To CE or not to CE...

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

... . that is the question.

The L wants to know by Monday whether we will do a Custody Eval. Is it beneficial? Can we do something specific to make it helpful and not harmful?

[Thunderstruck]

... . that is the question.

The L wants to know by Monday whether we will do a Custody Eval. Is it beneficial? Can we do something specific to make it helpful and not harmful?

[david]

If you have a good evaluator you should be fine. That is the first big step if you go in that direction.

If you decide to go with a CE than you need to show things in the best interst of the children and avoid mudslinging.

I just finished an eval with my ex. My atty hasn't received the report yet but I think things went well.

Some of the highlights. I wanted more time with the kids when they were in school since they were doing the majority of their homework when with me. Ex stated, "I already did fourth grade homework and have no intention of doing it again." I replied that was fine but I thought it best if I had more time with the boys during the school year. This way they wouldn't be playing catch up all the time since they were doing most of their work with me and it was oftentimes done late because of that. That was our first joint meeting.

It got better each progressive meeting culminating with the last meeting where ex threatened the evaluator with her atty.

I remained calm and focused on our kids.

When ex acussed me of things I simply stated what she said was not true and if proof was needed I could supply it. If I didn't have proof I stated that too.

I was told I am a very sick individual by ex, that I am abusive, I threaten her all the time, I am out to decimate her, blah, blah, blah... .   I did not let her suck me into the chaos.

[Matt]

Why does the lawyer need your decision by Monday?

Who works for whom?

To answer your question, the CE was a very good thing in my case.  Cost $5,000 - I paid it all but got back half in the settlement.  Plus $500 each for the MMPI-2 (objective psych evals) which I think is the most important part.

Learn more - don't make a snap decision.  Ask your lawyer what she knows about the CEs in your area - are they Ph.D. psychologists?  Can you put it into your motion that the CE will administer objective psych evals?  How much will it cost, and who will pay?  How long will it take?  Will there be a written report, and who will get copies of that?  Will the CE diagnose both parties and recommend therapy if appropriate?  Etc.

[Boss302]

Mine was a mixed bag, to be kind. She did help me get my kids back, but she was definitely on "team BPDx". I have myself partially to blame for this. At the time, the proceedings were VERY contentious, with my ex spouting lots of allegations about me, mainly that I was potentially abusive. The net effect of this, along with her atrocious treatment of my kids, was to royally piss me off, and the CE picked right up on it. This person had been a social worker in her prior life, and dealt with lots of truly abusive husbands in her day. And BPDx was also a social worker at one time. She knew EXACTLY what to say to the CE to paint me as a potential abuser, and the CE bought it. She put "abuse allegations" together with my obvious anger about the situation together, and voila! I became a man with serious anger management issues. Not that she actually asked me WHY I was so angry... . could it be because I was being ripped off to the tune of $2100 a month to watch my ex keep my kids out of school, get kicked out of house after house, and live in utter filth? Even Gandhi would have been pissed had someone treated his kids like that.

To top it off, if my BPDx is to be believed, at the final hearing, the CE also advised her to take me back to court in six months for full custody. So much for impartiality.

So... . long story short... . pick someone you can trust, and NEVER let on that you're angry at your soon to be ex. Never. Do that in therapy instead.

[livednlearned]

I agree it's really important who does the CE.

Do research and be proactive about who gets involved if you can. If the court has recommendations, go through them and pick three. If BPD mom has to be involved, let her choose one of your three, otherwise pick the one you think is most qualified. During the very beginning of my case, N/BPDx's lawyer requested that we do coparenting therapy together. I was able to find out where this woman went to school (for-profit university, which doesn't teach ethics as part of clinical work), and even saw that she grossly misrepresented herself on a resume I found buried deep on the Internet. I also called around and talked to people, and found out she had a reputation for caring about money more than kids. A lot -- not all -- but many therapeutic professionals get involved in forensic psychology because it's lucrative.

