Divorce and more lies

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

My uBPD H was served with divorce papers at the end of June. Everything in the papers is true. I'd did not falsify or exaggerate.  I live in NY, a no-fault state. When my H hired an atty and sent his papers, I was floored by the accusations made. I am being made out to be a scorned woman who is behaving in an irrational manner.  Sure, there are times when I can't hold my tongue and I am trying my hardest to go LC. But he has blatantly lied about things such as stating that I have continuously shut down the air conditioning in the room he sleeps in during a heat wave. The truth is, I came home from work one day to find he had left hours before and left the a/c on, and when he didn't come home after a few more hours I turned it off.  When he did finally come home (drunk) he became confrontational about it. There is so much more he has lied about.

I don't claim to always be in total control of my emotions and have lashed out at him verbally in anger. Who wouldn't?  I did make the mistake of opening a package that came in the mail to find that he ordered a gift for his girlfriend. When he came home after being with her for 2 days he demanded it and I refused so he called the police. I know I made a mistake. It is me who should have called the police when he took my jewelry box, woke me early mornings to harass me verbally, and removed items from our home to obviously bring them to his GF. I am learning who I am really dealing with and it isn't the man I have been married to for 28 years

What is eating at me now is his statement in his divorce papers and in a letter from his atty, stating that I have sent harassing text messages to other people that can get me into trouble with the law.  I did not send text messages or harass anyone. I am worried because he could have sent those messages himself through the wireless carrier website from my ph#!  I am worried because I think he is setting me up and trying to make the court think I am acting crazy. I contacted the wireless carrier and found that there would not be a record of texts sent in this manner.

This is all getting to be so much for me to handle, along with all the emotional stuff and the realizations of what he has done. I can see already how the courts work and it is discouraging. I am trying to get him out of the house but don't see this happening. He also stated that I have alienated his daughter against him but he did that himself.

How do I deal with this?  My atty keeps telling me we need to wait to see what the court says. Trying so hard to keep my cool and go LC (NC would be best but difficult when residing in the same home).

[hardhabit2break]

My uBPD H was served with divorce papers at the end of June. Everything in the papers is true. I'd did not falsify or exaggerate.  I live in NY, a no-fault state. When my H hired an atty and sent his papers, I was floored by the accusations made. I am being made out to be a scorned woman who is behaving in an irrational manner.  Sure, there are times when I can't hold my tongue and I am trying my hardest to go LC. But he has blatantly lied about things such as stating that I have continuously shut down the air conditioning in the room he sleeps in during a heat wave. The truth is, I came home from work one day to find he had left hours before and left the a/c on, and when he didn't come home after a few more hours I turned it off.  When he did finally come home (drunk) he became confrontational about it. There is so much more he has lied about.

I don't claim to always be in total control of my emotions and have lashed out at him verbally in anger. Who wouldn't?  I did make the mistake of opening a package that came in the mail to find that he ordered a gift for his girlfriend. When he came home after being with her for 2 days he demanded it and I refused so he called the police. I know I made a mistake. It is me who should have called the police when he took my jewelry box, woke me early mornings to harass me verbally, and removed items from our home to obviously bring them to his GF. I am learning who I am really dealing with and it isn't the man I have been married to for 28 years

What is eating at me now is his statement in his divorce papers and in a letter from his atty, stating that I have sent harassing text messages to other people that can get me into trouble with the law.  I did not send text messages or harass anyone. I am worried because he could have sent those messages himself through the wireless carrier website from my ph#!  I am worried because I think he is setting me up and trying to make the court think I am acting crazy. I contacted the wireless carrier and found that there would not be a record of texts sent in this manner.

This is all getting to be so much for me to handle, along with all the emotional stuff and the realizations of what he has done. I can see already how the courts work and it is discouraging. I am trying to get him out of the house but don't see this happening. He also stated that I have alienated his daughter against him but he did that himself.

How do I deal with this?  My atty keeps telling me we need to wait to see what the court says. Trying so hard to keep my cool and go LC (NC would be best but difficult when residing in the same home).

[papawapa]

You know the truth. Have faith that it will come out in the court process. My BPDexgf has also made all kinds of wild accusations in our custody case. Claiming I was the controlling abuser who also sexually abused her. What you are experiencing is par for the course. Your L can depose him and when your ex takes the stand it will be easy to expose his lies. Your ex can claim what he wants about the texts, but in the end he will have to provide the texts, that don't even exist. Keep your chin up. Your situation is not as bad as it may seem.

