Update... Been a while

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Well, finally got our day in court. BPDmom got on the stand first and absolutely lied her backside off (of course). She said she never laid a hand on the kids in anger or inappropriately. Then about eight witnesses that actually have seen her mistreat them (including our kiddos & some of BPDmom's relatives) took the stand & told what they had personally witnessed. Then my L showed her photos, emails with really terrible words to the kiddos, hand written apology notes for “Hurting you”, nasty FB screenshots, text messages, ect, ect, ect… BPDmom of course had some witnesses come say that they never saw her do anything like that but of course there are another hundred thousand people in the county that have not seen it either. Then at the end, BPDmom got on the stand and called them all “Liars that were coerced and intimidated by me to make them say the things that they did because they are all afraid of me.

Well, Judge did not buy it at all. Ruling is that I will have 100% custody, there will be no visitation, BPDmom cannot initiate contact with them by phone, email, FB, in person, , BPDmom cannot bother them, go to schools & bother them or get school records, nothing at all. I just need to make sure I mail her a copy of report cards & any disciplinary reports I receive. Judge told her that she has “Issues that she needs to resolve” and if she wants a chance at being able to ever have visitation with the kiddos, she needs to take parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling for herself with all reports going to the court. He stopped short of ordering her to do these things but told her that if she did not, she would not get any visitation. He did not order a RO which was another thing the GAL was asking for and the only thing she did not get.

The GAL, my L and the Judge all did a wonderful job in our case. I was worried because 100% custody for a father seems to rarely happen.

Feels like a WIN for my kiddos!

So now, I have her "Supportive" family members super mad at me because of this. I assume it is because I had the nerve to go tell it like it truly was and not let her lie her way out of it this time. So I guess it works like this, BPDmom does terrible & unspeakable things to our kiddos, hires a lawyer, has me servied with "get out of my house" paperwork, manages to get kiddos and me out of the house by simply escalating her crazy & mean behavior, we go to court, present stacks of evidence and witnesses to convince a Judge that these things happened and I am the bad guy. Figures.

[Gottagonow]

Well, finally got our day in court. BPDmom got on the stand first and absolutely lied her backside off (of course). She said she never laid a hand on the kids in anger or inappropriately. Then about eight witnesses that actually have seen her mistreat them (including our kiddos & some of BPDmom's relatives) took the stand & told what they had personally witnessed. Then my L showed her photos, emails with really terrible words to the kiddos, hand written apology notes for “Hurting you”, nasty FB screenshots, text messages, ect, ect, ect… BPDmom of course had some witnesses come say that they never saw her do anything like that but of course there are another hundred thousand people in the county that have not seen it either. Then at the end, BPDmom got on the stand and called them all “Liars that were coerced and intimidated by me to make them say the things that they did because they are all afraid of me.

Well, Judge did not buy it at all. Ruling is that I will have 100% custody, there will be no visitation, BPDmom cannot initiate contact with them by phone, email, FB, in person, , BPDmom cannot bother them, go to schools & bother them or get school records, nothing at all. I just need to make sure I mail her a copy of report cards & any disciplinary reports I receive. Judge told her that she has “Issues that she needs to resolve” and if she wants a chance at being able to ever have visitation with the kiddos, she needs to take parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling for herself with all reports going to the court. He stopped short of ordering her to do these things but told her that if she did not, she would not get any visitation. He did not order a RO which was another thing the GAL was asking for and the only thing she did not get.

The GAL, my L and the Judge all did a wonderful job in our case. I was worried because 100% custody for a father seems to rarely happen.

Feels like a WIN for my kiddos!

So now, I have her "Supportive" family members super mad at me because of this. I assume it is because I had the nerve to go tell it like it truly was and not let her lie her way out of it this time. So I guess it works like this, BPDmom does terrible & unspeakable things to our kiddos, hires a lawyer, has me servied with "get out of my house" paperwork, manages to get kiddos and me out of the house by simply escalating her crazy & mean behavior, we go to court, present stacks of evidence and witnesses to convince a Judge that these things happened and I am the bad guy. Figures.

