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i am currently going through divorce, early stage, I moved out, filed.  Now she is using access to my kids as her control.  Her lawyer sent over a terrible temporary agreement for me to have them this weekend. I spent 4 hrs talking to her on phone and did get them till 8 pm, then next day she came to bring clothes for church and my 2 girls went home with her because she "could not make them stay"

So, I guess I am asking for help in how to deal with the spouse who acts like she wants to get back together but still views you as the most evil person to walk the earth and u know nothing has changed, how do get kids swapped without having to rehash the prior 8yrs

Hi cooktilla,

Did you sign the temporary agreement? Often these so-called "temporary" agreements become permanent. It sounds like you do not have a lawyer representing you?

A book often recommended here is Splitting: Divorcing a BPD/NPD Spouse by Bill Eddy, JD, LSW. You can download a copy to your computer and read it right away. I highly recommend reading it twice.

People with BPD do not have the capacity to process grief or sadness, they quickly go to maladaptive coping behaviors like vengeance or spite. Because they can not resolve their negative, difficult feelings, they cannot tolerate seeing their kids experience these feelings. This is the root of parental alienation,  which is what she is already beginning to do with your girls.

We have two challenges divorcing BPD spouses when kids are involved. The legal challenge and the alienation challenge. Bill Eddy has another book called Don't Alienate the Kids that helped me more than any other book. You don't want to create chronic conflict in order to deal with conflict, because that's bad for you and for the kids. So you have to develop some jedi moves that will help your girls become emotionally resilient and healthy adults.

There are some helpful Lessons on the Coparenting board to guide you if you're looking for other resources. https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=182254.msg1331288#msg1331288

This is a great community for peer support. People understand and know what you're going through -- you're definitely not alone!

Be cautious about what you sign. At the beginning of these divorces, many of us are so beaten down and exhausted from years of abuse that we tend to be door mats, and that's not a good thing when legal documents are involved. Over time, you will begin to develop stronger boundaries, so you want to have a custody agreement that you can grow into, not a custody agreement that you will outgrow.

"Just any lawyer" will not be right for you.  Due to your spouse's entitlement, demands, disinformation, etc, you will need more from a lawyer than a form filer and hand holder.  You'll need an assertive, experienced, proactive lawyer who will provide you with advice, strategies and appropriate boundaries as the case develops and morphs.

Being overly fair, overly accommodating, overly nice, overly whatever, will probably be self-sabotaging in one way or another.  You don't have to be mean, but you can keep it to the business at hand and not get caught up in the extreme emotional claims and manipulations she will try to use to drive the divorce process.

Though you're out of the house now and she has the emotional but baseless claim that "he left and abandoned the children", do you have any documentation how you were, over time, driven away?  Courts generally don't give much weight to the "he-said, she-said", viewing it largely as hearsay and ignored, they still are likely to want to default to having the person with history of majority parenting time to be the one seen as the "primary parent".  Not good if that parent is one unlikely to share the children with the other parent, but the court's view is it is 'only' a temporary order.  The downside is that a temporary order can eventually morph into a final decree.  So now is the time to get an experienced lawyer on your side and try to get the very best temporary order from the very start.

LnL is right, don't agree to a lousy temporary schedule (mine lasted for the entire time of a 2 year divorce) just to see them sooner.

As for the emotion-laden exchanges, don't do them at either residence, too easy for your boundaries to be trampled or guilted.  For now do them at a neutral location such as a convenient mall, store or restaurant parking lot.  Or if there is conflict, do it at the local police station or sheriff's office.  You can always relax some of the exchange rules later once the exchanges become a standard for you, ex and the kids.

Buy a blank book/journal. Make entries.  It is a diary. Sounds friggin' corny, ... . but just do.

You have now entered into "the world of mistrust, innuendos, miscommunications, misinterpretations, and out-right lying".

You MUST document EVERYthing.

Buy video cam equipment.

Buy a Go-Pro

Buy a front porch video cam.

Buy a "car cam" from blackboxmycar.com

Sounds a little overly paranoid. But if I didn't do all the above, ... . I would not be in MY own house today, with MY children (who are now happy that mom had to vacate the matrimonial home), and I would certainly would not be on the road to healing after a BPD relationship.

Today: Me (somewhat) happy. Three years ago: me was a wreck (knowing that mom was abusing our kids --emotionally, verbally & physically--).

Go to Social Services and just "talk" about the nuttiness of your relationship. Do this BEFORE she does, ... .

And so on... .

BTW, ... . this may seem like an odd thing that I am about to post but it is true:

My kids really do LOVE their mom, ... . they just do not LIKE her.

Life is simply BETTER without their mom being in their lives. It is really that simple.

And myself, ... . I do love my wife, ... . and I love our past relationship that I had with her, ... . but today, ... . I just do not LIKE her.

It is hard to explain.  One has to remember, ... . a BPD person did not ASK for this affliction, ... . it just surfaces sometimes much later on in life, well after the day of walking down the aisle.