Suggestions needed for email response to mediation request and following orders

[Catsmother]

I thought I would out this in here, as potentially it involves family law. I don't know that I would consider DH and BM (undiagnosed BPD) as co-parents, and I'm not even sure they are parallel parenting, because that would imply that both of them parent.  .

BM has invited DH to mediation yet again. This would be about the 5th time. There are current court orders, which they are not strictly following because she moved closer to us, so SS12 could go to school here and they now do 50/50. DH asked her back in October last year about doing up new orders but she ignored him. Even when he forwarded the email again, she ignored him. Now because of a hiccup at Easter, she wants to go to mediation to try to get consent orders (again). Part of the current orders state that both parents are to respond to emails within 3 days, something that she continually ignores. And yet demands that DH responds to her emails. This of course, is missing from her proposed new orders. As well as other stuff too.

DH sent her through his version, and she has completely rejected them, insisting that the new consent orders should be similar to the old ones, because she thinks that they work well. DH doesn’t think that they do. So DH sent her an email asking her if she will follow the orders, this is in response to her asking DH if he will follow the orders. This was her reply: If we can reach an agreement and submit new consent orders, I will be following whatever agreement that is signed and dated. I have asked you to meet with me for a discussion at mediation to work on varying the orders by consent. 

Now given that she has consistently breached orders, and that she has previously gone back on her promises, DH is not inclined to believe that she will follow the orders as she says. Especially given that the last orders were by consent, and the judge gave her and her lawyer a dressing down for not responding to emails, and stated that he understood the father’s frustrations. This is something that BM has never acknowledged doing.

DH and SS have spoken about the orders, and DH has included things in there that SS wants. And these are not necessarily things that BM wants. While she says that SS should get some choice, she doesn't want him to get stuck in the middle making those choices. Our wording was along the lines of "having regard to the child's wishes". So DH's version of orders are reflective of what SS wants. And SS pretty much wants equal time with both parents, so we have factored that in. BM doesn't want to include make-up time. And BM has a history of asking DH to give up time for her various family member special occasions, without any offer of make-up time. We used to be long distance, and there was a history of her withholding SS as well. So this is why DH is being quite specific with his orders too.

I know that DH would like to send something back along the lines of asking her why should he believe her when she has failed to follow consent orders and court orders in the past. What would you do? I have an idea of what you might like to do, but what do you suggest we do? I know that many believe in BIFF for responses, but I don't know where we should start.

[Thunderstruck]

Honestly, from my experience with uBPDbm... .You could give her everything she wants today, but tomorrow she would change her mind. What she wants varies day to day or hour by hour depending on her mood. If she agreed to consent orders today then tomorrow she would forget and just do what suits her in the present.

We have a lot of trouble getting uBPDbm to follow court orders as well. She wasn't logging in to Our Family Wizard to read messages and she told the judge this in a hearing. The judge did not like it, and specifically put that we have to log in daily and respond. She's never followed this. There are messages from months ago that she still hasn't read.

So your DH doesn't want to do mediation? Does he think it won't be fruitful?

We haven't been to mediation yet. We have had to get court hearings on a few things, though. Several times we have set a court date, and just a few days before uBPDbm finally folds and signs basically everything we proposed (after a lot of back and forth with both us and our L).

[ForeverDad]

A problem with mediation is that there might be pressure to "meet in the middle".  She of course won't want to budge at all.  So will the mediator look for a quick solution and try to convince DH that her requests don't sound all that unreasonable?  He may feel 'stuck' that on the surface some will sound marginally okay but he knows they'll be misused, ignored or trampled, not for what's best for children but for her benefit.

Is the only way to get to court and obtain a new order by going through mediation?  If so, then he might have to do mediation but he needs to feel no pressure to bend or discount his sense of what is right... .and then proceed to court with the knowledge that mediation failed (as expected).

I recall my Trial Day.  The ordered mediation had failed long before.  The ordered settlement conference had failed within 5-10 minutes months before.  We had a full day scheduled.  Upon my arrival I was greeted with the news she was finally ready to settle.  I started with my minimum requirement:  I would be Residential Parent for School Purposes.  Both lawyers said it meant nothing.  I knew otherwise.  She begged to stay RP.  I said, confident internally of my "line in the sand".  I stated, "I will either be RP or let's start the Trial."  I was willing to let the judge decide.  She blinked.

[Catsmother]

This would be about the sixth bout of mediation. All failed. Current orders are by consent. Within a week, she wasn't following them. One bout of mediation took over a year to arrange, and she moved the day after the first joint session. He doesn't think it will be successful. And yes, he has had the experience of a mediator getting him to agree to BM's requests.

I think he will just have to go to mediation and explain to them that she hasn't followed orders in the past, even orders by consent, so why should he believe her now. He can show the mediator that he attempted to negotiate new orders 6 months ago, and she ignored him.

[Thunderstruck]

That's frustrating. I'm sure he doesn't want to go through the hassle and expense when he knows nothing is going to come of it.

Unfortunately, the courts love mediation. Well, it could be fortunate because in MOST situations people are reasonable and can mediate an agreement which makes it less combative and more collaborative. But... .we're not dealing with reasonable people here at bpdfamily. :P

In my state I don't think you can skip the mediation step, although you don't have to mediate for every little thing. As I said, we've gone to court several times over issues and haven't been to mediation once.

I haven't seen many BPDs that prefer going to court. They like to have control, and when you put your fate in the hands of a judge then you lose that control (and that terrifies them to the core). That is why many will either not show up to court dates (we've had that happen several times) or buckle and reach an agreement just before the court date (we've had that happen a few times too).

Maybe DH can file a motion with the court and at the same time set a mediation date. If the mediation goes well and you reach an agreement, no problem we'll just submit that to the judge. But if it doesn't then court is in x many days. Maybe that will stop BPDx from dragging her feet like last time.

[Catsmother]

Things are a little different here in Australia. To go to court you have to do mediation. To change orders, you need to do it by consent or, lodge a contravention, or attempt to show the court there has been a major change. I don't think her moving closer could be considered a major change. And she has one or two contraventions that she could lodge against DH, which really isn't enough. He could lodge contraventions, there would be quite a few, but he doesn't want to go to court. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place.