Relationships with baby sitter LGBT

[Sammiejoes]

I have been married for 28 years, we had a child with complex disabilities and I have developed feelings for her babysitter.(she is lesbian diagnosed BPD) She’s been a big part of our family life for 6 years but around a year ago I noticed she was dropping me compliments daily, going above to help me and then started texting me a lot of unrelated chat. There was a point I thought this girl had a crush on me, after a few months I realised I also developed feelings for this girl and was actively waiting for texts so I confided in her. She instantly latched on this and the content of the messages became flirty and increased. We started meeting in secret, enjoying our time together. She told me she would like intimacy, Since I’ve got closer (not sexual) I’ve noticed a lot of red flags in the way she criticises and judges others, has lied to align her experiences with my beliefs, she mirrors me, doent like calls prefers written communication, I also think she records our in person conversations and I feel like I have been manipulated possibly over a long period when I wasn’t aware. After the intense love bomb phase ended, She continues to message me several times daily but now turns off her chat after message leaving me baffled by delayed response/behaviour and avoiding meeting when I suggest. If I ignore and don’t message back promptly her later response can be blunt. I feel like I can’t confide in my husband or anyone, She has a close relationship with my daughter and I cannot cease all contact but I do fear that she has some sort of agenda/hold over me now with conversation evidence and I’m a bit worried how it may play out. I have seen marks on her body that would suggest self harm, I genuinely care about this girl but equally now feel like she may be trying to destroy me.

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[Pook075]

I have been married for 28 years, we had a child with complex disabilities and I have developed feelings for her babysitter.(she is lesbian diagnosed BPD) She’s been a big part of our family life for 6 years but around a year ago I noticed she was dropping me compliments daily, going above to help me and then started texting me a lot of unrelated chat. There was a point I thought this girl had a crush on me, after a few months I realised I also developed feelings for this girl and was actively waiting for texts so I confided in her. She instantly latched on this and the content of the messages became flirty and increased. We started meeting in secret, enjoying our time together. She told me she would like intimacy, Since I’ve got closer (not sexual) I’ve noticed a lot of red flags in the way she criticises and judges others, has lied to align her experiences with my beliefs, she mirrors me, doent like calls prefers written communication, I also think she records our in person conversations and I feel like I have been manipulated possibly over a long period when I wasn’t aware. After the intense love bomb phase ended, She continues to message me several times daily but now turns off her chat after message leaving me baffled by delayed response/behaviour and avoiding meeting when I suggest. If I ignore and don’t message back promptly her later response can be blunt. I feel like I can’t confide in my husband or anyone, She has a close relationship with my daughter and I cannot cease all contact but I do fear that she has some sort of agenda/hold over me now with conversation evidence and I’m a bit worried how it may play out. I have seen marks on her body that would suggest self harm, I genuinely care about this girl but equally now feel like she may be trying to destroy me.

Hi Sammie and welcome.  Wow, tough scenario and highly volatile as well.

First and foremost, you made a mistake here and it's one that thousands of people make every single day.  We're not here to judge, but at the same time the advice will be overwhelmingly to stand by your husband and your child.  To do that, you're going to have to let him know at least some of what's been going on- he must hear it from you!  Because if you wait and allow the babysitter to march to her own agendas, it could destroy your family.

Right now, I imagine that you're overwhelmed with guilt and confusion.  This started innocently enough and thankfully, it never became physical.  In other words, you're not past the point of no return.  But you do have to take control of the situation and have a few of the hardest conversations of your life before all of this explodes.  It will explode eventually.

Intuition might tell you to do nothing, just let this play out and maybe her feelings will subside and everything will go back to normal.  If you read through this site and hear others stories, you'll see that it probably won't play out that way.  You are correct to be worried about the red flags and it's possible the babysitter sees a scenario where you and her raise your child without the husband in the picture. 

My BPD wife of 24 years left me in 2022 in a similar situation; she cares for a young adult that's physically/mentally handicapped and she developed feelings for this person's father.  So she left me, out of the blue, with visions of marrying that guy and being a true mother to the son.  She's now the babysitter (and the maid, the cook, the laundry person, the grocery shopper, etc.) and runs that household.  I don't know if the father has feelings for her or not, he was widowed for a few months when my wife left, but it's equally volatile and will destroy multiple families eventually.

My wife can't see any of that though, she can only see that she wants to care for the handicapped young man for the rest of her life and have the perfect family.  But to do that, she had to seduce the father while discarding me and our two daughters, while also lying to her entire family and her church.  We're divorcing next month since I obviously can't walk this path with her.

Sammie, this has to end and it must end quickly.  If you try to talk to the babysitter first, my gut tells me that she will be thinking like my wife and go out of her way to destroy your marriage.  You have to tell your husband, or at least tell someone local so can help you develop a strategy for getting out of this situation.  A counselor, a pastor, a relative...anyone.

