeming down" but then you find out she was being manipulative.  We have actually wondered if she is just acting manic and out of control to get into the hospital so that she can hide and not take any accountability for her actions.  It seems like such a pattern of acting irresponsible until she's destitute and then checking into the psych ward.  I also feel you with being fed up.  We have one other adult child and she is fed up with no sympathy for her either.  She actually pleaded with me to walk away the other day because she is worried about our physical health.  She is afraid my husband will have another heart attack.  I have tried not contact.  In May we blocked her number because we received those random texts telling us off after 2.5 years of silence.  Unfortunately for her, the 2.5 years without her tearing me down have let me gather a bit more strength and let me see how peaceful our lives can be.  But she created a new facebook account and sent my husband a long dm and she sounded very mentally unwell.  It sounds like your daughter may be higher functioning.  My daughter while petite and attractive cannot hide her nastiness long enough to keep people in her life long term let alone get married.  She also has substance abuse issues which doesn't help.  At her age most people have moved on from sitting around getting stoned. Does your daughter live close to you?

[KitKat68]

Our daughter lives a few hours away from us and is an alcoholic,  also a very attractive girl. I’ve noticed she can only sustain a long term relationship without acting out too much herself if the guy’s behavior is worse than hers. So she has to tone herself down somewhat to “control” the worse behaving other guy, her BPD traits go more inward in that case. In the case of the husband she’s now divorced from, I suspect he is BPD himself and while he had some likable qualities he was actually a bigger mess outwardly than my daughter. But her BPD certainly didn’t vanish during the time they were together.

Her current significant other is a people pleaser and a pushover and my daughter is back to her old tricks, so to speak. His last wife, my daughter’s former best friend, is just like my daughter and so he clearly has a type and he’s in for another very bumpy road. It’s already evident my daughter is outwardly doing more overvaluing and devaluing, he currently is her FP but once she gets disappointed, etc all hell breaks loose.

We have other kids and one of them resents us for the time our daughter has cost us and one of them is super supportive and they really don’t like their older sister, there’s certainly zero sympathy there for her:

Definitely do need to take care of ourselves but I do wish things were different. Not that wishing counts for much!

Have you ever considered moving?

[Pook075]

I have a little experience here with a BPD daughter and a soon to be BPD ex-wife.  What really changed the dynamic for me was to stop arguing over who did what/who said what and just deliver a single, unified statement- "I love you and I forgive you for everything that's happened.  Hopefully you can forgive me as well because none of us are perfect."

For my kid, it changed everything the first time I said that.  Within a week we were closer than ever before and within a month, it's like we were best friends.  I was her first call whenever things got tough and she actually valued my advice.  It was almost bizarre how quickly everything changed.  The key here though is that I surrendered and said I wasn't going to fight anymore or focus on the past- I love you and I forgive you.

With my BPD ex, she accused me of horrific things as she left me last year- and my first reaction was to defend my actions.  But by doing that, it was validating her disordered thinking and proving to her that I was in fact a horrible man she had every right to verbally abuse.  Like a moron, I apologized for everything her warped viewpoint could muster and it only made things worse in the long run.  That was on me though because I was focused on the wrong thing- like if I apologized for accusation #1 and show her that I'm not that person, then everything would be wonderful.

After not speaking for several months, I said to my wife what I said to my daughter- I love you and I forgive you for everything that's happened.  Hopefully you can forgive me as well because none of us are perfect.  And just like that, there was nothing to fight about anymore, no need for additional accusations.  The marriage didn't work out, but I can call or text my wife now and get straightforward conversation about the kids, our stuff, or whatever.

In your case, I do think you should respond to your daughter and say that you hate that the two of you aren't close like you once were.  You miss talking to her and seeing the grandkids.  Then throw in my one-liner- you love her and forgive her, you hope that someday you'll be forgiven as well, and you're always on her side. 

Don't mention a single instance of what happened or who said what...it's not about that stuff.  Forgive her for all of it, tell her you love her, and ask for forgiveness as well.  You probably won't get a response because it will cause feelings of guilt and shame...but that's okay.  Just make that your new narrative- I love you, I forgive you, please forgive me as well so we can get back to loving each other.

I hope that helps.

[KitKat68]

That’s awesome you found something that worked with your family members!  I really hope it lasts for you but we’ve been there, done that with my daughters and the gentler approach  ages ago and her response is generally to tell people just exactly where they can go.

I think my daughter is a bit older than yours and mine also sounds like much more of a high conflict, angry BPD with a long history of screwing over her family, mostly financial and via weaponizing her children. I’m not sure there’s anyone who is not exhausted from dealing with the trouble she’s caused, along with fed up. She also has an alcohol problem which complicates things. She’s been forgiven and been given so many chances I’m not prepared to give her a pass and I don’t trust her.  

I’m not in a place where I can have a relationship with her, really I’m just trying to sort out what to do with an email she sent.

Continued good  luck with your daughter!

[Pook075]

That’s awesome you found something that worked with your family members!  I really hope it lasts for you but we’ve been there, done that with my daughters and the gentler approach  ages ago and her response is generally to tell people just exactly where they can go.

I think my daughter is a bit older than yours and mine also sounds like much more of a high conflict, angry BPD with a long history of screwing over her family, mostly financial and via weaponizing her children. I’m not sure there’s anyone who is not exhausted from dealing with the trouble she’s caused, along with fed up. She also has an alcohol problem which complicates things. She’s been forgiven and been given so many chances I’m not prepared to give her a pass and I don’t trust her.  

I’m not in a place where I can have a relationship with her, really I’m just trying to sort out what to do with an email she sent.

Continued good  luck with your daughter!

Good luck to you as well.  Fortunately, my daughter does not have kids and that's probably a blessing.