My dad is a narcissist and pitted me and my sister against each other growing up. She was the smart, beautiful child and I was the ugly and thick one. He went off her when she became a teenager and answered back and generally I am the favourite, but as I don't have a partner I am still sometimes an easy target, so I have to keep re asserting my boundaries with him. Its backfired as me and my sister are very close and she sees the abuse and validates it with me. She has her own issues too, but throws herself into work as a way to deal with it.
I have developed BPD as a result and also been in an abusive relationship myself. I'm very good at looking at myself and my flaws and have had therapy for four years to work on myself and manage my BPD (which I do pretty well). The abuse has had a lasting impact on me and I have awful self-esteem and struggle with feelings of guilt that I'm not good enough for my child. I have counselling every week and despite everything I am a pretty good parent.
My mum is an abused women still by my dad, but won't really acknowledge the abuse to me and my sister or to herself (she uses alcohol as a coping mechanism). I love my mum, but after doing the freedom program I now see her as a broken woman and see she was emotionally unavailable growing us because of the abuse. I don't blame her for not leaving and appreciate how hard it is to leave these types of relationships. I have broken the cycle by leaving one myself for my own children's sake, as well as my own.
One of my mums only source of joy is my children and I still let her see them, but now I am single my dad seems to think its fair game to be abusive to me and also started bullying my children and favouring one over the other and getting them to engage in games of picking on each other with him. My daughter is pretty strong minded for seven and will tell him if he's being horrible etc. My daughter now tells me she hates my dad and he's nasty as he only likes boys and that he treats nanny like a servant. If my dad is bullying my children I will immediately telling him to stop and if he doesn't I don't make a scene and I just leave with them and won't make contact with them. I'm not sure what else I can do to show boundaries and protect my daughter. I always explain after what he did wrong and how it's not her fault etc. I want my mum to see my daughter, but I don't want her to be abused and I want to know what I can do to have boundaries with my dad to protect my daughter and how I can teach her what's healthy and explain his behaviour or do I have to cut them both out for good.