I know it took a lot of courage to post here today, so again, please don't think I'm judging here.  Once you "betray" the babysitter though, you're going to see a side of her that you couldn't have imagined to exist.  A small betrayal on your part, or any form of abandonment, is going to light a power keg of emotions that you're not prepared for...so you must prepare.

[Sammiejoes]

Thank you for your reply and I’m sorry to hear of your situation, it is devastating to see the impact.

I think you may be right in what you say, I think she had already built up a picture of us together for some time. I have made it clear that I will not break up my family and have no intention of leaving my husband. If I tell my husband what’s been going on,  I risk him stopping all contact. She loves our daughter as her own and I just can’t take this away from her, it will destroy her, she has been there for us when no one else was. There is nobody else who helps us.
Aside from this situation we have never had problems in our relationship and I’m baffled as to how I could have developed this strong connection with anyone else. This is what makes me think there has perhaps been an agenda for some time. She has always been very open with me about her sexuality and mental health and she is in therapy.
Whilst I have seen glimmers of warning another message pops up and I’m sucked back in. I have told her before that I need to speak to my husband and she has convinced me not to.
Will this naturally subside if she finds a new partner or am I being totally naive that this could ever return to how it was?

Thank you again.

[Pook075]

Thank you for your reply and I’m sorry to hear of your situation, it is devastating to see the impact.

I think you may be right in what you say, I think she had already built up a picture of us together for some time. I have made it clear that I will not break up my family and have no intention of leaving my husband. If I tell my husband what’s been going on,  I risk him stopping all contact. She loves our daughter as her own and I just can’t take this away from her, it will destroy her, she has been there for us when no one else was. There is nobody else who helps us.
Aside from this situation we have never had problems in our relationship and I’m baffled as to how I could have developed this strong connection with anyone else. This is what makes me think there has perhaps been an agenda for some time. She has always been very open with me about her sexuality and mental health and she is in therapy.
Whilst I have seen glimmers of warning another message pops up and I’m sucked back in. I have told her before that I need to speak to my husband and she has convinced me not to.
Will this naturally subside if she finds a new partner or am I being totally naive that this could ever return to how it was?

Thank you again.

Hey Sammie.  With BPD, there's a lot of black and white thinking involved...this is all good (white), that is all bad (black).  People fall into that as well and someone with BPD almost always has a favorite person.  Maybe that's you, but more likely it could be your child...who's sweet and innocent and deserves the entire world.

She would tell you not to tell your husband because he's a threat that could topple the house of cards.  If you're already starting to see unstable behavior in messaging, it's a red flag that the dynamic can be changing.  It is possible that she could fall for someone else, but that usually involves a discard (you) because her needs aren't being met.  If your daughter is her world though, then she's going to do whatever she can to protect that relationship and may go to extremes.

Again, the odds are against you that this will naturally subside.  You're playing with fire here and you're very close to getting burned.  I think deep down you know that or you wouldn't have sought out these boards to begin with.  Please proceed cautiously!

[thankful person]

Hi Sammie,

I do sympathise and empathise with your situation. This story is very long but I’ll try and keep it short. I was in a 15 year relationship with a man I loved, though I wasn’t happy because he didn’t want marriage or children though it turned out he did but that part is complicated.

I fell in love with my dbpdw online, as my ex and I had emigrated to the other side of the world and I randomly met my wife online who is ironically from my hometown. The way our relationship developed through messages and on Skype was comparable to what you describe. I was infatuated with her, I knew she had severe mental health problems. I craved her. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to save her.

She controlled every minute of my life, even when I was with him. I told him about her after a couple of months. He was absolutely devastated and immediately became the perfect man and I suddenly could see how much he adored me. I said I would stay to give him a chance to make me happy (his words). I couldn’t seem to stop talking to my now wife though. I told them both I could never leave him. But in the end I did after six months because I knew my treatment of him wasn’t fair.

9 years ago I came back to my home country to be with a mentally unstable girl 15 years younger than me who I had met online. There have been high points and low points. I hated myself passionately for at least 5 years because of what I did to my ex and the way I left him. I didn’t think I ever deserved to be happy or that I ever could.

Life has been a daily struggle, my wife is impossible to please and I fell into a serious trap of trying and failing to please her. Things are better since joining bpd family, and learning how better to handle her behaviour and communicate with her. But it will always be hard work, especially raising a family with my wife and trying to protect the children from her mental instability or rather help with their resilience. We are now married and have 3 amazing ivf children my wife carried and birthed. Bpd family members helped me to understand that my previous relationship was also codependent which was why I still felt so responsible for my ex years later. I am so happy to finally be a mother because he really made me believe I could never have that. When I left, I had come to terms with it and no way was I expecting to have kids on choosing to become a lesbian! My wife put huge pressure on me to get engaged, get married, and have each of the babies. I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way because I adore our children of course and they wouldn’t exist if I wasn’t with her. Bpd family has taught me to look after myself better which is also hopefully helping me to be a better role model for the kids.

