Custody exchange - venting

[Thunderstruck]

Last night SD9 called at 10:30pm. She asked if she could stay the weekend with her friend (14 year old) who is staying at her uBPDbm's house that she hasn't seen since last summer. When SO said she is supposed to be with us this weekend (we finally have a court order) she got upset, then her mom took the phone and cursed SO out and hung up.

This week uBPDbm told us that SD9 was going to be at camp at school. At 4pm she told us SD9 was not at camp today and she would meet in the school parking lot. The court order states that we are to have 24 hours written notice of SD9's day care. This was not followed.

I was picking SD9 up today. I drove through a rainstorm which made me 20 minutes late to the school. UBPDbm was aware of the situation but she didn't wait and left 5 minutes prior (only waited 15 mins). UBPDbm then drove to the police station which is supposed to be our back up exchange location). I then drove to meet her there. SD9 was crying in the car saying that she wanted to stay with her friend, who of course was in the car. UBPDbm made several harassing comments and threatened me ":)o you want to fight with me right here in front of C?". BM refused to calm SD9 down and instead video taped her crying and carrying on. I suppose this will be for court.

I asked an officer to assist in enforcing the order. UBPDbm then changed her tact and began coaxing SD9 and even shed a tear when talking to the officer, claiming that we treat SD9 badly and ohhh poor me I'm such a good mom.  

By the time SD9 was in the car it was 6:20pm. Exchange was supposed to be at 5.

SD9 was told that her daddy didn't love her or care about her because he "wouldn't let" her see her friend. UBPDbm had not once mentioned the friend being in town or asked for a switch for the weekend. Instead she placed SD9 in the middle and created this drama to make SD9 upset and try to further alienate us from her. "This is only going to make me hate my dad more!" Which sounds like she was parroting her mom.

20 minutes into the car ride SD9 was happy again.

The cop was totally rude to me. Told me that I am just a girlfriend and not a stepmom because we're not married yet (the wedding is in three weeks). Ugh.

The whole ordeal just sucked. I feel like I'm in crazy town.

[ennie]

A. You are in crazy town. This is not Kansas anymore!

B. you did great. DH and I have found that if we always insist the court order is followed, BPD ex stops the drama and the kids stop begging for exceptions to please her.

C. This is why I stopped being willing to do pickups from mom and why I got dh to use a neutral third party ( usually the school) for exchanges. The combination of how mom manipulates the kids and how others discount step moms/gfs just made me want to run for the hills! You can and will need to find and set your own boundaries.

[Panda39]

A. You are in crazy town. This is not Kansas anymore!

You got that right! 

My SO has an uBPDex and I have been trying to figure out for much of our relationship where I fit in with his children if at all.  Even in the most "normal" stepmom situation negotiating a relationship with your honey's kids can be difficult but add all the drama of a pwBPD and it becomes even tougher. 

I think you handled a "pain in the butt" situation really well.  Maybe you could let the SD9 know you were sorry she couldn't spend more time with her friend and make arrangements for her to see her another time.

Congratulations on getting married I know this is a busy and exciting time so having these hassles with the ex are even more annoying.  My guess is your wedding is setting off the BPDex in a big way.

Enjoy your big day   

[trying2coparent]

So sorry to hear about the drama. Two things you need to look for:

1- Read the last court order. Does it reference a clause whereupon an adult can be assigned to pick up the child? If yes, then the other parent was in violation of the order right there. This can help you if it goes to court.

2- Read the laws of your state regarding "one-party voice recording" or "two-party voice recording." If you are in a one-party state, then you should carry a recorder when you are around the other parent at all times.

