they are unbelievable

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

S9 mother just doesn't stop. She asked her lawyer to call my lawyer, stressed no written contact of any kind. All verbal. To tell my lawyer that s9 is slipping bad in school and some more BPD bs and that she would be willing to settle out of court. S9 report card was glowing. I don't know where she is going with this. The teacher doesn't say one thing to me and another to her. So my ex decietfully booked her vacation time and took my access weekend, I told her it was unnecessary, s9 and I have plans. She said she asked him and he didn't want to come. So from father's day to today was a long old haul without s9 or any contact. Today I have s9, so happy. I asked why he didn't want to come on his last access weekend, he said mom asked, I didn't answer right away so she made his mind up for him, no access. We had a family gathering planned, she hates my family. So the long and the short of it is, s9 missed a family gathering, didn't see his grandmother  for 6 months, missed seeing her but BPD ex took s9 to her bf's for his parents anniversary. S9 has missed every occasion with my family except for a few. She is trying her best to get me to cut back on time. No matter how she has to do it. My lawyer is shocked at me ex ability to be devious.

[bus boy]

S9 mother just doesn't stop. She asked her lawyer to call my lawyer, stressed no written contact of any kind. All verbal. To tell my lawyer that s9 is slipping bad in school and some more BPD bs and that she would be willing to settle out of court. S9 report card was glowing. I don't know where she is going with this. The teacher doesn't say one thing to me and another to her. So my ex decietfully booked her vacation time and took my access weekend, I told her it was unnecessary, s9 and I have plans. She said she asked him and he didn't want to come. So from father's day to today was a long old haul without s9 or any contact. Today I have s9, so happy. I asked why he didn't want to come on his last access weekend, he said mom asked, I didn't answer right away so she made his mind up for him, no access. We had a family gathering planned, she hates my family. So the long and the short of it is, s9 missed a family gathering, didn't see his grandmother  for 6 months, missed seeing her but BPD ex took s9 to her bf's for his parents anniversary. S9 has missed every occasion with my family except for a few. She is trying her best to get me to cut back on time. No matter how she has to do it. My lawyer is shocked at me ex ability to be devious.

[ForeverDad]

My ex too didn't want written communications.  I would email, I have for over 10 years now since separation, my personal emails never get a response.  (On the last day in our house, before the police drove away with her, I found browsing history where she was on the email company's block page.)  Has my email been blocked since Oct 2005?  Possibly.  But isn't that astounding?  What she did insist on was phone calls but of course tried to control the conversations and of course only remembered what she wanted since she felt there was no documentation.

[bus boy]

Maybe they are sisters. Lol

[Lilyroze]

bus boy,

I worked with CASA ( Court appointed Guardians ad litem), you need to stress to your lawyer, or get a new one frankly that you want written contact ( then you have proof of some of the games). I mean no offence to your lawyer, ( maybe they are great) but you don't need a lawyer shocked... .we, you and family can be shocked with her games. You need a lawyer to stand up and help you through this maze.

[david]

I wrote the majority of our custody order. I took two weeks and covered every problem I was having then and what I anticipated in the future. My ex made so many bold faced lies back then that I made sure one point in our order stated that all communication is to be through email and that either party has 48 hours to respond to the others email. Ex follows it for the most part and the few times she didn't I let it go since I didn't think it was that important. That is over a five year period and she didn't reply about a dozen times in that period.
I even spelled out how changes to the custody order are to be done. It must be through email and both parties must agree in their respective emails. Once that occurs the only way to change it is through another email exchange with both parties consent. My ex used to like to change things last minute and this stopped that. Any time I agree to a change I make sure that I include in my email that this is a one time event. This prevents ex from trying to say it is a permanent change. I word things nicely and non confrontational when ever I do something like that.

[bus boy]

Thank you for the good advice. I'm from a small eastern Canadian town and the lawyers don't seem to want to buck the system or challenge the judge. Shared custody seems to be the way it going in bigger centres. Week about, no support changes hands. Around here it seems to be staying the old standard, Wednesday access with every second weekend. Family court workers and my lawyer tell me this is the most unusual, difficult case family court has ever saw. I will tell my lawyer she has to push harder, not back down from the judge. I've asked my lawyer many times to push certain topics and she doesn't go near them. I am not going to do another settlement confrience. I am taking this to trial and hope I can be done of it once and for all. Here's a question, I have followed the court order to a tee, she's bent it, broke it, pushed it to the limit everytime, to the point where I have to take her back to court, she turns around and thanks me for wasting more of her money. She's breaking the order and getting mad at me. Is this a common trait in someone with NPD/BPD . She is undiagnosed but through our parental assessment, the forensic physiologist strongly suggested in her report that my ex has a PD that the results of the tests show it and she would very likely carry these actions through to future r/s's.

