I filed for sole custody in NC. Now BPDh has filed against me for the same thing

[Abigayle]

I filed a complaint for full custody a month ago. We went to court. It was continued. My lawyer offered a settlement. He refused to sign settlement but rather than counter it outside of court I find out today that he has filed against me for full custody and child support. I was a sah mom and always the primary care giver to our daughter. Does he stand a chance? He can't care for a 4 yr old! He has a 15yr old daughter with a no contact order against him (diff mom). Please tell me the court will look at all of this. :'(

[momtara]

Is your daughter still living with you?

Courts are reluctant to change the status quo.

In many states, they also try not to award sole custody unless there's a really really really good reason.

He is just trying to scare you and push you to negotiate better terms for him.  Still, I know it's unnerving.

[momtara]

What are your reasons for filing for sole custody?

[ForeverDad]

 

Those with BPD are generally entitled and with a sense of "all or nothing", that is, "all for me or nothing for you".   In his case it might look to you like he's made a ridiculous claim, but there is some sneakiness there.  He knows how to put up a huge public image of bravado.  Often too it is expressed in such a way as to appear emotionally compelling despite there being no facts to support it.

Sadly, to some extent it might work for him.  If you both seek majority time, it's possible the judge may want to "split the difference".  Not good judicial action, but judges often don't want one parent to feel he/she Lost and the other to feel he/she Won.

It's also likely that he made the same claim for custody since people with BPD (pwBPD) or other acting out PDs don't like to look bad.  So therefore they expend a lot of energy and time into making the other person look worse than them.  Blame-shifting and blaming.

In my case, my ex also counterfiled for custody when I filed for custody.  We ended up settling for Shared Parenting since my state encourages it - and because even though she had temp custody she was looking increasingly worse while I was looking increasingly better - but I've heard that some courts decide that Shared Parenting isn't an option for a judge's decision if both parents are seeking full custody.  I guess because if they're at extremes and can't agree on custody, then how can they cooperate in Shared Parenting?

And for pwBPD, reciprocity and fairness often aren't in their vocabulary.  You probably have a natural inclination to be fair but if he's not then your otherwise positive inclinations would make you too fair, too nice, too gullible, too whatever and you'd later discover you sabotaged yourself.  Now is not the time to be nice or 'fair'.  Now is the time - the best time - to stand up for yourself and your children.  Your soon-to-be ex-spouse (stbEx) is an adult, any gifts thrown his way would not make him less broken or more cooperative in the long term.

In my case, my ex was/is very possessive of our child, now half grown.  We separated when I had her arrested for threats of DV and I got a temporary protection order, though months later that judge dismissed the case.  But once she was released she rushed over to family court and sought her own temporary protection order from me and sought to block my parenting.  Judge only cared about who worked.  You guessed it, I was the one with a regular work schedule and even though she had a DV case pending in family court, her history of majority parenting (and her gender too, I'm convinced) helped her walk out with temporary custody and majority time.  (Also, I later found out that adult behaviors are not closely linked to parenting behaviors.  The court presumed she could behave very poorly to me (adult relationship) but would be okay with our children (parenting relationship), enough for her to be temporary custodial parent.)  It took me over 2 years to shift to Shared Parenting and equal time.  That failed too and now I have custody.  It took years but the court's baby steps eventually went in the right direction.

What I want to stress here is that now is not the time to seek a deal that concedes to him more parenting or custody than you feel is appropriate.  Deals made quickly often (1) are soon rejected by the pwBPD or (2) have granted too much parenting to the pwBPD.  In many cases a real settlement doesn't occur until the pwBPD can't delay any longer and there is a big court date looming such as a trial.  A deal too soon often is one 'gifting' to much to the disordered spouse.

Keep in mind too that you will likely get a better deal from a judge's decision than from an entitled and possessive pwBPD.  How entitled, possessive or determined is he?

Also, temporary orders often morph into final orders, a truism around here.  So it is advised to get the best schedule possible from the beginning and you'll have the inertia of continued majority parenting on your side.  If your lawyer wants you to give in too much while saying, "We'll fix it later" then beware.  If you give up more than you have to at the beginning, it may be hard to get it back later.  Judges are reluctant to change the status quo.

Unless there are substantive reasons for him to be restricted from parenting - abuse, neglect or endangerment - it's likely you having the hisotry of majority parenting will walk out with a temp order where you have temp custody and he has alternate weekends and an evening or overnight in between.  If a deal is made between lawyers, I would suggest you don't agree to anything worse than that.   The fact that he has a No Contact order from his older daughter likely will have an impact too, it would give evidence of his past parenting behavior patterns, but I don't know how strongly the court will assess it.

[livednlearned]

Are you in N Carolina? Not sure if that's what you meant by "NC" or if that means "no contact"

If so, are you trying to get full custody (primary physical and sole legal?)

It's to your benefit that you filed first. And like others have said, the status quo really helps.

For what it's worth, I ended up with sole custody in a state that doesn't like to award it. My ex filed all kinds of things that freaked me out, and none of it flew in court. A good judge and a good L helped a lot.

[Abigayle]

Thank you all so much. I will post more details tomorrow, but to answer a few questions, yes I am in North Carolina. I haven't quite mastered message board abbreviations yet.

My reasoning for requesting sole custody with limited  visitation are many, but the top of the list is that he has never taken any interest in her physical or emotional well being. He has never hurt her but I have never left her alone with him for long even when we lived with him because he would let her her run out in traffic. Last time he had her since the split I picked her up the next day in the same clothes from the day before, athsma medication was still in the car and never administered, teeth hadn't been brushed pm or am, she said she had marshmallows for breakfast and was hungry ( it was 1pm), she was tired and kept saying "I'm a big girl, I don't need a Mommy."

