BPD/NPD Daughter in Law

[toasterx]

Hi - firstly full respect and best wishes to those struggling with their own BPD/NPD, diagnosed and seeking relief, my heart goes out to you. However, like many this is us reaching out as victims of someone who appears to have many of the defining characteristics of BPD/NPD, our daughter-in-law; someone who has wrought havoc on our family and damn near killed my wife through the stress and personal attacks. No More.

Again, to echo others, we had our suspicions from the outset nearly ten years ago that this person seemed "too good to be true" in some ways and we believe ourselves to be pretty aware, empathic people, nonetheless naive and overly trusting. No point going in to all the gory details of the last few years but the gist is that she love-bombed our slightly Aspie son who had never had a relationship in his life at that time. She is quite a lot older with a couple of kids of her own but now - seven years in - they are together in their own house with three more - our beautiful grandchildren. Over the whole period, every six to nine months, she has severed all contact or had some kind of freakout/meltdown that always centres on my wife (whom she [emphatically incorrectly] calls a narcissist, natch) and weighs heavily on us all (admittedly, when she is not exhibiting any alarm bells, she is nice as pie, even for protracted periods). These episodes usually result in no contact and the most recent one - after the most banal and indefensible trigger - has been the most complete. No access at all to the two grandchildren or our son, let alone the other kids or her. She [obviously] made him call us to tell us (this was at start of year) and he was in the most upset state I have ever heard him and I must say at the time my unspoken feeling was "here we go again, don't get into it cos it will all blow over and we'll be back on track in a month or two" whereas due to his own personal wiring he believed it was basically permanent. I fear he may be closer to the truth than I am

Anyway the denial of access to our own flesh and blood is cruel and deeply painful, yet the relief from stress for my wife has been tangibly palliative and it is only now - five years on, despite having checked these forums /years/ ago - that she realises the full extent of the manipulation and the futility of trying to understand, compensate or expect any kind of realistic prospect of healing the dynamic and even more so it dawning on just how directed and orchestrated the mind games have been. This puts us into place where we feel very resolute that we will NOT resume contact as before. Will NOT just jump back in "as if nothing had ever happened" (which is what has always gone before). That my wife will NOT ever have any contact again so as to avoid any chance of being on the receiving end of damaging attacks again (my wife is empathic to a degree that does not serve her in this situation).

Realising this and reading up a little more has raised some new alarm bells though. Under the scenario of just letting it all bounce back we would be fairly confident of seeing our grandchildren again - at least until 6 to 9 months time when the cycle might repeat, but hey! - and having to suck up the other stuff and try to manage it better, this time. However I get the feeling that if (when) she bounces back up and tries to resume where she left off (with her pet victim to persecute having nicely had the wounds scar over) and we then make it very clear she no longer has any access to her preferred victim, I think there's a real chance that she will kick off big time and that could usher in a truly indeterminate period of isolation. I do not for a moment underestimate how clever or dangerous she can be and our primary concern is for the health, well-being and happiness of our granchildren (who didn't choose this) and our son (who doesn't realise he didn't choose it either). If that means our continued enforced isolation then we may have to go with the flow on it. I am aware there may be legal steps we could take to ensure access to them but that could of course be no less messy and they do not deserve to be more messed around when they probably have a tricky enough life journey ahead as it is.

Of course this whole story could be as long as a book or two so there's only the gist of it here but I'd welcome input and feedback from others who may have had similar experiences and what one can do to smooth the path and indeed what we might do to give ourselves the best chance of playing the fullest role we can under the circumstances in the lives of our wonderful grandchildren.

TIA, T

PS would love to hear about any support groups we might find near us in the Manchester area.

 

[addy2]

Bpd and npd are two different diagnoses, I have bpd and my ex has npd he is a cold cruel man who can only think of himself. I’m not sure who you would go about this but all I can say is bpd people are very sensitive and if they hurt you it’s in defence, npd is a whole other story they will just hurt u cause they can.