[AnotherPhoenix]

Wow! Way to go. Way to stand up to ex's family!

So great for you and your kids!

As for your ex's supporters, of course you aren't the bad guy! Some of them are scared of your ex and support her because of that, some of them don't know what's really going on, and some of them are trying to be good supporters of her. That's the way it is. I think you'll be surprised how many of her "supporters" congratulate you in private.

AnotherPheonix 

[Gottagonow]

Wow! Way to go. Way to stand up to ex's family!

So great for you and your kids!

As for your ex's supporters, of course you aren't the bad guy! Some of them are scared of your ex and support her because of that, some of them don't know what's really going on, and some of them are trying to be good supporters of her. That's the way it is. I think you'll be surprised how many of her "supporters" congratulate you in private.

AnotherPheonix 

Thanks & I hope so. If not, I certainly won't cry myself to sleep at night but still, these are people I've known for over a quarter century of my life and it disappoints me that they would believe anything STBXBPDW says. Especially since I have never been anything except nice to everyone of them. I am the guy that they would call in the middle of the night if they needed help & I was there. But, I guess it "Is what it is"

[GaGrl]

Unfortunately, their family dynamics may be such that they see the public reveal of the BPD ex's behavior as a reflection on them.

[Gottagonow]

Unfortunately, their family dynamics may be such that they see the public reveal of the BPD ex's behavior as a reflection on them.

Good point.

[livednlearned]

Wow, congratulations. That had to have been a surreal day in court, hearing the lies. It's amazing to hear of anyone getting 100% custody, but it sounds like the abuse was substantiated enough with witnesses and evidence.

How are your kids doing with the news? How are you doing?

[catnap]

Congratulations!   

[Waddams]

Wow!  Score one for the good guys!  I'm happy for you and your kids.   

And regardless of how far fetched things might be, hopefully one day the kid's mother will get help and get herself together better so they can have a more normal relationship with her.

Best of luck to you!

[broken3]

Gottago,

Almost the exact same thing happened to me. Keep your guard up. It is probably not over. Make sure you do the right thing for the kids. And be sure to protect yourself.

You will be surprised in the near future about who will do an about face once they start realizing where the problem lies.

  Family is a different issue. My ex has them all believing and eating out of her hand. And while I have reached out to them. They will not talk or acknowledge because they are afraid of the truth.

Another win for the good guys!

[Gottagonow]

Wow, congratulations. That had to have been a surreal day in court, hearing the lies. It's amazing to hear of anyone getting 100% custody, but it sounds like the abuse was substantiated enough with witnesses and evidence.

How are your kids doing with the news? How are you doing?

Yes, BPD mom pretty much did herself in with the lies but I had spent over a year preparing for this. I knew exactly how she would testify because she can't tell the truth when it comes to this stuff.  I had daily journals, pictures of injuries to kids, printed email after email with her being abusive towards/about the kids along with screen shots of her facebook posts & messages where she was being equally nasty & abusive. She was also arrogant enough to leave hand written notes to the kids about a lot of different things and "I sorry for hurting you" notes. I saved every little scrap of it and organized it into a very large binder which was the foundation of our case. Then there were the eye witnesses that actually spent time living in our house & experienced her behavior first hand.  In this part of the case, we kept the way she acted toward me out of it & focused completely on her behavior towards defenseless kids.

The best part for me was while she was on the stand, telling lies about what happened & I was feeding my L the documentation proving that she was full of poo-poo which none was “remembered” by BPDmom. We did not even have to break out the hours of recordings of BPD mom losing her mind & wanting me to hurt kids. I had those all broken down & time-stamped and summarized in a spreadsheet so the specific quotes were easy to find. 

The kids are very, very happy. The worry was about the judge ordering them to see her and for me it was about how I was going to force two teenagers to go somewhere they did not want to go. They both told the judge, in front of their mother, that they do not want to see her anymore and would be much happier if they did not have to.

As far as me, I am doing fine. I just want to be able to finally say I am no longer married to her. 25+ years of it was more than enough and life is actually good for us now.