I didn't have a CE, but I did have a parenting coordinator. She trains PCs in our areas, and is considered the best in the system. When N/BPDx ran afoul of her, the judge even pointed it out -- "Ms. PC is the best in our county. If she can't work with N/BPDx, no one can."

Where I live, not all psychologists/psychiatrists can do MMPI-2 psych evals, and not all custody evaluations involve psych evals. Make sure you know what's involved, how the eval is structured, who gets to read what, how much experience everyone involved has, reputations, credentials, etc.

Third-party professionals have a lot of power in our cases, and it's worth doing the legwork to figure out who will be involved. The PC involved in my case was the key witness to swing custody in my favor. She didn't say anything I hadn't already said, but she was a professional, and that made all the difference. 

[ForeverDad]

Don't trust anything that a disordered ex claims to you.  Some of it might be true but it could just as easily be bluff and bluster meant to weaken your resolve.  For example, when Boss wrote, "if my BPDx is to be believed, at the final hearing, the CE also advised her to take me back to court in six months for full custody."  Most courts don't want to see frequent custody changes, I think some even have a year as the minimum time to wait between motions.  When my Shared Parenting ended and I got custody the order included specific references to case law expressing displeasure with parents who lost custody trying to show themselves better, as though custody of the kids were a contest batting a ball back and forth.

An experienced and perceptive Custody Evaluator and a good CE's report can be very useful to deflate the stbEx's determination to squash your parenting efforts.  In my case it caused my ex to drop opposition to a settlement, though that happened only at the last minute just before trial on Trial Day over 20 months into the divorce process.  So it was leverage that was never ruled upon in family court.  Then a year and a half later when I filed for Change of Circumstances and sought custody, the court ruled that by then the sealed CE report was stale/old and could not be used.

So a CE report is good for (1) leverage in a potential settlement and/or (2) use in court during testimony in a trial.  Looking back on my case, if it is a good report then it works best in a trial because then at least it gets entered in the record.  When settlements are made usually none of the facts that led to a settlement are put on the record.

[Thunderstruck]

The L wants to know whether we want a CE by today because there is a case management review on Weds and he wants to put in the motion before then.

Lots of good thoughts and questions to ask here.

[Matt]

The L wants to know whether we want a CE by today because there is a case management review on Weds and he wants to put in the motion before then.

Lots of good thoughts and questions to ask here.

Did he give you any advice or guidance?

[ForeverDad]

What is the current custodial status and parenting schedule?  Is it favorable for you?  Are you satisfied with it?  Is there a risk the court could make it less favorable for you?  If your ex is likely to have custodial rights to some extent, such as joint custody, do you anticipate being stonewalled in any future major decisions, such as school choice, education, doctors, after-school activities, how to handle impasses, etc?

If you're in a strong parenting position now and he's not likely to demand the moon as an entitled, controlling or possessive parent, you may be okay without a custody evaluation.

But most who find their way here have to deal with an entitled, controlling or possessive parent and in that case a custody evaluation done by an experienced and perceptive professional is advisable.

Okay, I just looked at a few posts.  His ex is very crabby and disparaging.  (I just got an order where finally my ex's disparaging comments in my son's presence finally got the court's attention.  The magistrate was very peeved about that.  My ex still got more favorable treatment than I would have gotten if I of the male gender had been the one misbehaving, but overall the court listened to the GAL and moved my parenting time the right direction.)  Does H already have majority time now?  How about Residential Parent for School Purposes?  Does he have tie-breaker or decision-making status?  If not he would probably need a CE or a GAL to get that.

[Thunderstruck]

SO doesn't have anything in place at all. They were never married so the process is different. We just signed a motion for this summer only and will use that time to put in a permanent plan for the future. This summer is roughly one week on, one week off with each parent getting two week vacations.

