Should I warn my son's new love interest?

[Parents! Get help here!]

My son is 30 years old, with undiagnosed BPD.  (We have described his behaviors to our family therapist and they have confirmed that our "diagnosis" is probably correct, but, of course, our son will not attend family sessions with us and so can't be officially diagnosed).  The situation that has driven my husband and myself into therapy is the predictable cycle of romantic relationships that our son gets involved in.  For example, in the last five and a half years, he has been married and divorced from the daughter of longtime family friends, has lived with a fiance for about 18 months and then cut her out of his life, moved in with another fiance for about 18 months, and has just broken up with her and is currently "ghosting" her.  The most recent fiance had two small children from a previous relationship that began calling our son "daddy", but when he broke up with her he cut off all contact with her AND with the kids.  They are ages two and four, and definitely do not understand why they can't see or talk to this man they had begun to think of as their dad.  And now, just about six weeks after this most recent breakup, he has another girlfriend that he thinks he wants to share the rest of his life with.

We all live in a small town, and my husband and I are both teachers.  We have been involved with all of these relationships because we knew all of the young women (except for the most recent one) as family friends/former students.  The cycle that started with his first relationship seems to follow this pattern:  Very intense, QUICK courtship; both parties deciding that they are each others' soulmates and becoming engaged and moving in together within the first six weeks;  the honeymoon phase wears off and he becomes verbally abusive, withdrawn, has many angry outbursts, and begins smoking large amounts of marijuana; the confused young woman comes to us for advice; there are several preliminary "break-ups" before the final breakdown; then he cuts them out of his life and expects us to do the same.  The most recent breakup has affected us very much because of the two small children involved. My husband and I have become like grandparents to them, and we are refusing to stop seeing them, which resulted in our son cutting off contact with us for several weeks out of anger at our "betrayal".  But now he has texted that he has met soulmate #4, and wants us to meet her over the holidays.  I can see on social media that she also has two small children.  Our therapist has recommended that we set a boundary of not developing any more relationships with his love interests or their children, just to protect our own hearts.  This has made him very angry because I think he uses us as part of his "love bombing".  We are loving people who have been married for 38 years and I think he wants his love interests to see that he comes from a stable, loving home.  It seems to help him disguise his disorder until after he has them in a situation where he can more easily manipulate them.

My questions for the forum are as follows:  1.  Do you think this sounds like BPD or perhaps NPD?  2.  How do we go about reinforcing our boundary of not developing relationships if he becomes engaged again quickly?  and 3. Should I somehow try to warn the new girlfriend about his tendencies? Any advice you have to give would be much appreciated.   

[miraclekids]

My son is 30 years old, with undiagnosed BPD.  (We have described his behaviors to our family therapist and they have confirmed that our "diagnosis" is probably correct, but, of course, our son will not attend family sessions with us and so can't be officially diagnosed).  The situation that has driven my husband and myself into therapy is the predictable cycle of romantic relationships that our son gets involved in.  For example, in the last five and a half years, he has been married and divorced from the daughter of longtime family friends, has lived with a fiance for about 18 months and then cut her out of his life, moved in with another fiance for about 18 months, and has just broken up with her and is currently "ghosting" her.  The most recent fiance had two small children from a previous relationship that began calling our son "daddy", but when he broke up with her he cut off all contact with her AND with the kids.  They are ages two and four, and definitely do not understand why they can't see or talk to this man they had begun to think of as their dad.  And now, just about six weeks after this most recent breakup, he has another girlfriend that he thinks he wants to share the rest of his life with.

We all live in a small town, and my husband and I are both teachers.  We have been involved with all of these relationships because we knew all of the young women (except for the most recent one) as family friends/former students.  The cycle that started with his first relationship seems to follow this pattern:  Very intense, QUICK courtship; both parties deciding that they are each others' soulmates and becoming engaged and moving in together within the first six weeks;  the honeymoon phase wears off and he becomes verbally abusive, withdrawn, has many angry outbursts, and begins smoking large amounts of marijuana; the confused young woman comes to us for advice; there are several preliminary "break-ups" before the final breakdown; then he cuts them out of his life and expects us to do the same.  The most recent breakup has affected us very much because of the two small children involved. My husband and I have become like grandparents to them, and we are refusing to stop seeing them, which resulted in our son cutting off contact with us for several weeks out of anger at our "betrayal".  But now he has texted that he has met soulmate #4, and wants us to meet her over the holidays.  I can see on social media that she also has two small children.  Our therapist has recommended that we set a boundary of not developing any more relationships with his love interests or their children, just to protect our own hearts.  This has made him very angry because I think he uses us as part of his "love bombing".  We are loving people who have been married for 38 years and I think he wants his love interests to see that he comes from a stable, loving home.  It seems to help him disguise his disorder until after he has them in a situation where he can more easily manipulate them.

My questions for the forum are as follows:  1.  Do you think this sounds like BPD or perhaps NPD?  2.  How do we go about reinforcing our boundary of not developing relationships if he becomes engaged again quickly?  and 3. Should I somehow try to warn the new girlfriend about his tendencies? Any advice you have to give would be much appreciated.   

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

[Sancho]

Hi miraclekids
It certainly makes things so difficult when children are involved. It's good that you have been able to keep in contact with your little ones - it can make change so much easier for them. I do know other people where this has not been possible and it is very sad for everyone especially the children.

