Advice Dealing with Family Situation

I see no flaws in how you've handled this situation. If she is house sitting, they should not have left it out, and if they didn't, she should not have been snooping. But other than that, there is a reason she suspects it is about her -- she may very well think the same of herself (unless he was writing her name with arrows in the margins!) You are handling a very difficult situation beautifully. Good luck!

ETA: I would not discount intervention this late in life.

I think you have done your duty in talking to her already, and from here, leave it alone WITH HER. She has the personality she has and she has caused people to feel this way about her. She is lucky to have them still in her life and neither you nor your nephew should feel bad about it.

Your nephew should stand strong in this and just say "Yes I am reading the book. No, I don't want to talk about it" and walk away from the discussion. (You should tell him this, by the way.) If he allows her to suck him into the discussion, she will try to manipulate it and turn everything around to where it's everyone else's fault, including his. It perpetuates her distorted view and heaps her ire on his head, and he doesn't deserve it, OR need to put up with it.

By the way, none of you should feel guilty about this book at all. Tell him this.

Dawn

I'm very impressed with how you handled the entire situation from start to finish. Bravo. I sincerely doubt I could have handled things with such finesse when put on the spot like that.

I think your sister likely became so upset and thinks the book is "aimed" at her because she saw herself in it. I'm sure that she knows there's something different about her. Knowing that other people know it too... and think you need to be fixed... it's a shock. Maybe things in the house were changing in regard to how she was being treated or approached, like she was being "handled" and when she found the book suddenly it clicked as to why.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's ever "too late" for an intervention.

Yep. I think you handled this spot on. No one wants to hear, "Oh yeah, I suggested that book for him to read. You're a real P.I.T.A."

I think your NIL is the one who has to deflect this the best. He needs to keep his answer short and sweet. If he over elaborates or says the same story as you, she'll know something is up (that you called him). I think a white lie might work here. "What book are you talking about? I don't know, so-and-so just dropped off a bunch of books for me to donate to the library." If it was sitting out. If on the shelf. "What book? I don't know, I had a friend in college give me a handful of books to hold on to. Maybe it was one of those." or "I did some project in school a few years ago and picked that book up." SHORT and SWEET. Move on.

If she drills him about how he feels about her, suggest that he tell her, "I love you. You're my mom." Short and Sweet. If he wants to really deal with, having outside help is about the only way to do it with someone like this.

Hope this all works out for you and your NIL. And like someone else said, he shouldn't have had it out OR she shouldn't have been prying.

You have wonderful advice. The only thing I can add is that my mother is difficult too. Firm but loving boundaries are a must. It took me 45 years!

When we spoke on the phone, I made the commitment to myself that I would only say and email kind things to her. If I felt the least bit of a dagger coming my way, she got a "time-out", believe it or not. I had a rotating five excuses in my hip pocket for getting off the phone or leaving the area. None of them were about her.....When I got that pain in my gut and knew she was on the war path I would nicely but definitively pull an excuse out and say something like, "Uh-oh, the dog is going to have an accident, I've got to go. Bye." and hang up. I wouldn't call her back for a few days, maybe a week, and I wouldn't return her calls or email. When I did, I would start with a shallow, friendly email with a recipe or happy article or a photo of the kids...something happy. Then I would call her in another day.

She is sharp (no pun, well maybe a little) and figured it out quickly. We BOTH have healed a lot from this. We have never talked about me giving her "time outs", I just have been consistent and it has helped a LOT. It has now been ten years and I feel like we have a pleasant relationship. The incidents still occur but with much less frequency. We had one recently and before that it was 2 years. This one went by in a couple of days. I sent her a loving email and was strong enough to tell her in my email that I wasn't mad at her, but thought she was at me and perhaps there was a misunderstanding. She responded well. I think she too enjoys the 'new and improved' relationship and values me more for it.

Good luck. It can be done. I agree that strong boundaries are the key. It is so hard to be loving when you are in pain, but try my tricks.

Blessings to all of you.

BPDFamily.com is a very helpful website. It gives you communication skills that can help to diffuse the situation. Its for the familys with bpds in their lives.Try the board for more info. Anyone that doesn't have a person with BPD can not fathom what you have been through or the giant problem this is. Don't JADE, justify, argue, defend or explain. Won't help and leads to terrible arguing. Keep your conversations brief, informative, firm and friendly, BIFF. Always have a out on phone calls- ring the doorbell! It is NEVER a good idea to tell the person you think they have BPD. You can just suggest counciling. At this point you are "walking on Eggshells" I bet! She is going to need time to simmer down. Sometimes that doesn't even work. She is going to "paint"your nephew black. It's a smear campaign. Don't engage in it. PM me if you want more info.

i think you did the best you could with a really difficult situation. good job giving them a heads up. sometimes there is no easy answer. hang in there!

Having dealt with self absorbed overly sensitive people who seem similar to your sister, I would focus on telling her that you're sorry that she is hurt. I would mention as little as possible about the book. I wouldn't say he read it because it's about her or that he read it for some other reason. I'd say, he read it and I'm sorry seeing the book hurts you. Being sensitive means that she's also sensitive to knowing when someone is lying or telling half truths. Just listen to her and be sympathetic to her pain.

It takes years of therapy to change such ingrained personality disorders. (She may not be borderline but have many similar characteristics. I knew someone who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder by one professional and then later that was dismissed and they diagnosed bipolar disorder.) The diagnosis doesn't matter. She has not adapted well to getting along with people. She won't change at this age especially. I wouldn't try any sort of intervention.

BTW I found this book or one like it and found it helpful in getting along with people.

Skillful support is right. I think just comforting and keeping out of it as much as possible. I'm thinking of all sorts of reason why she should'nt be in the nephew's room in the first place and I'm thinking if he picked up the book on his own, it's cut and clear, he just was interested in knowing... but the fact that you recommended it upon a recommendation from someone else you consulted with is just going to make this a hard situation. You may just have to suck it up and tell the whole story to her. But that hurts, I know it would hurt me if my family couldn't tell me I had a problem and sought advice behind my back. I know you meant well and was only helping the nephew but this one I just cringe at what you are about to go through. Hope it all works out with less drama than we expect to happen.

It sounds like you handled it well.

Maybe your family dynamic would not allow for this type of response, but the first thing that came to my mind was that unless she saw her name written in the margins, she should mind her business. Their book in their house is their business, right? That might not be as easy to say in your situation, though. It's how I handle stuff on my side of the world.

Life is the combinations of several up and downs...so, we need to overcome them through our handling skill...good approach about anything...a positive attitude will make a wonderful living situations...i think now you are on a good track...good to go :)

You gave her a truthful answer that should probably be enough of one. Other than that, if she confronts your niece and nephew-in-law a simple and honest answer is "someone told me about this book, so I decided to check it out" or "I was just interested in learning more about this topic, so I read the book." I don't think it will help to go into any kind of drawn out explanations or to argue the point...just keep it straightforward and simple and only if she asks about it.

Wow! I've given similar answers before.....I don't have much to add, am amazed at the wonderful advice so far (I'm the 3rd or 4th response) I can only validate that this seems so difficult. "rock and a hard place comes to mind". All the best!

even without my glasses i can tell you that your sister is a control freak and is using you to try to control the people around her,tell your nil to do himself a big favor and put at least one state between himself and this psycho before he ends up in the hospital or worse. legally, if she hurts this guy, or causes him to be hurt, you can be held legally accountable if it can be proven that you knew this woman was a threat and did nothing to prevent it. save yourself some serious legal fees, and help this guy get away from your sister before he gets hurt and you get sued
K. h.