I just wanted to share my story. I am wishing you strength, you already know this babysitter is not a perfect relationship waiting to happen. The crazy thing is I never wanted to leave my ex, but I somehow wanted my wife more than that even though I could partly already see what I was getting into. I felt like I had no control over myself or my choices. She accuses me of not being romantic when I seriously gave up everything for her, and one thing that hurts so much is that I also left my cat who had a heart condition and I could not stay in touch with my ex under these conditions so I don’t even know what happened to the cat. I hope my story could help someone anyway. It seems a lonely world where most people haven’t experienced anything like this.

[Sammiejoes]

Thank you for sharing your experiences
I am struggling to differentiate between infatuation and love. I feel trapped in a situation where my husband cares deeply for me and has helped me through my own trauma for almost 30 years. This friend has also been incredibly supportive, dropping everything to help us day or night for the past few years. However, our communication has turned into an obsessive cycle of constantly checking and analyzing messages. She has been open with me about her mental health and experiences, but I did not fully comprehend the complexity of BPD until I noticed concerning behaviors and began educating myself about it. Her behavior becomes more pronounced when alcohol is involved. I tend to be very trusting and often try to rescue others as a way of avoiding my own issues. I have never been attracted to women, but I deeply care for her and worry that this could develop into something more. I want to avoid causing anyone pain, and I sense that this situation may become messy. She treats my daughter as her own and even cares for her overnight once a month. I am unsure how to put an end to this without causing her pain, especially considering her fear of rejection. I have made it clear that I will not leave my husband, but when I expressed this, she seemed detached and did not display the expected body language when she had tears. I am beginning to think is might also be on the autism spectrum.. Since then, there have been what I can only describe as mind games and indirect questions. Messages are inconsistent but still daily. I have noticed marks on her body that seem to appear after we have spend time together. I cannot understand why she would harm herself on those occasions, and when I ask, she claims that she simply fell over.
This is so hard but I do worry about how this will play out.

[Notwendy]

Let's take this down to the basics- taking gender and BPD off the table for now ( add them back in later).

Please note- this is not a judgment. It's about your choices.

It comes down to boundaries. Two boundaries have been crossed.

You are married. If your marriage is based on monogomy, this is an emotional affair and while it has not become physical, and emotional affair ( a strong emotional attachment to someone outside the marriage with potential for it to become physical) is a serious threat to your marriage.

You are an employer and she is an employee and crossing the line into a personal and potentially emotional connection can have legal ramifications.

PwBPD have difficulty with boundaries. They may cross boundaries. It then becomes up to you to uphold these boundaries, even if it is difficult.

Reverse the situation. Let's say your H has become deeply emotionally involved with his long term employee-secretary. He loves you but he also wants to keep the employee working closely with him every day and cares deeply about that person. He comes to you proposing this option. He loves you both. How would you feel about this?

Unless a couple agrees on an open or poly relationship- if the relationship is monogamous and one person has strayed but they want to keep the marriage, the advice in general is to discontinue contact with the person outside the marriage.

Let's say you were HR at your H's job and it was discovered that he was having an emotional relationship with his employee, what would you advise him to do if he wants to keep his job?

Now, apply these options to your own situation.

Let's complicate things. How would you feel if your H's employee was a man? Would you feel secure that he was truly attracted to you? Because if he prefers men, there is nothing you can do to compete with this in terms of meeting his needs. Even if you were to stay with him, would you feel confident knowing this?

Now, for your part. How did this happen? I think in general, women are wired to connect emotionally. I think it's common and not a compromise in marriage for women to have close female friends they confide in, but I don't think this always leads to more- we still have boundaries on all relationships when we are married. You formed a close emotional connection to this woman and the rest followed. However, would this have happened if your marriage was stable? If there are marital issues, this can provide a relief and an escape. However, if you want your marriage to stay intact, then you can not continue to look to this woman to meet these deep emotional needs as it turns your focus from your marriage.

Do you prefer women as partners? If this is the situation- then that is something to consider, but even if you were, you still have a choice about your marriage. If you prefer women, could you stay in this marriage. Could your H?

And also- add the BPD. Why are you so drawn to a disordered person that you might compromise your marriage? PwBPD can love bomb. There can also be an addictive quality to a relationship with someone with BPD.

It's going to come down to boundaries and choices. You wish to be able to keep the situation as it is but as you can see, it's not good for your marriage. I think ( and this is without judgment) you will need to make a choice- a difficult one- but if your marriage is the priority, you know that continuing this situation is compromising it.

[zondolit]

Dear Sammiejoes,

I agree with what Notwendy and others have written and only wish to add that the person who could get hurt the most is your daughter.

zondolit