Re your questions
1.  Do you think this sounds like BPD or perhaps NPD? 
It is really too difficult to say. Both these disorders have specific criteria that need to be met in order to be diagnosed. Also sometimes the symptoms overlap or a person can have more than one diagnosis.

The main thing is that your ds's behaviour is clearly worrying. He seems quite impulsive and 'moves on' quickly without much thought of who is being affected.

A diagnosis may only be helpful if someone is willing to access help, and perhaps ds is not open to hearing that he may have a serious condition?

2.  How do we go about reinforcing our boundary of not developing relationships if he becomes engaged again quickly? 
I think this depends on what boundaries you are putting in place. Do you intend to:
-have no contact with the new person and her children
-have contact only after the relationship has been ongoing for x amount of time
- have contact but limit that to more formal times etc

I think it's good to focus on the fact that the boundaries are to protect your emotional wellbeing. It is hard to protect a loving heart which you clearly have.

3. Should I somehow try to warn the new girlfriend about his tendencies?
I can't see that this would be beneficial and would possible negative consequences. I am like you in that my expectation is a stable, commited relationship - but I have had to accept that my dd is not able to live this way - perhaps possible in the future but who knows?

The boundary for my mental wellbeing is to 'let go' of my expectations and just do the best I can along the way. I am sure a child would benefit from any contact with you - just as they do from a particular teacher for a given year, or a favourite aunt they see occasionally. You make a difference!
 
These are just my thoughts . . .

[KitKat68]

To preface my response, we have a 30+ daughter w/BPD who is married now and we’ve been completely estranged from her for the past few years by our choice, due to her emotional and financial abuse. We’ve only met her current husband a few times and he has kids from a previous marriage and our daughter has a couple kids from her last marriage.

However, in the past our daughter went through relationships a lot how you describe your son has and she also expected us to cut all contact with their ex and any kids once the relationship ended. We had developed a close relationship with two of her ex’s kids, they eventually called us grandma and grandpa, and they were promptly cut off from us once that relationship ended. To this day the kids and their father think we want nothing to do with them (that’s what our daughter told her ex

[KitKat68]

For some reason my reply was only posted partially. Here’s the rest of it …

[miraclekids]

I still can't see the second part of your reply, and I'm very interested in hearing how our stories are similar.  :-)  I hope you get a chance to include the rest of it.

[miraclekids]

This reply is for Sancho - I'm still not sure how to reply to a specific person:

Thank you for your thoughts.  It just helps to hear that others have struggled through some of the same issues.  We are seeing our therapist next week and I will definitely try to be more specific about the boundaries.  I think we're leaning towards only having contact in more formal, extended family gathering type situations.  We're also definitely going to try not to become like grandparents to the new soulmate's kids.  It's just too heartbreaking when it inevitably ends.  :-(

[kells76]

Hi miraclekids,

In a way, my H and I have been in a similar situation. His kids' mom has many BPD traits and behaviors, and after the divorce, she quickly remarried to H's (former) best friend, who has many NPD traits and behaviors.

We were all part of a small sub-community (interest and faith based) within a larger city -- the sort of small sub-community where the kids went to a small school where their teacher was the niece of my H's thesis advisor and where my college boyfriend's brother ended up marrying my H's sister. Very small world.

People will hear about BPD and NPD when they are ready to hear it, and part of making them ready to hear it is having a trusting, long term relationship with you, where you are steady and predictable and honest and have integrity. It can take a lot of groundwork and time and hurt before people will be ready to hear it from you -- but it can and does happen.

While H lost more than one good friend over the divorce, especially because Mom enjoyed her victim role and Stepdad was emotionally persuasive, in the long term, healthy people saw for themselves what was going on while unhealthy people allied themselves with Mom/Stepdad.

It took about 9 years for one of my best friends to finally see the light (and he'd even dated a woman with BPD in the middle of all of it!), but when he did, I didn't have to convince him of anything -- he told us he was disgusted with what Stepdad had done (there had been more drama) and was cutting ties forever. We were just able to be there for our friend and confirm -- yup, that sounds like Stepdad.

Kids in the mix makes it really heartbreaking. I think you and your H are being wise to find a loving middle ground, where you care about the kids and will find ways to support them, without adding to their pain by building a deep connection that then gets taken away from them. The kids will know you are steady and reliable, and that can be just as much of a gift as the "grandparent" style relationships.

Did you guys make it through Christmas OK?

[miraclekids]

We did make it through Christmas, but not without lots of drama, as it sounds like many of us on this board went through.  The original question of this post became unnecessary the week before Christmas when one of my son's former girlfriends messaged the new one on social media to warn her of his tendencies.  The new one ended things almost immediately.  He was so angry and sent such threatening messages to the ex who sent the warning message, that she looked into getting a restraining order against him, but has since dropped the request.

Our son was invited and came to our extended family Christmas, but didn't really interact with anyone and left early with a door slam.  Since then, he's been texting me that he was treated like garbage at Christmas and that no one in the family loves or cares about him anymore.  I've been suggesting family counseling, but he is adamant that he will never attend. He's been exhibiting the same angry behaviors to his one true friend, as well, and that friend has told him that he needs to take a step back from our son because the ups and downs of the friendship are taking too much energy away that the friend needs for his wife and children.  So my son sent a long group text to us and his friend the other night saying that he needs space and a break from all of us.  I think we are back to minimal contact for a while.  At least until he finds another love interest to drag into the situation.