[GaGrl]

My DH was married to his uNPD/BPD for 19 years before she finally moved out of the house (still came and went to see the children, but lived with a succession of boyfriends after that).  He had spent 14 years alone when we reconnected, he filed for divorce, and cleaned up the legal situation.

DH's adult children were thrilled to see their dad in a good relationship and moving on with his life.  Having the dysfunctional back-and-forth done with (he is a Non to the nth degree) and a new household set up did wonders for their relationship with their dad.  It was very good, all around -- and they were all in their 20s by then.

It also allowed them to interact with their mother with another family dynamic for comparison, and they have stepped up and figured out how to have a relationship with her that is workable for them -- but quite limited by distance and boundaries.

[Gottagonow]

My DH was married to his uNPD/BPD for 19 years before she finally moved out of the house (still came and went to see the children, but lived with a succession of boyfriends after that).  He had spent 14 years alone when we reconnected, he filed for divorce, and cleaned up the legal situation.

DH's adult children were thrilled to see their dad in a good relationship and moving on with his life.  Having the dysfunctional back-and-forth done with (he is a Non to the nth degree) and a new household set up did wonders for their relationship with their dad.  It was very good, all around -- and they were all in their 20s by then.

It also allowed them to interact with their mother with another family dynamic for comparison, and they have stepped up and figured out how to have a relationship with her that is workable for them -- but quite limited by distance and boundaries.

I am glad it is working out for DH.

I can not say for sure that at some point my kids will not want to contact BPDmom but right now, they are great without her interference and lies. I do not & will not talk bad about her to them and the judge made it clear that they can contact her if they choose. She is just not allowed to initiate contact in any way. Right now they are good and I am looking for a therapist for them.

[ForeverDad]

So it's been 14 months since she filed for Separation.  Wow, didn't turn out quite like she expected, did it?

Glad to hear it worked out well for you and your teenagers.  Yes, get the last of the legal issues resolved, but more or less you can relax now.

She, her family and other negative enablers can try to rain on your lives, but you've got Freedom from chaos, screaming, raging, etc.  That's priceless!

[GaGrl]

My DH was married to his uNPD/BPD for 19 years before she finally moved out of the house (still came and went to see the children, but lived with a succession of boyfriends after that).  He had spent 14 years alone when we reconnected, he filed for divorce, and cleaned up the legal situation.

DH's adult children were thrilled to see their dad in a good relationship and moving on with his life.  Having the dysfunctional back-and-forth done with (he is a Non to the nth degree) and a new household set up did wonders for their relationship with their dad.  It was very good, all around -- and they were all in their 20s by then.

It also allowed them to interact with their mother with another family dynamic for comparison, and they have stepped up and figured out how to have a relationship with her that is workable for them -- but quite limited by distance and boundaries.

I am glad it is working out for DH.

I can not say for sure that at some point my kids will not want to contact BPDmom but right now, they are great without her interference and lies. I do not & will not talk bad about her to them and the judge made it clear that they can contact her if they choose. She is just not allowed to initiate contact in any way. Right now they are good and I am looking for a therapist for them.

There have been a few times that DH got into the ex's behaviors with his children -- unavoidable when she hurt them -- but he never speaks ill of her, and he does keep the conversation focused on behaviors rather than craziness. .  The most we hear him say is, "Well, you know how your mother is."

[Gottagonow]

So it's been 14 months since she filed for Separation.  Wow, didn't turn out quite like she expected, did it?

Glad to hear it worked out well for you and your teenagers.  Yes, get the last of the legal issues resolved, but more or less you can relax now.

She, her family and other negative enablers can try to rain on your lives, but you've got Freedom from chaos, screaming, raging, etc.  That's priceless!

Freedom from & Priceless is right. And, I'm positive she expected this to go a completely different direction. Like me groveling & asking forgiveness to make it all go away. 14 months is a very long time & it was not me delaying anything. It is just odd to me that a person that was so intent on getting her kids and me removed from the home and away from her would go to such great lengths to prolong everything.