agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: My brother "Joey" married a woman, "Allie," who is mentally unstable. Every couple of months, she loses her temper at me or one of my family members. It's extremely disruptive and upsetting. She has been diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder as well as borderline personality disorder. Joey recognizes her behavior is inappropriate but can't seem to control her.

We usually ignore her and let some time pass until she calms down, but sometimes it's hard to turn the other cheek when she yells and makes personal attacks toward us. The most recent blow-up occurred while they were visiting my parents' home. Allie is pregnant with their first baby, and the day after the visit, Allie called my mom yelling at her that their house is "toxic" due to clutter and dust. She said being in their home is "harming their unborn baby." My parents' house is NOT a health hazard. Yes, there is some clutter, but they've raised five kids in that house and have lived there for almost 40 years.

Is there any way we can have a meaningful relationship with Joey and Allie? I'm worried they're never going to let us see their baby. -- TIPTOEING IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR TIPTOEING: Allie has dual-diagnosis mental illness. If she's receiving meds for her bipolar disorder, it may be controlled. If she realizes her explosive reactions are over the top and is receiving psychotherapy for borderline personality disorder, you may be able to have a relationship with your niece or nephew. But understand that BPD is a difficult illness to treat. Unless Allie is open to treatment, your brother should think twice about having more children with her because their marriage may not last.

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1. It is not Joey's job to "control" Allie, whether or not she has any mental illnesses.

2a. Sometimes when people are stressed or have a mental illness, they may blow up in a way that they wouldn't do under other circumstances. This does not ipso facto mean that what they're angry about isn't real.

2b. My experience and perception - and maybe it's just me - is that people who do not have a personal or close family history of mental health disorders rarely marry somebody who already has a serious mental illness. Which is to say

2c. I would really like an unbiased, third-party opinion on the state of the house before I accept LW's report that it's only a little cluttered and definitely not dirty or a health hazard at all. To be fair, that's more than a little bit my own history of mental health problems in the family talking, but I'm not wrong to point this out.

She may currently be off her meds because she's pregnant. Or her pregnancy is exacerbating her mental illness beyond her current dosage's ability to moderate.

Or this family really is as shitty as they seem. Always a possibility.

Joey recognizes her behavior is inappropriate but can't seem to control her.

What does LW want Joey to do, put a muzzle on her? Send her for leash training? Because controlling behavior is something we do for pets, not our spouses.

omg yes this got me too. She's an entire other human being, what are you talking about LW.

Even if the house is fine for the people who grew up in it, doesn’t mean other people can tolerate it. It is possible that Allie has other undisclosed health issues, or that her family does, and she’s worried they may affect her child. Most people can handle their own houses, but I cannot spend extended periods in most buildings besides my own home, due to my dustmite allergy. You will almost never notice how bad the dustmites are unless you have this allergy. Pretty much only brand new or explicitly maintained carpets/sheets are tolerable for me. If I sleep in someone else’s house even for one night, I have a high chance of developing food allergies from the dustmite allergy. The only reason my house is safe(ish) is that my mother cleans the whole thing every single week without fail. Most people do not, as far as I’m aware. If you’ve lived in a very clean house all your life, even a decently clean house can feel completely disgusting, especially if you’re already in a bad state of mind.

I... Was not expecting the casual eugenics at the end.

I didn't read that as eugenics, but as "don't get pregnant before a breakup." I would push back hard against the "don't" version, but the "think twice" version is halfway reasonable. I have some serious problems with the assumption that Allie's relationship with Joey is in trouble because Allie loses her temper with her in-laws every few months.

Of course, Abby is not hearing from Joey or Allie. It might turn out that Allie's mental illnesses are almost completely under control these days, but she has a hard time dealing with her in-laws. It looks like Allie loses her temper with her in-laws; it's not clear if they only visit every couple of months and she loses her temper each time, or if they have friendly or quietly tense visits in between the high-conflict ones. It looks like Joey supports his wife in a wobbly kind of way, when his family goes to him and demands that he make her be polite to mom.

How do we have a relationship with somebody with whom we have had frequent conflicts? This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with mental illness at all.

I think the question in your last paragraph is actually what the letter writer was asking, and what they should have had an answer to.

People who can't be in a romantic or a co-living situation together can still be wonderful co-parents.
And while I understand "don't get pregnant before a breakup" as a practical matter (moving while pregnant, ugh), I feel like fathering a child is a different proposition.

Sorry, I know this is serious, but I cannot help rewriting this in my head as 'Dear Abby, Our name be Starkadder and our Joey do be marrying a young lady that is not from these parts' who has quite legitimately taken exception to the watervole skins lying around in various stages of curing, the sukebind garlands, the clettering twigs -
'Living at Cold Comfort Farm never did us any harm'

So many people actually write in with "what should my loved one do [hint: I already know the answer]" questions that I'm deeply frustrated that this person wrote in with a question that was about themself (how do I have a relationship with a person I experience as volatile) and got advice about what their brother should do (he didn't write in! he didn't ask! he does not want Abby's opinion in his family planning discussions!).

I am also frustrated that the advice columnist has set it up as a binary choice: EITHER Allie's mental health is absolutely treated OR you can't have a relationship. People are going to have periods when things are working less well for them as well as periods when things are more even keel. I know this from my own anxiety and from basically every other person I care about sometimes having a bad day/week with their own mh. You figure out what you can and can't work around, you find triggers and try not to casually invoke them, you do the thing together. Or you don't, but at least waiting until someone is not in the throes of pregnancy to figure out what kind of mutual accommodation you can come to is kind.

Also assessing what you want, need, and can deal with in an in-law relationship is a good plan. I have a perfectly lovely relationship with my MIL in part because I didn't try to make it look like my dad's relationship with my grandmother (and, in turn, she didn't try to make it look like her own relationship with her MIL). Because the personalities and subcultures involved are vastly different, and clinging to "but this is how a good in-law relationship MUST look" would not have served anybody well. Be careful of absolutes like "we NEVER see the BABY" when what you mean is "we see the baby annually, and I'd like a few more visits to build a relationship as they grow; could that work for you, and if so how."

Control her?!
Data point: When my grandparents' third child was a teenager and youngest was small, they moved back into my grandfather's childhood home—that is, by the time I knew that house, three children in our family had been raised there (as well as any kids in the family who had rented the place when my mom and my aunt were growing up in a different house in town) and my grandparents had been living in it for, depending how you count, between 20 and 40 years. It was quite cluttered in a way that was differently visible to people who had never lived there than to people who had; also, it was absolutely a health hazard.

I'm currently at my mother's and the clutter and conditions teeter juuuust on the edge of health hazard. So I do wonder what these people have inured themselves to.