I know it's crazy the amount of extra work we have to do to get our kids, step-children included. It is sad, but you do need to protect yourself. I had a scare last week. I was picking up my kids at the exBPD's house. She wasn't there, only her 16 year old daughter (former step-daughter). The kids hopped on board and I was about to leave when their mother texted demanding I reply back with some agreement. I don't reply hastily so I refused. The 16 year old must have gotten the same text as she approached my vehicle. I locked the car, but she still manage to squeeze her hand through the window and open the door. She sat at the front passenger side. I ask her to leave the car immediately, but she didn't. I asked her again and told her I would have to call the cops. I did and she only left minutes before they showed up. Meanwhile, my 2 kids (both with special needs) where all worked up and jumping in the car. I had to talk to the cops so I told them my side. When the 16 year old talked to them, she said I had "inappropriately touched her." She was calm and collected. She wasn't scared or panicked. The only one panicking was me as my kids where jumping in the car and I was trying to defuse an uncomfortable exchange. Fortunately, the cops didn't bought her story. I had the recorder and the divorce papers stating they were to go with me for dinner. If it weren't for the recording, I may have been sent to jail . Sad, sad day. On the plus side, I had a great dinner (cut short of course) with the kids and we played medieval castle siege reenactment.

[ennie]

Just to add a little in the tools arena, what I did in those situations in the past was really to focus on validating the kids and asking them how things felt, to help them develop their own sense of what was happening.  NOT to normalize mom's crazy behavior, but to do it without making mom wrong at the same time.  A thin line to walk. 

The way I can to see it was while I accept the truism that it is important not to ever talk bad about your stepkids parents, there are other important objectives as well.  I see it as two different axiis--there is self esteem, which is harmed by negative talk about parents and event by the awareness of a mentally ill parent--because they identify with them and are loyal to them, so to be critical of a parent is to criticize the child and also to put them in a loyalty bind in which they have to choose the bio parent.  To have a solid relationship with your step-child, you cannot have too much criticism of any bio parent.

But the other axis is the kid's perception of reality, which for most step parents is not radically in conflict with the bio parents.  For BPD parents, though, the child's and step-parent's perception of reality may be radically in conflict with the parent at times.  In those cases, it is important to help the child to develop their own perception.  I found it necessary to sometimes question and even disagree with BPD mom to the kids, and while in the moment, it did stress our relationship, in the long run I think it lent a great deal of deeper trust to our relationship. 

I say this because I think in the situation you describe, it might be important for your SD to be to hear from you in a not judgmental or angry way what you think about things, or to ask what she thinks.  Even something simple, "Wow, that was hard!  I just want you to know that I love you very much and am willing to to hard things to support your relationship with your dad, because it is so important for you to get to experience both your mom and dad as parents."  Or about the sleepover issue, "One of the hardest things parents do with kids is to sometimes say no, but your daddy said no because it is so important to him to spend time with you and because he knows how good it is for you to have time with your dad." 

In the validation department, I would be asking, "How was that for you?"  Or if SD9 is not as verbal, "Wow, that must have been hard to see your mom so upset."  I also sometimes ask if the kids want to hear a time that I felt like that from my childhood, so they know it is okay to feel intense feelings when you see your parents upset. 

Some way of letting her know that you see what she is having to deal with, in a way that does not judge mom. 

The other thing is to own my part in it and my feelings.  Which is probably really challenging in the situation you were in!  But I often was faced with the choice of letting them know when I messed up or had hard feelings about something at the risk that mom would use it against me or it would support her version of things, and I early on made a choice to always own up to these things because they never get that from mom.  I am not sure how you felt when dealing with all of that, but sometimes it is good for the kids to know.  "Wow, that was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  I know how much you love your mom, and having to get support to bring you to your dad because that is the agreement your parents have and your dad really wants to see you was really hard.  I felt sad that you have to go through that, and angry that I had to work so hard to do what your parents had agreed to do.  That was really intense!" 

I say all that as I am seeing now that the risks I took in those areas (very controversial on these boards) created some pain and distance at certain moments with my two SDs, but in the long run these risks (coupled with real efforts not to see mom as bad, just doing her best in a hard place) really gave a gift to both girls.  For SD14, she can really express and see her own feelings in hard times, and she really trusts me in a deeper way. 

For sD10, it gave her permission to see her mom as fallible, which she did anyway, so was very validating. 

It is a subtle thing to do, but really I am suggesting focusing more on your own feelings and your SD's feelings, and giving weight to those in your relationship with your SD, because with all the drama it is easy to give all the attention to BPD mom's feelings and actions, and efforts to avoid those feelings and actions.  While you CAN avoid a lot of them, SD cannot, so it can be very helpful to assist her in learning to experience and express her feelings about what happens with mom.