Dealing with a BPD SIL when her family turns a blind eye

[PinkElephant]

Hi all...

This is my first post so here goes...

My wife's sister has what seems best defined as BPD and although the family acknowledges it - they allow the behavior.

Their past attempts at setting boundaries have resulted in intense fits of rage, screaming matches and on one occasion physical violence against my wife (her sister)

The general attitude in the family is that it's easier to capitulate to her behavior and wait for the storm to pass rather than discuss or attempt a solution and risk a massive amplification of the behavior.

The other problem is walking on eggshells (yes I know it's a book) when she is in a good mood - it really feels like she has a tight grip on the entire family and it's extremely uncomfortable to be around.

I discussed this issue with my own psychiatrist whose suggested strategy was to simply ignore the behavior. It's very difficult to do this when she is having an outburst -  screaming, name calling and
literally bright red in the face.

This behavior isn't new and before I married my wife I was aware of her sister's behavior.

In the past we had a 50/50 shot of making it through a day with no outburst. Now I truly can't remember the last time we've seen her that she wasn't enraged over just about anything.

If anyone can relate I would really appreciate a strategy beside "ignore her" to make life a little more pleasant since we see her quite a bit.

Thanks everyone

[bloomie]

Hi there and welcome. What an atmosphere of impending doom to live with! That has to be really hard for you and your wife.

What immediately comes to my mind to ask when reading your post is what have you and your wife decided together is the proper boundaries to have with someone who is this high conflict and at times physically violent toward either one of you?

You and your wife are a separate and complete family of your own. It is so important to decide together what your core values are and who/how/what you allow into the most intimate circles of your lives because the potential for damage from someone with this level of violent and abusive acting out is very high for you both.

You may come to the conclusion, as my DH and myself did, that we have different boundaries and expectations for what works for us than the rest of the family in this relationship.

Accepting the status quo of tolerating, enduring and enabling a sil that is abusive, divisive, and disruptive who through bullying and manipulation excercises absolute dominion and control over my DH's entire family system, whose known outrageous and harmful behaviors also include red-faced screaming and physical abuse of my DH, does not work for us. 

There is help and hope! The toolbox and Personality Disorders Traits info are a great jumping in place to find strategies. Learning about establishing boundaries and limits together around your family unit and keeping the connection and communication between you and your wife strong and healthy is so important.

Keep coming back and sharing. Read the threads of others who have dealt with similar things. Check out our book recommends and the video resources other members have found helpful as well.

A really great help to my own DH and myself is reading together the book: Boundaries in Marriage by Cloud and Townsend. Very clarifying and helpful!

I'm glad you have reached out for support!

[PinkElephant]

You and your wife are a separate and complete family of your own. It is so important to decide together what your core values are and who/how/what you allow into the most intimate circles of your lives because the potential for damage from someone with this level of violent and abusive acting out is very high for you both.

Harmful behaviors also include red-faced screaming and physical abuse of my DH, does not work for us. 

Thank you Bloomie, I feel a small sense of relief from the simple fact that yours and a lot of the stories I've read on this board ring so true...I know I'm not the only one dealing with this issue but it's validating to hear such similar stories to my own.

Living in an atmosphere where people are so used to tolerating the behavior makes me feel deeply frustrated - I sometimes want to shake everyone and ask are you really all going to just sit back and let this happen?

I took a look through the toolbox and I'm bookmarking the page for easy reference the next time I'm around my SIL. I do feel like a need a rulebook when we're around her and maybe this could be it...

As to your thoughts re: myself and my wife:
Something thing that jumped out at me is "Rescuer Syndrome". 

I've had conversations with my wife about this behavior in the past - it's actually one of the qualities I love most about her - but when it's applied to BPD it's very frustrating to watch.

She's a fixer. She's the one in the family that solves everyone's problems for them so she continually puts her own feelings aside to accommodate her sister's behavior.

The perfect example of this came up yesterday.

My SIL hasn't spoken to my wife in 2 weeks because we threw a birthday party for their mother and invited their grandmother who the SIL was currently fighting with.

SIL saw this as disloyalty, showed up to our dinner party with a McDonald's bag - wouldn't allow her children to eat our food and spent the night fighting with whoever would engage her.

Even after she acted so terribly at our party, SIL is still waiting for an apology from my wife for inviting their grandmother.

Cut to 2 weeks later and my wife (who is currently expecting) had planned a baby shopping trip with her mother to register for her shower.

Even though she knew it would quite likely sour the experience, my wife invited SIL to join because, as she put it, "I'd rather have a bad time than make my sister feel excluded"

This was further reinforced by her mother warning  that if she didn't invite SIL that the SIL would deliberately ruin her baby shower (just as she had done with the birthday party)

Unsurprisingly the trip did not go well - SIL fought with my wife and their mother the entire time (in front of an audience of other expectant mothers) my wife eventually had enough and just left after an hour saying she felt "tired"

My wife is aware that she rewards her sister's bad behavior but would rather experience that behavior than the guilt she would feel by excluding her.

This is further complicated by her mother's frustration and tears that her daughters don't have a solid relationship.

To my wife, her family is everything and I'm actually quite fortunate to have a great relationship with my in laws.

However, since SIL basically lives at their house - by setting the boundary of leaving the house when SIL turns abusive then we also have to leave my in laws, cousins, uncles and aunts who we both really love and enjoy.

So by escaping the SIL, we are losing out on the time with the rest of the family and my wife just can't abide.

Thanks for listening - any insight is greatly appreciated.