[MENTION=1009]CzeCze[/MENTION]
Exactly! I was totally floored that your uncle would have another child with her after that, let alone 2. The dysfunctionals and the enablers always find one another. It's eerie.
I feel bad for all the children, you really can't blame them no matter how they turn out. With parents like that their doom was sealed from birth. I wonder if the older daughter has a strange heightened sensitivity to appearances partly due to knowing in a vague way how kookoo her family is.
I know! I feel like there is some secret underground magazine that they all subscribe to and put ads in to find each other.
I do feel bad for the kids. The oldest one is 25 now, though, and I feel like it's time for her to grow up and start taking responsibility for her own actions. The only way the cycle can stop is if a choice is made to stop being a victim and start being proactive. Especially now that she is going to be a mom... she needs to step up to the plate and stop blaming the world for her problems.
More of my sympathy goes to the youngest because she was the "replacement" child, and never met her older brother... but yet is there because of him. It's very sad.
I think your uncle sounds like he is still in denial about things, including his own culpability. I'm surprised his daughters still come and see him. But even with dysfunction, neglect, and/or abuse the child's need to bond with their parent is incredibly strong, perhaps stronger because they need approval and/or a safe haven. Right now the whole family is still in denial.
They are the kings and queens of denial. My uncle was in denial for 22 years that his wife wasn't crazy. And she is the definition of denial.
I think your uncle's karma is going to include many years of extremely turbulent and distressing altercations with his children who vacillate between feeling affection for him and being unholy pissed at his crappy parenting. I can't say I blame them. They are either going to find ways to punish him for the rest of their lives and/or disengage. It sounds like his eldest daughter is already on that path and probably wants to punish the entire extended family to some extent for failing her. On some level, she feels resentment for the extended family members who were in a position to intervene and probably blames them unconsciously or consciously for the free floating rage she now has to carry around. So something like "I'm not coming to your wedding" on top of her childhood is a table flipping screaming banshee moment. I'm not surprised her wedding didn't go smoothly. That rage is a gift from her family. I kinda shudder thinking about the years in store for her.
He's been enjoying turbulent years for awhile now thanks to those girls living with their mother alone for so long. What they really needed was a bunch of individual and group/family therapy years and years ago... but they didn't think they had problems.
@bold, nice phrasing
... and very apt I would say.
You know, one of my friends bought another friend couples' therapy as a wedding present... I doubt that would go over well with your cousin but...seems apt here.
I would love to, but it would be taken as a declaration of war by her. Their relationship is weird too... he's 10 years older than her... and he just gives off this super creepy vibe to me. I have started avoiding him now because of it. He thinks I am hilarious and tries to corner me in corners to talk to me and always puts his hand on my arm or something and leans in saying "we should get to know each other better sometime." W-E-I-R-D.
I have another friend who came from some extraordinary abuse and dysfunction in the home and though she loves her mother dearly now that she is married and has children of her own she realizes she needs to minimize contact with her mom. Having children of her own stirred up a lot of anger and probably rage at her mother for allowing so much abuse to happen to her and her siblings. So she keeps a safe distance now. There will probably be more conversations in the future. Actually confronting and addressing these things with the people involved and ideally coming to a point of acknowledgement/forgiveness is the only way to move past the dysfunction. I feel so bad for your cousins that they are stuck in the grips of it still. Without intervention it's going to be years before the younger one even realizes what's hit her and can put a name to things.
that is very sad.
but it is nice that she has moved on to a different point and has found a way to function within the dysfunction in a healthy way. I am not a mother, and I am not very 'mothery"... but what bothers me the most in these situations is how the kids are the ones who pay the price. I would hope that I would have the courage to know that in that kind of a situation and get them out.
I fear that what is going to happen is just some giant massive blow-up on a volcanic scale. The youngest one is going away for college (even though it's only 30 min from home) and I really really hope that this helps give her the distance needed to be her own person. I also hope that she deals with whatever she feels via a positive outlet like writing or music or talking with friends/counselor... and not going to parties and getting drunk like her sister did. I know that she wants to be an English major and was excited to learn that I was one too, so I sent her a message on facebook opening the door that if she wants to chat about writing, I am all eyes. Hoping that even if she doesn't confide in me, that just having an option such as this might help. It's about all I can do that doesn't border on being too invasive.
It's amazing how 1 person's problem essentially fireballs into generations worth of grief.
I know! It's rather scary how much damage one person can do... One of my best friends' mom has BPD. My best friend has chosen the path of not wanting to be involved with any guy other than brief sexual flings. I think she may have lost count of how many guys she has slept with, but she was already up to 40 when we were 20, soo... yeah. Her sister, on the other hand, has never been without a boyfriend/husband/fiance since she was 11. She just got married for the second time, and is already lining up who she would move onto in case her marriage doesn't last. They are both in their 30's now and their mom still affects them with her demands and anger. It makes me sad to see.
Did the ex-wife ever say *why* she wanted to kill your uncle? I'm curious about her own family (parents, siblings) now.
She said he was making her do it because he wouldn't listen to her.
After they got divorced, she mailed a huge letter to everyone in our family, stating "her side of the story because she knew he was lying about her." Her version was so bizarre. Nothing was her fault, it was all his fault or someone else'.
I don't know much about her family... but the little I know... was very strange. My memory is very fuzzy because her parents died when I was little, but I think it was something super crazy like a murder-suicide kind of a thing. I just remember hearing about how there was blood all over the house.
I know that before she met my uncle she was a motorcycle chick who rode around the country with some gang and did drugs with them. then she saw my uncle and started stalking him until he asked her on a date
wtf: i know) and then she told him she was pregnant so they got married, and oops! she wasn't pregnant... and yeah. She has some siblings still but they don't have great relationships (they were the side of the family at the wedding that looked like they had stepped out of the movie Deliverance).
I had no idea BPD was considered dangerous to others. I only thought people with BPD were dangers to themselves and caused a lot of emotional turmoil in their relationships.
I think my ex-aunt is an extreme case. We've tried talking to my uncle about things (like turn on your damn security alarm) but he refuses to do it. So I think we are all half expecting a police call someday because he still doesn't take her as a serious threat.
BPD can't be cured either, and can only be treated to whatever extent the patient will allow. I have a feeling that with extreme cases, it is probably impossible to do much with them. You can't change what you don't acknowledge, and BPD is all about not acknowledging one's own actions.