Help Navigating A Visit from the Kids Bio Mom

[Nope]

Forgive the jumbled mess. I'm kind of all over the place with this since we just found out.


We just got a court date for the change of jurisdiction hearing. Unfortunately, it will be the Monday after SD12's girl scout overnight that the girls in her troop all voted to use their cookie money to do. The date for this has been booked with the place it is happening and can't be changed.

The original plan has been that I would be going as one of the chaperones. The location is two hours away from where we live. So SD12 and I would go up Friday, do the activities and sleepover, have breakfast there Saturday, and head home. But if her uBPD mom comes down from out of state for that weekend to have the kids before coming to court, I'm not sure what will happen. I certainly don't mind giving up my spot so bio mom can go. But I don't see her being willing to take SD12.

This really stinks because SD12 is really expecting to go. She worked hard earning that cookie money. Especially since she used to have both parents buying cookies from her but since she came to live with us bio mom has refused to buy any. At the same time, bio mom never asked for any summer parenting time and DH hasn't wanted to send the kids to her state for any since she is refusing to do the court ordered counseling, so this would be the only chance the kids have to see their mom until Thanksgiving unless she comes down for another visit. Which is highly unlikely since she hasn't come down at all up to this point and will only be coming down because she's getting dragged here for court.

So, I guess what I'm asking here is this: When the time comes to discuss the BPD mom's visit, what posture gives us the best chance of success in getting SD12 to her girl scout sleepover?

The biggest problem is that there are a bunch of obstacles. And where there are obstacles there are choices. She doesn't deal well with having choices. The event is two hours away from where we are after bio mom already drove over eight hours to get here (in the opposite direction of where she's coming from). SS10 can't attend as it's troop and parents only, so what happens with him? Would bio mom even get down here early enough on Friday to take her? Maybe it would be less triggering if I just back out of going so SD goes with the troop but not any parents?

She's going to be mad about not getting gifted any summer time even though she never asked for it. She's also going to be triggered by court. So she'll be looking to punish us in any way possible. She also loves drama and engagement so she won't be looking for solutions. She'll be looking for a fight.

We can technically say no to her having the kids at all that weekend because the order says that when there is a disagreement the monthly visit defaults to the second weekend of the month. But deciding the girl scout event is more important than the kids getting to see their mom doesn't feel right, even if the only reason they haven't seen her is because she won't go out of her way to come down. Thoughts?

[Sunfl0wer]

This is probably ridiculous... .

But can drive up early with both kids and you get a hotel with ss10 close by the Girl Scout event?

That way she does have the opportunity to see both kids and if she doesn't... .it is her own doing?

Also, what do you think SD12 would do if given the choice? (Not that you are... .just wondering)

(I hated that bio mom always did this to us.  She'd crash into town... .stress SD out before our court... .oh the drama! All she could do was talk about how she was in town to rescue SD from us... .to SD.  Of course biomom is more important than anything else happening... .we should all drop everything for her... .more important that the damn sense of security and stability of SD). (The sad reality was that as much as we tried to protect these things from happening... .we could only do so much)

[PinkieV]

Since she hasn't asked for any summer visitation time (same with us BTW), why not let her have SS10 on Friday night, and then SD12 can join them on Saturday night, or Sunday morning?  I think it's important that SD12's hard work be recognized, and I don't think any court would disagree with you.  You're making the best of an awkward situation.

[Nope]

I met with SS10's T today to voice my frustration about bending over backwards and twisting into knots to make things as easy as possible for the bio mom. Yes, she sends the kids back miserable and they regress to the messy state they were in when we first got custody. So in essence DH and I twist ourselves in knots to make it as easy as possible for her to make our lives harder. Takes about two months for the kids to get mostly back to normal after a one week visit to their mom's state.

Pinkie, thank you. I sometimes can't see the forrest through the trees and don't even realize I'm making things more complicated than they need to be. I was thinking about how to put the ball in her court and offer her choices and, essentially, offer her the opportunity to act out and cause problems. Clearly it would be best, as you describe, to simply tell her what we will do.

I went back and reread the custody order and the magistrate actually included a sentence that said that Mother is responsible for making sure the children make it to their extracurricular activities as they would if they were in Father's care during that time. So that makes enforcement even easier.

[livednlearned]

If her thought processes work anything like my ex... .

He did not do well with choices. It was best to say what was happening. If I needed a response, I made it super brief and always had his non-response built into things so I wasn't dependent on him agreeing with anything. "If you can spend Friday night with SS10, let us know by day/time otherwise we will assume you have other plans." Depending on how she responds to validate, you could try what Eddy calls EAR statements. This approach never worked with my ex... .

It's hard to imagine how emotionally distressing this is for her -- she's losing her kids, she lost court advantage, she's driving a long distance for something she must be dreading, her kids are living with another mama. It's a lot, even if she brought it on herself. You're being compassionate with someone who cannot reciprocate the kindness, and that's tough. Like you said, she may be winding up for a fight.

I like Pinkie's suggestion to give bio mom a chance to participate without disrupting the schedule.

She may prefer to rage at what she's offered, because that's what she does when she feels backed into a corner, and that means she'll decline any chance to see the kids. If I gave my ex choices, he raged and stonewalled. If I spelled things out, he raged and refused to follow what he perceived were "orders." The best you can do is stick to the game plan and outline how she can participate.

Do the kids know why she is driving to town?

[Nope]

<quote> Do the kids know why she is driving to town?  </quote>

She doesn't even know yet that she's likely coming to town. She will be served by private process in the next few days. It's 50/50 if she'll tell the kids their daddy is dragging her to court again. She might in a subtle way ask them if they've heard us say anything about court. But if she is coming she might want to look like MoTY as though she's showing up voluntarily just so she can see them. Or she may be so focused on making DH the bad guy that she does what she's always done and share her stress with the kids.

The BPD mom absolutely can't handle choices. So we usually tell her how it's going to be. She complained to the GAL about that, the GAL told us to try giving choices so BPD mom can feel more part of the process. We forwarded the GAL the email results of that failed experiment. The GAL dropped the recommendation.

Sometimes she'll come up with her own nonsensical plan after she's been told what will happen. But then when DH explains calmly why it won't work out well for her, she stops responding. No response is her way of agreeing to DH's plan.

In hindsight I see that expecting her to come to DH with a plan for summer parenting time was never going to work. She told the kids to find out from their dad what dates she was getting them and let her know. No matter how much SS10 ( at his T's suggestion) told her she needed to email his dad, she simply couldn't do it.

[PinkieV]

We must have the same TM. Ours will tell SS15 to ask DH for whatever she wants. DH tells SS15 TM needs to text or email, and that's the end of it.

When he got custody last year, we sweetened the deal by offering to pay for SS15's four trips over the next year. That just ended on Memorial Day. She really turned the pressure on for him to move back to her, and he said no. So as far as we can tell, she's gone very LC with him. She has not reached out to arrange summer visitation, partially I'm sure because she can't afford it, and partially because she's mad and it's easier to look like a victim on FB than face the truth.

We're on our way to pick up SS19 and will be just a town away, so we're on radio silence so she doesn't get wind of it. We'll be there and gone in 24 hours!  DH and I are really hoping she's painted SS15 black and this will be the end of it. She's got a younger daughter, the golden child, to focus on.