Reducing contact with parents when one denies years of harmful behaviour

[bpddaughterhelp]

Hi everyone,

Wondering if I can ask about your experiences with a parent with BPD (specifically a BPD mum and enabling dad). I’m increasingly sure that my mum has undiagnosed BPD or another Cluster B disorder (she certainly has many strong traits despite no formal diagnosis that I’m aware of).

My dad is absolutely resistant to recognising how her behaviour has affected us over decades. He minimises it, conveniently forgets it, pressures me to ‘leave the past in the past’, ‘build bridges’, ‘you’re too sensitive’, ‘you know what she’s like’ etc etc etc.

His most recent bout of ‘I don’t understand, have we done something to upset you?’ is because I’m trying to reduce contact with them - from every other week, for 10+ hours, in my home, which was just assumed by them and deeply uncomfortable for me, to once every three weeks, for a shorter time, either in a neutral location or at their house so that I can leave.

I just… don’t know what to do with this any more. In 2018, he actually said to me that he was worried that my mum’s behaviour would lead to me not wanting them to see my (then imagined, future) children, so why is he now claiming he doesn’t know why I’m reducing contact?

Where do I go from here? I am absolutely exhausted by trying to battle and manage this relationship. There is no actual relationship, there is only the constant struggle of trying to keep mum on an even keel and trying to convince my dad that yes it was that bad and yes he should have protected us, and of trying to protect my child from the same dynamics that were so damaging to me.

I’ve had therapy on and off for the best part of 10 years. It’s helped me to see so much more clearly the dysfunctional family dynamics at play here. But whenever I try to reduce contact, this is what happens.

I actually would be deeply deeply relieved to never see or hear from them again. I am so so done.

What do I do now? My dad said yesterday that there is ‘nothing recent that [he is] aware of’ that warrants me reducing contact. It’s like he has this wilful misunderstanding or amnesia. I have had this conversation with him repeatedly over the years. I explained (again) my experience and point of view and he’s left me on read.

Wtf do i do?

i used to remind myself often that psychologist’s with a clutch of PhDs in this stuff struggle to understand the reasoning behind cruel behaviour in parents so i could give myself an easy time for it being so confusing. also give your inner child a hug that she isn’t that way because i struggle to think of a worse fate then being born to be an unloving parent. i’d take the awful childhood i had a hundred times over before i chose to betray my children.

It’s not why they act so awful that matters it’s how to escape from their clutches that’s important

i used to remind myself often that psychologist’s with a clutch of PhDs in this stuff struggle to understand the reasoning behind cruel behaviour in parents

That is such a good point and I do wonder even if a person could arrive at the exact answer to why their parents were so cruel, maybe see the exact moment in their past where they went from being a lovely child to this cruel person would it make any difference?

Would it be any less painful to experience their cruelty?

I genuinely don’t think it would.

I personally think trying to understand can veer a bit into avoidance, trying not to feel how shit it feels that they behave in those ways.

"That is where your work needs to happen, to know how they are and to accept that."

Quoted for emphasis. You need to accept how they are, otherwise you will stay in this cycle of pointless** hope and crushing disappointment/pain.

Getting to acceptance is a process, though. The number of hope/pain cycles needed to get there probably depends on your personality and the emergence of imperatives like having a kid: this dictates when you finally decide the next parental shenanigan is the last straw.

Have you considered therapy, OP? I suspect that even a few sessions would be clarifying for you.

* It is pointless. They won't change. Sadly, they can't change. They are like they are not because of who you are, but because they are very damaged people who can't see anyone else.

Your family sounds enmeshed and you were brought up to manage your mum’s emotions by obediently rejecting your own needs and catering only to hers. Your dad enables your mum’s behaviour because if she doesn’t get her own way she makes his life hell. He does everything in his power to direct her spite and abuse onto someone else even his own children because he is only interested in saving his own skin. Any threats of autonomy are quickly stamped out because you were only put on this earth so you could revolve around your mum. You are used as props to make her look good and to endure her unhappiness.

I am SO sorry for the posts above. Ive asked for them to be removed. They were totally on the wrong thread

Sincerely hope they get removed right now.