Can my BPD mother affect my 2yr old son?

[MMount93]

I’ve recently learned about BPD and NPD. My life experience has been so deeply validated by the revelation that my mother is not only bulimic, but also BPD/NPD. She hasn’t been diagnosed, she refuses any therapy of any kind, but I have the quintessential all bad child experience. She only shows this to my dad and myself (only child) the rest of the world thinks she’s fantastic. Our family dynamic is absolutely toxic, but we pretend everything is fine. My dad was too busy growing ip to realize how sick my mom was, and she kept her bikini a secret from him until he found out when I was 10yrs old. Unfortunately, due to the unchecked BPD and bulimia, to me, my mother has been a monster. I keep her bulimia a secret, everyone thinks she’s an angel and I’m a problem child.

Flash forward 20yrs, I’m 31 and I have a 2.5yr old son. My mother always says I loved her as a little girl and when I was 3 I chose not to like her. I now know that this is a normal development in child-parent relationships when a parent has BPD. I worry though, at 2.5yrs I see my son pulling away from grandma, he doesn’t like that she always demands his attention, she will interrupt his interactions with others, especially his papa, and she always brings him PLEASE READty dollarstore toys that she hypes up a ton and will repeat “look what grandma bought you!”  When he doesn’t give the reaction she wants she takes offence. The gifts feel like a total manipulation. Although their marriage is essentially over and they are moreso cohabitating, my parents are still together. My son LOVES my dad and idolizes him. My dad and I are really close. And since he’s retired and spent more time understanding my mother and her relationship with me and spent more time with her, he sees the destruction she’s caused in the family and in my development. But how do I move forward with my mother? While no-contact is truly what my soul needs, I also still need my father, and unfortunately they are still a pair that can’t be separated. Or at least previously, before our understanding of BPD he wasn’t open to choosing no contact for one, and not the other. Maybe his feelings have changed understanding the disorder more.

Do I need to worry about my son? Is it possible, with boundaries to continue a relationship with no harm?

[Notwendy]

Hopefully my experience will help. My children are grown. I wasn't aware of BPD at the time when they were very young, however, I knew that I would not allow my BPD mother to be alone with them, I would not have trusted her in that situation. Like you, I was very attached to my father who remained married to my mother. They visited together. My father also was very involved with the kids and I saw that they bonded in different ways to my parents.They loved my father but had little interest in a relationship with her. However, they do have manners and know how to behave respectfully to adults regardless and so they were well behaved with her.

I didn't force the relationship on their part. I did reinforce manners. They have their own boundaries and if they don't feel comfortable around a certain person, then that is something to respect, as long as they behave in a cordial manner. They don't have to like BPD mother but that doesn't mean it's OK to speak in a disrespectful way to her.

It made it easier that while BPD mother wanted their attention on her, she has little interest in being "motherly" or attentive to their interests. Dad on the other hand would get down on the floor and play with them, read them stories, while BPD mother was more of an observer.

Distance and frequency of visits played a part in this too. They didn't live close enough to us to visit frequently, so the impact of BPD mother on them was less than if the visits were frequent. I'd say- the closer the disordered parent is in distance- there's probably more need for boundaries.

Where I got concerned is when the kids reached adolescence. They didn't need adult supervision. BPD mother would try to get them on their own and tell them her "side of thing" - triangulating, and also enlisting them as her emotional caretakers. She also has poor boundaries and I recall her sharing things with me at that age that were not appropriate. So I had the "don't be alone with grandma" boundary and the kids stuck together rather than to be one on one with her. When they got cell phones, I didn't give her their numbers but she went around that and got them from someone else and then took some delight in calling them "behind my back" ( they told me so it wasn't behind my back). BPD mother sees boundaries as a challenge to get around them.

BPD mother didn't like that I had boundaries but what I didn't anticipate was my father's reaction. I thought he'd understand but he defended her and got angry at me. But here was the issue. By not allowing my BPD mother to be emotionally manipulative with the kids- it affected the "family secret" that BPD mother is "normal" and not the problem. So it had to be something else - me that was causing problems in the family. Even though your father is aware of your mother's issues and your feelings- mine was too. It didn't matter. When my mother felt uncomfortable or her self image threatened- he went to her side of things.

I didn't expect to be put in the position of choosing my parents' approval or my children's well being but the choice was obvious. We all have our deal breakers- lines in the sand- and mine is my kids. I will not compromise my children's well being to please my mother. For my father though, his line in the sand was my mother's feelings. I had to have other boundaries with my mother too at the time too and my father got angry. Unfortunately, he was also seriously ill at the time and passed shortly after that.

In summary- I am grateful that my children grew up with a relationship with my father. He's had a positive impact on them and they remember him fondly.

If I cut contact this could not have happened.

I am glad I had boundaries but I also didn't know about BPD and family dynamics at the time. I would still have the boundaries but perhaps would have gone about how to do it differently if I had any idea about how my father would react. It was unexpected as I assumed he knew the situation. However, enmeshement and family dynamics are complicated. I would advise you to have boundaries but to learn about BPD and relationships first.

My BPD mother has had much less of an impact on my kids than she had on her own kids. The maternal bond is with me, not her. However, I could see that my kids didn't feel comfortable around her and didn't force it. If your child is reacting the same way - that's on her to deal with. He's responding to his own boundaries. Less frequent contact and you not leaving your kids alone with your mother will lessen the impact.

I became more concerned when the kids were old enough to be useful to BPD mother. I didn't want them to be her emotional caretakers. At some point in their teen years, we had the "BPD is a mental illness" discussion. I wanted them to understand why she behaves the way she does.

They have their own boundaries with her now. They may choose to respond to her texts/calls or not. They have also seen me struggle with the relationship now, and trying to do the best I can with being of assistance to her while also having boundaries. And importantly- they see me seek out help for whatever family issues I might be concerned about. They know I have had counseling and go to 12 step ACA and CODA groups. I want to role model to them that it is OK to seek help if they ever needed to.

Hope this helps- you are on the right track here. I think you can take some time to  figure this out- how to keep your Dad in your child's life while minimizing the impact of your mother's behavior.