Coparenting

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I'm writing here partly to vent frustration. Though if anyone has useful ideas, I'd be open to them.

My ex is a pwBPD and we were together for 25 years. Her adult son - my stepson - also would clearly qualify for a diagnosis of BPD. Three years ago, he started using meth and quickly became addicted. Especially early on in his addiction, he was often suicidal, and often ended up in life-threatening circumstances. The resulting stress destabilized my ex, and at the same time a married NPD old ex-boyfriend began pursuing her, and two and a half years ago she dumped me for him. Her new relationship provided her with pain relief, and she largely abdicated her parental role with regard to her son to focus on that relationship, and I ended up being the person looking after him, maintaining communication with him, and trying to help him. I began to attend a Community Reinforcement and Family Training meeting weekly, to learn how to best deal with my stepson's addiction, and I worked to teach myself motivational interviewing (a method for engaging addicts into recovery). Both CRAFT and motivational interviewing are evidence-based practices (with a lot of evidence supporting their efficacy in addiction).

I continued extensive contact with my ex until six months ago. Basically, she kept me as a kind of plantonic husband, while I kept hoping she would ultimately break up with the married, cheating asshole and that we'd get back together. But eventually I had the sanity to give up and walk away.

I've continued to help my stepson (he's basically my son), and despite his addiction, we've ended up very close. Throughout all this time, I've patiently worked to engage him into treatment and recovery. And I've had some success - he trusts me enough to openly talk about his addiction with me, and he's gradually shifted toward being open to treatment. And his mother did eventually resume considerable contact with him, especially in the last few months.

This weekend, my ex and I drove to the city where he's now living, and spent the weekend with him, offering him help in pursuing recovery. But my ex and I ended up working entirely at cross purposes. She believed the proper approach was to confront him, and to break through his denial. So they ended up arguing badly and getting upset. While I was trying to do a motivational interviewing approach: “MI is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion.”

All the science shows that motivational interviewing works (in getting addicts into recovery), while confrontation is counterproductive (entrenching addicts in their defenses). Anyway - because of the conflict between the two of them, it all went badly this weekend. What she was doing completely undermined what I was trying to do.

I tried to tell her that arguing with him wasn't helpful. So then she was furious at me. Like many with BPD, she doesn't tolerate anything that could be construed as criticism, and she's very sensative to perceived rejection (and perceives any disagreement with her as rejection). She insists that her confrontational approach is the right one for her. And she's very focused on her perceptions of how her family victimized her in the past, and believes that should be a primary therapeutic focus for her son (i.e., damage done to him by the actions of her family members - her sisters, mother, etc.). I think to some degree that's a misplaced focus in the case of her son.

She said she was giving up on thinking that we could collaborate in trying to help her son.

Argggg!

[Pensive1]

I'm writing here partly to vent frustration. Though if anyone has useful ideas, I'd be open to them.

My ex is a pwBPD and we were together for 25 years. Her adult son - my stepson - also would clearly qualify for a diagnosis of BPD. Three years ago, he started using meth and quickly became addicted. Especially early on in his addiction, he was often suicidal, and often ended up in life-threatening circumstances. The resulting stress destabilized my ex, and at the same time a married NPD old ex-boyfriend began pursuing her, and two and a half years ago she dumped me for him. Her new relationship provided her with pain relief, and she largely abdicated her parental role with regard to her son to focus on that relationship, and I ended up being the person looking after him, maintaining communication with him, and trying to help him. I began to attend a Community Reinforcement and Family Training meeting weekly, to learn how to best deal with my stepson's addiction, and I worked to teach myself motivational interviewing (a method for engaging addicts into recovery). Both CRAFT and motivational interviewing are evidence-based practices (with a lot of evidence supporting their efficacy in addiction).

I continued extensive contact with my ex until six months ago. Basically, she kept me as a kind of plantonic husband, while I kept hoping she would ultimately break up with the married, cheating asshole and that we'd get back together. But eventually I had the sanity to give up and walk away.

I've continued to help my stepson (he's basically my son), and despite his addiction, we've ended up very close. Throughout all this time, I've patiently worked to engage him into treatment and recovery. And I've had some success - he trusts me enough to openly talk about his addiction with me, and he's gradually shifted toward being open to treatment. And his mother did eventually resume considerable contact with him, especially in the last few months.

