Emotional enmeshment with adult children

[AskingWhy]

I'm going to say it: emotional inc*st.

When a parent is too close to an adolescent or adult child, often of the opposite sex.

My uBPDH is enmeshed with his adult D.  She is married and a bored homemaker, a mother of two small children.   Her husband works long, odd hours and often isn't at home.  She has turned to her father for companionship as she doesn't have friends her age.

As an adolescent, she saw me as her romantic rival for her father's affections. She went out on "dates" with him all dressed up with perfume.  It was sick.  She must have looked like a young mistress!

How common is it for BPDs to have boundary issues?  I have an x uBPDH who was enmeshed with his mother.  (We eventually divorced because of this.  I now know BPD and can avoid it.)

[AskingWhy]

I found the article! I am a "left out spouse." 

[Gerda]

My mom did that with me. It's not always a child of the opposite sex; my mom only had daughters. She treated like her best friend during my parent's divorce. I was her emotional support while she was going through the divorce process with my dad. I was in middle school at the time. And once my dad was out of the picture, I had to help my now-single mom take care of my younger sister almost as if I was the other parent.

Once she started dating again, she even treated me like her best friend talking with me about her dates. Definitely not appropriate! I guess it didn't help that she didn't have any actual friends her own age.

I've read that people with BPD tend to latch on to a "favorite person" for emotional support. That's often a romantic partner, but I think if the romantic relationship breaks down then they turn to their kids. A romantic relationship can break up, but your kids are always your kids.

So I feel bad for your husband's daughter. You say she's an adult now. I'm not sure how long he's been like this with her, but if it started when she was younger, it's probably had a bad effect on her. The thing is, the victim of emotional incest often feels good about it. When I was supporting my mom through her divorce, I thought it was so great that my mom trusted me this way. I felt so grown up! The problem was, I was only 13 or 14. Who was supporting me?  No one. Took quite a bit of therapy and reading self-help books to figure out that a lot of my mental health problems come from how my mom used me for support when I was a kid.

[Notwendy]

Asking Why- I think it is common for pwBPD to have boundary issues- and since BPD affects all relationships- that would include with family members too.

Enmeshment with family members is a part of that.

Your H's enmeshment with his daughter is an aspect of the difficulties in your marriage and it has been a difficult marriage. Still, there have been reasons that the two of you have stayed together. That's a consideration too. It may be that your marriage is more of an arrangement between the two of you than a marriage you wish it could be.

Yes, this relationship with his adult daughter is creepy and not appropiate but they are two adults who choose to be this way and it seems it somehow works for them. He's getting something out of being the "Daddy" to her and she gets Daddy's attention and resources. This is not going to change.

In ways it deprives you of the kind of marriage you wish it was, but looking at it another way- from your posts- you don't really like this guy much and yet somehow the two of you are together for other reasons. If he's getting some emotional needs met by being Daddy - that means less attention to you- and less of a need for your attention- so you can do something else instead- some more time to yourself to do things you want to do.

It hurts on some level but then, there is radical acceptance. He's not going to change. To make this different- your choice is to leave the marriage or find some way to manage being in it. So far, you've chosen the latter. So now, the choice becomes radical acceptance. You don't think much of the guy ( from your posts) so being less emotionally invested and making this more of a room mate situation might make it more tolerable if you don't want to leave or it isn't feasable to do so. On this level, it is possible ( and better) to be cordial. One doesn't have to be emotionally invested to be cordial and it's less drama.