Caught between my Wife and Son!

So my wife is BPD, we have been together for 10 years. I have been through alot. The last 3 years have been really good but last year my biological son got into a car wreck and sustained brain damage (the police said the accident looked intentional) and he had been drinking that night. Now she has deemed him her enemy. He is doing much better and getting back to normal but he is not allowed to drive yet. He wants to hang out with his friends. She thinks he should be punished. I feel me dropping him off to hang out alittle helps him cope with his circumstances of his accident. He has been through hell with this but she feels after of year I'm not committed to "teaching him a lesson". This is simply gas-lighting but I need some moral support. By the way my son is 24 years old!

Hi lane0824.

Firstly I am so sorry for your son, and so glad to hear that he is doing well under such dreadful circumstances.

For those who feel alone, or simply wanting to reach out for a chat without judgement......Psych Central is the place. There are many good listeners here... we're a pretty good bunch.

I have been an active member of this site for 4 years. In that time I have received some really constructive feedback and connected with several others with similar challenges to myself. I have also found hanging out in the Games Forums to be a welcome distraction in times of stress... a great way to clear my head, meet like minded others, and have some well needed fun. New members benefit greatly from perusing the many forums available here...lots to explore.

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Please be kind & generous to yourself lane0824, and welcome to P.C

How hard is to be a parent, right? Even when your kids are old. Isn’t it?
I’m not a parent but I can figure out how many worries a dad or a mum can feel about if they are or aren’t doing well.

What happened to your kid had to be a tremendous trauma for you all.
It seems your wife is finding tougher than you to see what’s the best for your son just now.
If she’s diagnosed with bpd, there are many possibilities that she doesn’t want to punish your son or makes him learn a lesson ( that honestly mentioned, he already surely learnt the bad way) as it can seem. I would bet she’s full of fears. Many times bpd people don’t know how to use the language in an appropriate way. Much more than other kinds of people. We struggle to identifying feelings and facts and so we fail to express these with an understandable message. That is why the title of the known book “I hate you, don’t leave me” makes perfect sense for us but it’s so hard to decode by most of people.

I see so amazing that your son sounds so perfectly capable on go ahead, get into a car again and go on with his 24-y-o life. You both have the half-way done. It must be very hard for a dad or a mum sees how his kid get scared to face life bc of bad experiences.
Your wife has to go back to her 24-y-o and remember how she felt that age, how she thought, which her needs were. Surely, she has that age or younger a similar experience and she was punished maybe, how she felt, how she lived it. What she thought at that moment, would she have liked to be treat in a different way? Maybe, being the subject of more credit and trust in her abilities to learn and do things better...In the same sense, make her tell you what stop her from trusting your son’s future actions.

I do think she can be very open up to your words if you listen to her (I’m not saying you don’t do it), so, listen to her widely and actively so you can reach the point of her fears and make her understand that she has to renounces a few of her fears and quietness for the sake of your son.

Said that, it could be a good idea to search for a more insight input in other sub-forums: Here, I think you can also find them. Sub forums about parenting, relationships, people who loves people with personality disorders.

Good luck for your wife, you and of course, your son. He needs to be him and he will make mistakes. I’m glad he is out of fears after the trauma. It’s very positive while he has matured with the experience. You, your wife and him are the only one who know that for sure. :-)

Welcome to Psych Central, lane. And thanks for sharing your concern here on PC. At least on the surface I certainly don't see anything wrong with dropping your son off to hang out with his friends. That, of course, assumes that the hanging out he's doing doesn't involve alcohol or drugs. From my perspective, I see no value in punishing your son for what happened.

There are a couple of (rhetorical) questions I would have though. You mentioned the police thought your son's accident may have been intentional. Of course, that's just their professional opinion. Assuming your son hasn't said it was intentional there's no way to know for certain. I would wonder, though, what kinds of services e.g. counseling or therapy services, your son is receiving. Even if the accident wasn't intentional, it was still a traumatic event. And if by chance it was possibly intentional then that makes it all the more imperative that your son receive some sort of mental health services (assuming... he is willing of course. You obviously can't force him.) Depending on the severity of the brain damage you mentioned, this may all be of particular concern I would presume.

There is a potential danger here, it seems to me, that facilitating your son's hanging out with his friends, while he presumes the accident was just an unfortunate occurrence that is now behind him & is of no further concern, may be setting him up for further difficulty as time passes. As I wrote above I certainly see no useful purpose being served by punishing your son. But neither, I think, do you want to end up enabling him to perhaps set himself up for further tribulations in the future. My instinct here (whether rightly or wrongly) suggests to me, there may be a fine line you're going to have to tread.

Here's a link to an article that may be of interest, from Psych Central's archives, on the subject of traumatic brain injury:

Traumatic Brain Injury: The Hidden Epidemic Nobody Wants to Talk About

I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

I think your son is suffering with the brain injury and I cant see how punishing him would somehow drive a point home any further. Your wife seems very angry. Have you asked her what makes her so angry. Have you asked your son if it was intentional? Like was is a suicide attempt? Or do you mean by intentional, he was driving under the influence?

Yes, you have been through a lot.

I found that talking about things here helped though I now am trying to give less details about my family when I post.

I am not sure what exactly is wrong with me but I do have mental health issues and because of it--my husband has been through a lot. You are a good person to stick with your wife and your son through all of this.

Since she has BPD, I am guessing that her anger is an "off and on" thing--maybe she only wants to punish your son when she is "at the end of her rope"? Or is this her consistent position? From my POV, having brain damage and dealing with the police is plenty of "punishment."

If you and your wife can eventually "come together" about how to handle your son--it will make your marriage stronger. In the meantime, keep talking? It sounds like both of your feelings about your son is a major marriage issue.

When I made a serious attempt in 2015, I kept apologizing for the trouble I caused. Everyone said, "It's OK, you don't have to apologize." While it is not OK to self harm, it is important to express understanding even if your son wrecked on purpose. Anyone who does something like that on purpose is in a lot of pain and/or temporarily "insane (this term is a bit harsh but the best my brain can come up with right now)". I am sorry you and your family went through this...