I'm just in pain looking for support

[shell24]

I am a widow and have one adult son, and he has is an alcoholic, which as you know is inheritable. He unfortunately inherited this from his father. My son has been slow to grow up. He was married once before and during the divorce he received much hatred from his ex and he made the most catastrophic choice of a lifetime- to give his children up for adoption to the man she immediately remarried. We begged him not to do this and I was traumatized by this, but pulled myself up by the bootstraps and hung in there with the toxicity of his ex, and spent time with my grand children through the years and had a wonderful relationship with them both. My son knew I was seeing them, I was honest. He regretted his decision and suffered for years, asking to see them but his ex lied about him to the kids, so they would not want to see him. I cannot tell you how much stress all of this has put me through, knowing my son was hurting so terribly, but knowing also that he had hurt the children by giving them up. It is not a situation I would wish upon anyone.
Now he is remarried, he married a woman who was pregnant with his child and he would now do anything to be with his new son. However, she has BPD. I wondered why the grandparents were not around of her ex. Now I do know why. She had turned on me and accused me of bizarre things which I never said or did. Basically, they had a serious fight, he came to my place and stayed (because she hates his friend and won't allow him to see his friend much at all) but then she turned and hated me just for housing him. I was actually asking him to go to couples counseling, there is nothing bad I was doing. But oh how she hated me and sent text messages that I was going to try to take her son away from her and that I was not a nice person and I had my whole family fooled. My mother and sister and family were just shocked. I am if anything, a self sacrificial type person, always kind and helpful to her. After her bizarre behavior and seeing some of the splitting type behaviors I then knew beyond a doubt, that she does have borderline personality disorder and I have been declared the enemy.
Fast forward to her treating me rudely and I did not take it up with her because I know better, but I did let my son know she had chewed me out for asking the kids to go to the Zoo, and he texted me that she is controlling and territorial and just don't ask the kids about doing anything fun (I had actually texted her first and my son first to ask, but no one was answering). Anyway, I responded to his phone in a text stating, yes controlling, I will need to be aware of that. Well, she went through his phone, and instead of seeing it from the perspective that HE called her controlling, I've been turned into a demon by responding yes. It gets worse, but honestly the worst part is she would not reply to my texts for a month, so I mentioned to my son she was not texting me, and boy I wish I had not. She sent me the most hateful text imaginable, calling me a needy person who "crossed boundaries"  (I had texted her 3 times in one month, so by no means was this excessive, and the texts were short like "hey, how are things going", she said I was a selfish narcissist, a bad mom, a selfish grandparent, a liar, and told me I treated her terribly all the time. That text was so awful I cried for a long long time in pain and disbelief. It was the most shockingly awful thing I have ever read. I now have not seen my grandson in 6 months.
In addition, I am in even more pain now as by conversation, I have picked up on the fact that my son has told her things meant only for his ears and he has added fuel to the fire and I believe now, that he does not care that much that I can't see his son. I now in my heart know, that he is paying me back for the years I was able to spend time with his children and he was not. So I am in a hellish type of pain that I am not sure can even be described, but at times I just wish I did not exist.

[Notwendy]

Hi Shell- this is difficult and the grief is understandable. The one thing that I want to point out about your situation is that this isn't about you or anything you did. Your son isn't "paying you back" for seeing your grandchildren. I know this doesn't help the sadness- but I hope that it helps you to not blame yourself. Your son's wife is disordered. The Karpman triangle is in play here- with you as her (imagnary)"persecutor" - herself as "victim". Your son is stepping in as "rescuer". She possibly demanded he shared his conversations with you. He may want you to see his baby- but she may be controlling him and he feels put in the place to choose you or her.

These are disordered dynamics. It seems to be a common situation that the BPD wife feels that other females who are connected to their partner are somehow a threat. This makes no rational sense- but feelings aren't rational.

I experienced similar dynamics with my BPD mother. One thing to keep in mind is that whatever you say to your son will be shared with his wife. Anything I said to my father was shared with my BPD mother- emails, and she listened to our phone calls.

The wife isn't the "problem". It takes two. Your son ( and my father) were the other half of the relationship. The dynamics are similar to those of families where alcohol addiction is present. Often the partner has enabling, caretaker, or co-depenent tendencies. I have learned this from being in 12 step ACA groups for my own family patterns.

Still- I don't want you to blame yourself. These family patterns are intergenerational. People learn them and then, they become the behaviors they know as "normal". You did the best you could in your situation with what you knew to do. It isn't your fault that genetics influenced your son's drinking.

