Not Giving Your Gifts Until You are with the Children

[Mika1739]

I need your opinions about something.

My BPD x lost all of her parenting time of two children 13 and 10 to me in October due to mental health problems, substance issues and suicidal thoughts.  Long story, but she disappeared for the children's entire 2016 summer break including the time they returned to school at the end of break.  We had been back to court other times with issues like this and over 9 years(been divorced 9 years in December) it has gone for me having parenting time every other weekend to full cusotdy in October.

 In August I filled motion to modify parenting agreement because she had not parented in over 4 months without any sort of clear explination so I argued it would hurt the children to suddenly thrust them back into her unstable life-- and she finally showed up in court.  I claimed in my motion that I believed she was abusing drugs and/or alcohol and the Judge ordered us both to complete hair follicle drug tests by 5 pm the same day of the hearing and we both tested negative for any illegal substances. 

In the meantime Judge ordered us to take a parenting class and attend two sessions of court ordered mediation to fix our agreement.  She didn't show up for any of it and I got a call on the second mediation session that she checked herself into a hospital for alcohol withdrawal and suicidal ideations.  Our status hearing from August 22 was 10/25  and she had gotten out of the hospital 2 days earlier but she knew the court dates and had a lawyer and knew of court dates in early August, unfortunately she has the habit of thinking ignoring her problems will make them go away and she has intense BPD isolation and paranoia episodes.  on 10/25 she didn't appear in court and her lawyer said she couldn't get a hold of her so she couldn't say anything one her behalf other than I don't know and my attorney told the Judge that she just got out of the hospital for those reasons and judge enforced my emergency order suspending her parenting time.   The order has no expiration date just thinking she would start to take things seriously.  The order says she can see the children in a therapeutic visitation and just before Christmas my attorney sent me an email that her attorney sent saying this has got out of hand that her client doesn't have a bad bone in her body and the GAL forced me to use my insurance to find the therapist so I gave her a list of 700 therapists in our area that are in my network and she has called 20 of them and none of them take court ordered vistits(Which I find to be a troubling defense that if the reason you can't see your children is because you have made up to 20 phone calls and now you give up?)

  Instead she is playing victim and acting like I am the one doing everything.  Everytime she talks to the children she tells them its all my fault and of course for me the great thing is that judge and GAL are watching this.  The Judge and GAL I had to pay for aren't buying it.  Judges order was temporary but BPD is defiant and even thought the order allowed her to see children in Theraputic Visits she hasn't made it happen and is very incompetent in life in general and the court is wathcing that.  Therefore she is dragging this order out and trying to make the children think it is all my fault. 

Christmas is not that important to me in terms of gifts I dont care really when I open them but Christmas is for children before adults.  I created an online christmas gift list on gifster.com so that all her family could see the children's gifts and get them what they actually want without all the drama.  However, BPD x and her family bought gifts off the list and just days before christmas told the children that they wouldn't give them the gifts until they see them in person.  The children are not happy about that and quite frankly I think says a lot about how sick her entire family is.  I told my attorney it is Manipulation through Deprivation.  On top of that this is my first Christmas day with them, I normaly have the first week off school with them and she has the second.  Christmas morning and heaping piles of presents under the tree is sacred in their family to point that normal people would see the excess and unhealthiness of it.  Honestly I do not have the words to describe how important presents and the magic of them appearing Chirstmas morning is to her and her family.  And the children have been raised that way by her.  I was feeling pretty inadequate this morning even though I put a lot of effort in.

  I don't really care but, I feel like if you tell a 13 year old girl you got them an Apple Iwatch for Christmas and just days before Christmas you say " not until I see you though" that you are telling the children that "My gifts to you are for my happiness and my happiness will come before yours"   Because I advocate for them first I run the danger of getting too wrapped up in this.  I sent the GAL some of the texts of my daughter begging for her Christmas presents on Christmas day.  When we get back, there are bigger issues to focus on but how should I handle this with the GAL and my attorney?

[ForeverDad]

Don't let your Ex or her family Guilt you.  When we talk about the disordered "FOG" we are talking about Fear, Obligation, Guilt.  The guilt ought to be on them but you're being Blame-Shifted.  Hard as it is, don't fall for it.  She's biting her nose to spite her face, and blaming you.

Seems they're trying to put you in a position where you are so guilted or so in need to be a fixer that you'll disregard the court's order.  You're not being mean, you're following the order.  Let her and the relatives blame the court.  Whenever it's contested, even with the children, just say, "The court made an order, I can't sidestep and and neither can your mother.  If she or her family have a problem with it then she ought to take it up with the court."  Does that help?

[Mika1739]

This is great perspective, thank you.

[Realtalk]

Mika1739 this sounds like my mother. I am grown however, my children are not. My mother will purposefully miss a family get together and with hold my children's Christmas presents until I personally drive them to her house. I thought I was the only one dealing with this sort of thing but it really is childish and if she really wanted them to have the gifts she would make sure they received them.
My mother also buys my kids birthday presents and makes them leave them at her house to play with there or keeps them until I can bring them (kids) to her house for a day. I am sorry you are going through this but you aren't alone that's for sure!

[Mika1739]

Realtalk, thank you for your comment.  I call it manipulation through deprivation and its disgusting for an adult to do to a child.  I had to block my BPD's mother because she was trying to manipulate the children anyway she could as well.  I got her blocked message just a couple of days ago telling my daughter that she loves them but now they are going to enjoy their trip to California and they have decided to stay extra long so they wont be back with their gifts until February, she specifically made a point to talk about the gifts. The children typically go to a home BPD's family owns in California for winter break and in the past I paid for all of the airfare because BPD would try to drive from Chicago which is dangerous and would end up with kids missing ton of school. 

They kept this California for Christmas going even though the Judge said "No California" and It got so bad that I had to call the children's aunt who was buying the airplane tickets out and tell her to stop that the kids would be with  me which BPD should have never let get that far because she wasn't telling them the truth about the order.  If BPD was responsible and normal she would see that what her family does reflects on her because she needs to be honest with them and lay down the rules.  They manipulated the situation where I had to call the aunt and say no and for a minute I looked like the bad guy.  My kids are old enough now where my real victory in all of this is trusting that they have their own BS detectors and their smart enough to know.   They have lived in this insanity and have their own therapists so they're starting to see "oh, this is not normal and healthy people don't do this."