And of course the abuse he subjected me to, but I keep hearing that the courts don't really care about that. This appalls me. One example of many; He used to yell at me and call me names until I would agree to have sex with me even though I was crying and he would just have his way, finish, then turn and say, "I think it's weird that you cry during sex, you should talk to someone about that." He is obsessed with sex, porn, etc - he was sexually abused as a child. I've been to Mainstay several times because of verbal abuse and infidelity (him not me). I just cannot imagine leaving my child alone with him and the few times I have I was sick the whole time. How can the courts expect you to let someone who has hurt an adult so badly have access to a child? Doesn't the same government mandate that a dog that bites a person get put down so it doesn't bite someone else? It's so messed up. This is what kept me in the marriage for the past 3 years. I just cant bare the thought of her not being taken care of.

Not to mention he is driving around in a vehicle he purchased through my Dad's business (where he managed and had access to funds before he asked for a separation. Did I mention that? HE asked for the separation!) and is swearing the vehicle doesn't exist. We are just waiting on my lawyer's go ahead before we press charges there. The list of crazy goes on and on.

Oh and kind of a side note: Tonight after I heard about his motion for custody and child support I get an incredibly long voice mail from him stating how much he loves me and misses his family - he's willing to change blah blah blah. WTH? I have no idea how he got my cell number to begin with but how can he say things like that knowing what he just filed in the court system? He's completely insane!

[momtara]

Well, yes, he is.

Those things you are saying about him are scary.  It is hard to prove some of them, unfortunately, but you ought to try.  It's different from state to state, so who knows. 

"How can the courts expect you to let someone who has hurt an adult so badly have access to a child?"

Well, you're preaching to the converted.  I guess their studies say that there isn't a correlation. 

He asked for sole custody for leverage.  Asking doesn't mean getting.  He may still get some kind of visitation and I know you hate that idea and I don't blame you.  But if it's a money thing, maybe your lawyer can bargain somehow that he takes less money for less visitation.  I dunno.

Save and document everything.  Keep a journal.  Maybe he will give up if he can't take the responsibility of having her.

[livednlearned]

Hi Abigayle,

I'm familiar with divorce in NC.

During my divorce, it took me a while to realize that there are really 4 things going on when it comes to custody:

physical custody

legal custody

decision-making

visitation

It's more than likely that you won't get sole custody. You'll probably get primary physical and joint legal, and then some kind of 60/40 visitation, like every other weekend and a Wednesday evening (try to make it dinner only, not overnight if you can. And try to get the weekend to stop at Sunday evening at 6pm if you can, not Monday morning). You might be able to get more because your child is younger. And if you have good documentation that you have provided most of the primary care, you might even be able to increase that to 75/25.

Make sure your lawyer knows what your goal is and has a strategy to get you there. Make sure your L also knows what your judge is like. Knowing the judge, how he or she rules, whether or not the judge is good at cutting to the chase -- super important.

Right now, make sure you document everything. Everything. Email is your best friend. When he rages at you in email, it won't feel good, but that documentation is going to be useful. Limit how you respond to his hostile emails, stick only to the facts. It's hard to believe this at first, but there is no child care issue that requires more than 3 to 4 sentences. 2-3 is best. I used Google calendar to document everything that happened, including stuff I did with S12, appointments, legal things, emails that N/BPDx sent. This is a highly emotional time, and you need documentation of everything so you can outperform when it comes to knowing the facts. And your memory is going to be shot because things will be stressful for a while.

Also, for cases where it is hard to see the abuse, depositions are excellent. Talk to your L about using that tactic. Depositions can be particularly helpful because pwBPD tend to default to emotional reasoning, and that doesn't work well in court. Your ex will say something in the deposition, and then won't be able to back it up in court. But to capture that, you have to have an official court record of his testimony. Depositions cost money, but honestly, it may be money well spent in your situation. Think carefully and strategically about how to make best use of your funds.

I never went through a custody evaluation because my ex handed over primary physical custody. Others here can talk about their experiences with custody evaluation and whether it was a good strategy. Classic abusers tend to focus on legal custody because that way they don't have to do any work, but get to have all the control. So I came out of mediation with primary physical custody, 60/40 visitation (every other week or EOW + Wednesday overnight), and for joint legal, one item said that the parties did not agree to joint legal and that would remain an issue before the court. We settled everything else. Then it took 2 years for me to get joint legal, which effectively gave me sole custody. After 3 years, S12 only spends 16 hours a month with his dad.

Also, NC is a state that uses parenting coordinators. They have extension of judicial duties. In my court, they prefer to try a PC instead of awarding sole legal custody (which includes decision-making). So we had a PC for a year, and N/BPDx dysregulated so badly under her that she became my key witness.

I'm sorry you have to go through this. Please don't let him recycle you and drag you back into the marriage. I wish I left when my son was younger -- they need to be in a stable home, and that isn't possible with a pwBPD. You need to live your life without verbal and emotional abuse. Divorce is awful, but being raised in home with someone who is disordered is traumatizing. It has taken my son 3 years of therapy, but he's finally becoming the kid he was always meant to be.

Stay strong. This process is going to be painful and expensive, but it's also a process that comes with tremendous healing and growth. I became a better person, mother, friend. The other side of this heartwrenching process is awesome