This weekend, my ex and I drove to the city where he's now living, and spent the weekend with him, offering him help in pursuing recovery. But my ex and I ended up working entirely at cross purposes. She believed the proper approach was to confront him, and to break through his denial. So they ended up arguing badly and getting upset. While I was trying to do a motivational interviewing approach: “MI is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion.”

All the science shows that motivational interviewing works (in getting addicts into recovery), while confrontation is counterproductive (entrenching addicts in their defenses). Anyway - because of the conflict between the two of them, it all went badly this weekend. What she was doing completely undermined what I was trying to do.

I tried to tell her that arguing with him wasn't helpful. So then she was furious at me. Like many with BPD, she doesn't tolerate anything that could be construed as criticism, and she's very sensative to perceived rejection (and perceives any disagreement with her as rejection). She insists that her confrontational approach is the right one for her. And she's very focused on her perceptions of how her family victimized her in the past, and believes that should be a primary therapeutic focus for her son (i.e., damage done to him by the actions of her family members - her sisters, mother, etc.). I think to some degree that's a misplaced focus in the case of her son.

She said she was giving up on thinking that we could collaborate in trying to help her son.

Argggg!

[kells76]

Hi Pensive1,

Trying to coparent with a pwBPD is challenging at best; I feel for you as you're wanting to care about your SS yet she seems to be undermining any path to real healing.

How old is your SS? And what led up to the idea that you and your ex would go and chat with SS together?

It may be that things go better for him when he learns to interact with each of you separately. Not all divorced parents are able to work together "like a Hallmark Thanksgiving movie" for the kids' sakes, unfortunately (that's where I'm at with my H and his kids' mom/stepdad). It does seem clear that it's not a given that you and your ex showing up together means you can work together on the same page. It seems like her deep, unmet emotional needs are what's getting the attention, not your SS's recovery needs.

Anyway, given that he's an adult, you may actually have quite a bit of freedom to establish and maintain a separate relationship with him -- without your ex involved. If she wants to have a relationship with him, she is of course welcome to do so, but you aren't required to participate in her relationship with him, and you aren't required to allow her in to your relationship with him.

I wonder if your approach could pivot away from "Mom and I both care about you and agree that you should try XYZ" (the "united front" approach) and more towards coaching: "well, you're an adult -- you get to decide if you want to pursue the ideas Mom offers, your own ideas, or if you're open to hearing stuff from me. What I would probably suggest is ABC, and I could support you doing that by giving X, doing Y, and calling Z. Ultimately, you decide what you do, though."

It's sad when parents/stepparents cannot work together for the kids -- yet it's the reality we have, not the one we want. And we have to work with what is.

[Pensive1]

Thanks for your comments, kells76.

I have been maintaining my own relationship with him. His mom stopped most contact with him, until recently. So I've been his main support, as far as parental units (his father died years ago, and his stepmother doesn't want any contact with him).

re: "How old is your SS? And what led up to the idea that you and your ex would go and chat with SS together?"
He's 41 years old. It's a complicated situation. I've been providing him with financial support around certain things, until now. It's been a tricky balance - I mostly let him suffer the natural consequences of his addiction, without bailing him out, but I did cover a couple things that I considered essential. But at this point, I don't have the financial resources to continue doing this, and his mom just got a large inheritance. I wanted to implement contingency management - an approach that has the strongest evidence of efficacy for recovery from meth addiction (basically, it involves paying an addict to do treatment), but I asked his mom to cover the expense and she agreed to do so. And because she's largely a disaster when it comes to dealing with anything financial, we agreed that I'd administer it (that was her suggestion).

But I didn't want her to introduce the plan to him by herself, because I thought that would go badly (with everything miscommunicated). So we agreed to do it together. And we tried to talk in advance about what we'd each be saying. But when we actually did it, it went badly - with my ex and her son escalating each other. Not surprising, given that they both have BPD, and given her refusal to consider evidence-based methods for communicating with someone in addiction.

For decades, the whole addiction treatment field went down the path that she tends to favor - confrontation and "denial-busting". In the 70's, the field began to renounce and move away from this approach, as trial results came in, showing that, in terms of outcomes, confrontational approaches are worse than doing nothing. To the best of my knowledge, there's not a single empirical trial that shows a benefit to this approach.

[Turkish]

It sounds like there is nothing fruitful going forward by collaborating. I'd support him on your own while trying not to criticize his mother (at least explicitly).

