Worried about brother and niece

[worriedSIL]

I think my SIL is BPD/narcissistic. I fell for all her bullshit initially. Now she has such a grip on my family and it makes me feel awful. A few years back she accused my brother of abuse. I believed her because I would never shut down an abusive victim. She shared such crazy details about how he's a sex addict and porn addict would pressure her into having sex. It was a crazy amount of detail to share with your husband's sister. I listened empathetically though. And any doubts I had about her claims were quickly cast away by his own admission of guilt and his insistence that he wanted to 'get better' and 'make things right'. SIL told me he was a covert narcissist and had antisocial traits and sexual thoughts about children. I was shocked, but again, he always repeated the same remorseful lines. My mom didn't believe any of it. As a result she was also labeled an enabling narcissist. My brother at one point asked me if he could move in with me if he got divorced. I said no. I didn't want a pedophile around my own children and I was afraid to have someone with such wild psych diagnoses living in my home regardless. As time has gone on, I have more and more doubts about SIL's story. I feel so much guilt about telling him he couldn't live with me. If I said yes maybe he would have left. I just didn't understand what was going on at the time.

Since then, they stayed married and had a baby. My brother is the baby's primary caretaker. He does all the middle of the night feeds and holds her when she's sick. When he walks out of the room she cries for him and tries to climb out of my SIL's arms. SIL is constantly doing wild things for attention. Going on tons of elaborate vacations and doing whole house renovations that I know they cannot financially afford. She makes reckless decisions with my niece's health (refusing to cancel travel plans when niece is sick, etc). And she also is constantly talking to anyone and everyone about various health crises with my niece and other family members. It's so exhausting to be around and difficult to keep up with.

My brother is constantly showering her with praise and talking about how wonderful she is in every area of life. It's weird. My husband and I have a very healthy relationship but he doesn't talk about me like that. It feels like my brother has Stockholm syndrome. One of the things he kept repeating to me is that my SIL "never lies" and is incapable of lying. I found that so odd. Also I've caught her in countless lies. Mostly lies that paint my mother in a negative light. Lies that I can easily prove and sometimes do. But it's exhausting because she just gaslights and then if that does work says something like "I must have misspoke. this really isn't that big of a deal"

I spent 2 hours on chatgpt explaining all her behaviors and chatgpt seems to think she likel has BPD. I'm inclined to agree. I mentioned it to my own therapist (who I started seeing when the initial abuse allegations about my brother came out) and my own therapist said "I can't diagnose her, but if the shoe fits" when I mentioned BPD lol.

I did soooo much reading about narcissism a couple years back when she was accusing my brother and mother of these things. I know all about gaslighting and splitting. I just was so naive and didn't realize that it was her with the personality disorder all along.

I would love to cut off contact but I worry about my infant niece and also my brother if there is any fragment of him left.

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the forum worriedSIL,

it's got to be hard watching this dynamic play out between your brother and SIL, especially now they have a child and you are concerned about your brother's proclivities.  we do have a sub group here where members support each other while dealing with various family members (both blood and by marriage) and it may be helpful for you to check it out.

as far as diagnosing, we can't do that either, however we do find sharing commonalities among our experiences really does help us feel less alone and more empowered to make the right choices to move forward in our unique situations.

Dealing with PD In-Laws

Dealing with PD Siblings and other Family Members

sometimes the inlaws board gets more traffic for MIL /FIL situations so I have shared the siblings' area too.

hope to hear from you on the boards soon-

[Rebel13]

Hi worriedSIL,

I wanted to add my welcome to xredshoesx and also this link:

Put Children First

I know the child in question isn't yours, but sometimes it helps to get an assist with prioritizing, in these chaotic situations.