[david]

In the US if the court order is not followed you can file for a contempt of court. If you can figure out how to do this by yourself (pro se in the US) that might be  something worth doing. After a few of them then you can go before a judge and have reason to modify the current custody order.
My ex tried doing stuff like that and I would simply point out, in an email, what our court order is and what I would be doing, following the order,  and go from there. She didn't want to wind up in court and not win so she backed down. Don't know if that would work for you. Ex would follow the order when I pointed things out that way and then send an email trying to blame/guilt me for doing what I did. I am so past that point/emotionally detached that it doesn't phase me.
My first attorney didn't like to "make waves or challenge the way things are done". It took me a while, time and $$$, before I found one that was good. It wasn't so much that he challenged things. He just had a better command of the courtroom and was much better prepared. This one actually charges more per hour but has waved his fee a multitude of times and just put on my billing statement that it was a courtesy. I also learned the rules of the game and was better able to assist him achieving what I was trying to achieve.

[ForeverDad]

I have followed the court order to a tee, she's bent it, broke it, pushed it to the limit every time, to the point where I have to take her back to court, she turns around and thanks me for wasting more of her money. She's breaking the order and getting mad at me. Is this a common trait in someone with NPD/BPD?

Mental illness, virtually by definition, means it won't make common sense.  It can be described, written up in text books, taught in psychology classes, but it still won't make sense.

See this as Blame Shifting.  Everyone has an inclination to avoid blame, that's understandable.  When it is to an extreme, causing the problem but blaming others, then that gets into pathological or PD territory.

Many of us have had evaluators and courts reluctant to put a name or diagnosis to the behavior patterns.  What they focus on are the behaviors and patterns.  We would do well to do likewise.  If we try pushing to get a label, they may tell us to stop trying to Play Doctor.  And if it impacts custody then focus more on the parenting behaviors since that will mean more to the professionals than the adult behaviors.

[bus boy]

Ok. That makes a lot of sence. I am on the tip of the mountain of understanding the real impact of dealing with a PD person. I am working hard on emotional detachment. With my deciding to go to trial instead of settlement confrience I'm posting lots to get the best advice for court. No one seems to know how to handle this in the local legal system

[david]

Courts make decisions based on evidence. Paper evidence, documents, etc. hold more weight than verbal testimony. Also, in the US, evidence has to be introduced as evidence to be more powerful. You need three copies, one for the opposing counsel, one for the courts, and one for you. It is a procedure to introduce evidence and most judges and attorneys don't like it because it slows things down. When I realized that, I didn't really care because our kids well being was what I considered most important and not how long it would take that particular day. My first attorney never introduced evidence and just went with the flow in the court. My second attorney came with multitudes of evidence, all of it rock solid, and rarely had to introduce more than two things before opposing counsel wanted to make a deal.
Our last custody evaluator wanted the school year split 50/50 with ex getting Monday and Tuesday and me getting Wednesday and Thursday. That is the normal way things are done in our county. However I wanted Monday and Thursday and let ex have Tuesday and Wednesday. This way I could set the tone for the school week on Monday and could make sure everything was done on Thursday. The evaluator challenged me about several aspects of that schedule and I had reasonable answers. It is too long to describe the details here but he did agree with my assessment and made that his recommendation. Both boys were on honors role since that time so I don't think the courts would be willing to change what works. The judge questioned it too and I stood my ground the same way I did in the evaluation. Confidence backed up with reason worked for me. Ex attacks me personally in court and I stay away from that except to say when something is not true. Sometimes I have proof and other times it's just my word. However, my word has more sway in court since ex is oftentimes found flat footed and has no answers as to why her beliefs are best for our boys.

[DoxieLover]

Hi there!

I'm sorry to hear about all you are dealing with. It's heartbreaking and no fun. Unfortunately, although I don't post much on the board, I can assure you that I can relate to your situation.  They all play the same games.  I'm often amazed (although I shouldn't be after reading this board for 6+ years!) at how other people's experiences are carbon copies of mine!  At any rate, I don't know if this is applicable or will help you but as for documentation... .we turned over PAGES AND PAGES of documents.  We gave opposing counsel a copy of EVERY email and text between my hubby and his ex as our "evidence."  We had no intention of actually using all of it.  It was mostly just a tactic so they would have a lot of reading to do if they wanted to guess which emails and texts we were actually going to bring up.  We had a large binder with the actual texts and emails we planned to use divided by category (ie - alienation examples, contempt of court examples, etc.) that we gave to our attorney and kept a copy for ourselves.  The binder had about 100 pages in it.  What we gave to the other counsel was about 1000 pages.   

Anyway, just a thought in case it helps.
Best of luck!
Doxie 

[bus boy]

Thank you, I am interested in all advice I can get. I have to put a different spin on this to get the judge to see. I have had to take my ex back to court to many times. The first time, the judge had a few choice words for my ex but after a while, the judge was perturbed, why is this case back before was her comment. The judge was pissed at the both of us for not working out our custody issues but finding the fountain of youth would be a far more easier task than trying to get my ex to cooperate. Family court is so back logged they just want you out of there hair.