Your son though is an adult and he has made his own choices. You know how this usually works- only when he experiences his own discomfort would he be motivated to change. You know to not rescue him.

You are a mother and grandmother and give a lot to your family. This is the time to invest in yourself and self care. It won't make a difference in your son's decision whether you focus on him or yourself. If you haven't tried 12 step CODA groups, you may find them helpful to you in this situation too. The family dynamics with alcohol and BPD are very similar. Can an alcoholic also be co-dependent and enabling? Yes- there are people in the groups I have attended who are now sober, and are working on co-dependency. It is possible that your son is both- and is the co-dependent partner to his BPD wife. However, choosing to change is up to him- not you.

Self care is a way to help you. Counseling is another support for yourself as well.

[shell24]

Thank you, notwendy, and your response was very helpful and you are absolutely right. I need to just work on myself and how I am feeling and reacting to what feels like rejection and being tortured unfairly. I lost his dad when his dad died in a car accident (from drinking). I then was single many years, just my son and I, then remarried when he was 17. My 2nd husband died also, from cancer. Things have not been easy. My joy is in children, babies, my family, and animals. I am a nurse so yes do have some codependent behaviors myself but not very much anymore, have worked hard on those. My son shocked me when he would say really awful things about his wife, then whenever I would be supportive and say a few responses, those few minute responses were shared with his wife and she already has terminated the other grandparents presence in the kids lives. I love children easily and deeply. And my son is my only child. I do know that what I am feeling is a terrible combo effect from all of my grief, wrapped up together, and it feels particularly sad and heavy so much so that I cry quite a bit. I KNOW that I need counseling. Being on here is helpful. I can't confide much to my mother, she is old. My sister when I confide in her, changes it around to some story about a friend whose son is in jail, so I should be grateful. And if I'm being straight up 100% honest, I feel like a parent failure that my son would reject me this way and not stand up for me and allow me to see my sweet baby grandson, who turns 2 soon. Alas, even while I am feeling this way, my rationale mind tells me that he is simply caught and he is making up for losses  of his first two children and investing all he can in making things work so he can be with his baby boy. I know this, so I know it's not personal against me but as I am in quite a bit of pain, it feels personal, you know?

Thank you for your kind and insightful words. Just simply sharing my feelings lightens my load and I thank you for reading all my heavy stuff and being so kind.

[Notwendy]

Shell- many of us here have had the experience of being falsely "painted black" by someone with BPD. It feels very hurtful and I think it helps some to take the perspective of that being their projections, not it being true. It's also hurtful when their SO somehow aligns with them. For me, that experience was with my father. I agree with you that the parent-child bond is something special. In a marriage, the marital bond is primary but it isn't the only bond. Yet somehow the pwBPD feels threatened by their partner's connections to other family members.

I recommend counseling for you. As a nurse, you take care of everyone else. You have the skills and knowlege to do so. But it isn't fair to yourself to expect that just because you have this knowlege- you can't ask for help from someone else. I hope you can let yourself be the client in this situation- and get the support from counseling. It've done it- and it's for support and it's been helpful.

My BPD mother sees people as "being on her side" or "not her side". Living day to day with a disordered person - if one continuously resists their expectations, it's a struggle. What it appeared to be to me is that to cope, my father had to suspend his own "reality" and just go along with my mothers in order to coexist. He also would at times express his difficulty with my mother to me but if I offered a solution, it's almost as if he snapped back into "rescuer" role. There's a payoff to this- when my parents are aligned against a common "persecutor" they are most stable as they are not focused on their own issues. When your son shares any negative thing you say with his wife- it brings a sense of alignment for them.

There's some interpretation in your feelings that I encourage you to let go of because it isn't personal to you and also we can't know what someone else is thinking. The main one is that- you have not failed as a parent. I think you have done all you can to give your son a loving and nurturing home. Both you and your son experienced a tragic loss but this isn't due to anything you did or didn't do.

Why your son is doing what he's doing in this marriage is hard to understand. My parents' relationship was complicated too. For whatever reason, it isn't about anyone else and it isn't his family's fault that he made these choices.

Your son has his own genetic make up and his own temperment and you know that how the genes are determined has nothing to do with anything you did.

I hope you consider looking into 12 step CODA groups. It can feel vulnerable to walk into a group. There are people from all walks of life in the groups I have attended. There have been physicians, nurses, chiropractors, dentists, teachers, PA's, stay at home parents, blue collar workers, unemployed people, students, these dynamics cross cultural boundaries- and everyone walks in with a need for the information they can gain from them.

It's difficult for people in a caregiving profession to actually ask for and accept emotional support from others but you are worth that too.