[Pensive1]

My ex called me today, to talk about her son, and the conversation proceeded more reasonably. I think part of the problem was that she coped with her anxiety about her son's addiction by largely withdrawing from contact with him for a couple years, and distracting herself with other stuff (e.g. her affair). Everything involving him was largely left in my lap. Then, very recently, she resumed more contact with her son, and began engaging him. But once she allowed the reality of her son's situation in (rather than dissociating around it), it resulted in anxiety that felt overwhelming. And she reacted by trying to assert control over the situation - confronting her son, etc. But we have very little control over someone else's addiction - you only have very limited influence over an addict's actions (especially when they also have BPD), and any limited positive influence requires a very judicious approach. She'd put her son's situation out of her mind, but once she stopped that, it felt like an emergency that she had to immediately make stop. From our conversation today, I think she may be beginning to recognize/accept that there's no quick fix here, and that her power over the situation is limited.

One thing I hadn't mentioned here - I managed to engage her into starting DBT therapy a year ago. I've seen little to no improvement in her BPD symptoms to this point (she often expresses resistance to the therapy). But I think she attended her therapy group before she spoke to me, and perhaps that helped.

[Pensive1]

Well, back to the insanity. Had a bad argument, via text, with my ex today, then she blocked me. I'm feeling pretty awful right now.

She keeps insisting on taking a confrontational approach with her son. She texted me today, regarding her son's addiction. I tried to persuade her that what she wants to do (confronting him, lecturing him, etc.) is unhelpful and is undercutting the work I've done with him. She responded that my trying to persuade her, that there was a better way than what she wants to do, was "threatening", "cold", "merciless", leaves her feeling "unsafe", and "verges on annihilating".

I should know by now that logic-based persuasion attempts just escalate things with her. I tried to be empathetic and thoughtful in what I said, etc. But I was using logic rather than validation, and of course it went badly. All she could hear was the equivalent of me saying "you're wrong", and she can't tolerate hearing that.

[PeteWitsend]

I feel like this issue - how to get an addict help - is really one that needs professional advice.

I do think that sometimes we get too involved in trying to get the pwBPD to understand and appreciate our point of view that we fail to accomplish what we could or should just take action on and change.

For example, you can go in circles with a pwBPD about whether or not pushing the fire alarm is the right thing to do when there's a fire... but you can also just push the alarm yourself to alert everyone,  and let them argue ad nauseum after the fact. 

Just like when my toddler would say she doesn't want to leave the park, and we're tired and the sun is setting, I don't sit there arguing with her until midnight, I just pick her up, put her in the car and go home.

I think here, you can just make your case directly to your step-son and hope he gets it.  You can't control what the pwBPD may or may not do.  If he chooses to listen to his mom and relapses, you have to accept you did your part without beating yourself up over it.

[Pensive1]

re: "I feel like this issue - how to get an addict help - is really one that needs professional advice."
I've obtained a lot of professional advice. I've spoken at length with addiction specialists. I attend a weekly meeting on how best to engage a loved one into treatment and recovery. I've attended a workshop run by professionals on this. I've talked about this extensively with my own therapist. And I'm a scientist and have reviewed the medical literature on this topic. All of the adice is consistent, and I've been trying to follow it.

The problem with the fire alarm analogy....so long as someone pushes the fire alarm when there's a fire, the necessary outcome is acheived (regardless of what the person with BPD does).

But in the case of my stepson, what I'm trying to do is undercut by what me ex is doing. I'm taking action to elicit from my stepson his own reasons for wanting to quit, and I'm seeking to amplify that change language while affirming his autonomy. That's what actually works best for getting people into treatment, based on many clinical trials. My ex, meanwhile, is confronting him and seeking to push him into treatment, and data shows that the usual result of that is resistance, and increased justification/rationalization opposing treatment.

An analogy...years ago I was involved in some political activity, involving a series of protests. My goal was to bring about large, peaceful protests. A minority of the people involved wanted to smash stuff. Their argument was that everyone should be free to do what they want - justifying it as "diversity of tactics". The problem was that what they were doing was turning people off, leading to very negative news stories, and causing a lot of people not to attend the protests because they feared getting swept up in a violent riot. So their choice of action (smashing stuff) was undercutting the efficacy of what I and most people were seeking to do.

So that's my quandry here. What my ex is doing is unravelling the progress I've made so far, in getting my stepson to consider treatment. Given the pressure/confrontation from her, he appears to have shifted from ambivalence about treatment (with considerable openness to it) to strong opposition to obtaining treatment. I don't know how to deal with that.