[VeryFree]

Mine too made most wild accusations. Keep calm, keep cool. Court is about facts.

[ForeverDad]

My ex has always maintained that our separation date was the date the police arrested her based on my documentation that she had threatened my life, the trigger for my 911 call earlier in the week.  Well, I delayed filing for divorce, wondering if we could reconcile.  She refused and when temp orders lapsed after her charges were dismissed at trial, she started blocking all father-child contact.  So I finally filed for divorce and custody.  Her response was to counterfile for custody, support and in separate court claims of harassment and stalking.  Why?  Because I left VMs on her cell phone (that I was paying for) asking to speak to my child.

Why?  She just had to try to make me look worse than her.  And her gender was an edge for her too.  Court never lectured her about making false allegations.  (Professionals doesn't call them false, they use indirect words like unsubstantiated or, less often, unfounded.

[momtara]

Typical.

My husband keeps saying I am 'withholding' the kids from him.  Actually he fails to show up for certain visitation days then says I didn't let him in the house.  It is so hard to prove a negative.  I have been videotaping myself sitting outside with the kids, waiting.  What a pain.

If he did some of these things, like sending messages through your net carrier, sounds like it could be a crime... .

Write emails to yourself and journal entries to document what has happened.  See if you can prove that he sent those messages.  Try not to get agitated or respond in kind.

What is really frustrating is that it all becomes he said/she said even though he is lying and you are telling the truth.  Judges don't have hours to listen to this stuff.  You may have to follow the advice in "splitting" and just keep your responses short and truthful and move forward. 

You're right - it is too much to handle at once.  It does get easier.  Give yourself a block of time to work on it.  Eat your favorite foods while you deal with it.  And then give yourself some time off, too.

[coffee shop]

At the 2 day settlement trial, my N/BPD H told the judge that I never cleaned the house and in the 6 years I didn't cook more than 5 meals. The judge stopped him by saying that the information didn't have anything to do with the settlement.

there was no reason for him to say those things. I don't think anyone in the courtroom beleived him. We (my attorney and me) gave no response to these kinds of statements he made throughout the trial. They had nothing to do with anything, just more examples of his behavior.

My family, friends and I can now laugh about these things since they all know, and most of all I know, these things were not true and I didn't waste my time and energy being defensive.

If you want to jot them down, I think you will have fun laughing at them later rather than give energy to it now.

[Waddams]

Idea - subpoena all these messages he said you sent.  If they didn't originate from you typing on your phone, a forensics guy should be able to determine that.  I know I've had software that could go through a phone and find deleted data and what not before.  A forensics expert that can go through the phone and document that thoses texts weren't sent from it could be useful.

You might then have cause to subpoena his computer/hard drive/etc. and have it examined.  If he did it, the data is there unless he knows how to really clean off data.  And then, it's still probably there.  I found old web-based emails between my XW and her affair partner on my dad's hard drive of all places.  I found them by breaking into the system volume information and going through the cached files that otherwise don't show up on regular directories/searches.  He'd have to get online to send those texts.  The recipients would have dates/times for receiving them.  Find the same date and time in his history (and the files are still there even if he clears his cache/history for those that know how to dig them off, they might also be on a wireless router if he used one) showing he was on a webpage for sending texts from your phone, and you got him.

I went through these same Magnum PI 2000 type issues.  It sucks having to do it, but it's helpful and validating when you can then throw the evidence that your STBX is trying to frame you.  Shows them to be rather nuts and definitely trying to escalate the problems.

[livednlearned]

If you are referring to the counterclaim, don't worry about it. It's more of a formality than anything of substance. My ex is a lawyer, and he wrote his. It was over-the-top even for him, so wacky I don't even have the energy to repeat the accusations. You know the story.

But even though it doesn't mean anything, get prepared for more. The most important thing you can do is to document everything. Everything.

Use people here to help you with your legal strategy -- you can use his disordered thinking against himself, and try to see what is beneficial in the court system instead of what is discouraging. Make it work for you as much as possible. Do that by anticipating how court works and what it takes seriously, and what it doesn't.

It doesn't take the counterclaim seriously.