The current informal visitation (uBPDbm wants this and has done every dirty trick to keep it this way) is that SD9 is with uBPDbm during the week and with us on the weekends. Except, of course, when she wants to play "mother of the year" for a weekend or when she wants to punish SO. But in general over the past year it has been roughly 50/50 (and we've had to fight for each and every single day of that).

uBPDbm has been stonewalling him on medical (refuses to give doctor's names, locations, info about appts, copy of papers) and on education (keeps SD9 away from SO during the school week, won't send progress reports or homework, won't pass on information sent home including notes from the teacher about SD9's behavior). In addition uBPDbm has been "working over" SD9 with some Parental Alienation tactics to try to establish herself as the primary parent.

There is no way that they will be able to share joint decision making. If it is ordered that way then they might as well just give her full decision making because she will never include SO. uBPDbm generally makes decisions in her own best interest and not SD9's, so SO would like to be the decision maker.

[Matt]

One thing your SO can do is to work directly with the school.  He should talk to the school, make sure he is copied on report cards and parent-teacher conferences, go to all school events, etc.

If he finds he isn't getting their full cooperation, he can ask to talk to their attorney.  They probably won't give him the attorney's name, but that will put them on notice that he is considering hiring an attorney to make sure they do what is right.  His attorney will probably just need to make one call, or send one letter, to the school's attorney, demanding that SO be given all the information every other parent is given, and that will do the trick;  the school will not want to be sued over this.

[ForeverDad]

When I reported my ex had put our preschooler in child therapy and blocked my access to it (agency refused to discuss anything with me since I was described on the intake form as a "suspected child abuser".  My court simply stated I had I had statutory rights in the temp order's boilerplate text.  I tried again, agency still stonewalled.  Next time in court I again complained, magistrate got ex to agree to file out papers grant me permission.  Never happened.  I forced my attorney to file Contempt against the agency.  About that time the her lawyer raised the issue of HIPAA privacy for mother's statements during sessions.  Another hearing.  Order was signed, I got 200+ pages with frequent descriptions of me as {an ogre} or worse.  Time from first refusal to records release: over 13 months.  It still took a few more months for me to get to bring my son to sessions, I think the custody evaluator intervened in my behalf but they still wanted to cover their butts since ex was temporary custodial parent.

And was my court perturbed by the obstructions of my ex on the above and other incidents?  No.  Not once.

Unless you have a GAL solidly on your side, I think a custody evaluation by an experienced and perceptive professional is virtually mandatory.  Otherwise the judge will take a "middle of the road" approach, but still granting mother lots of defaults.

[Matt]

Of course the best approach will be if you can work positively with the school - be very involved - be nice to everyone - that's what has worked for me.  I know all the kids' teachers, at least a little, and they call me by name when they see me, and I've met with the principal - they see me as the kids' primary parent, and I've never had to show them any court orders or anything.

But if the school ever refused to give me information they give to any other parent, I wouldn't take that sitting down... .

[Boss302]

SO doesn't have anything in place at all. They were never married so the process is different. We just signed a motion for this summer only and will use that time to put in a permanent plan for the future. This summer is roughly one week on, one week off with each parent getting two week vacations.

The current informal visitation (uBPDbm wants this and has done every dirty trick to keep it this way) is that SD9 is with uBPDbm during the week and with us on the weekends. Except, of course, when she wants to play "mother of the year" for a weekend or when she wants to punish SO. But in general over the past year it has been roughly 50/50 (and we've had to fight for each and every single day of that).

uBPDbm has been stonewalling him on medical (refuses to give doctor's names, locations, info about appts, copy of papers) and on education (keeps SD9 away from SO during the school week, won't send progress reports or homework, won't pass on information sent home including notes from the teacher about SD9's behavior). In addition uBPDbm has been "working over" SD9 with some Parental Alienation tactics to try to establish herself as the primary parent.

There is no way that they will be able to share joint decision making. If it is ordered that way then they might as well just give her full decision making because she will never include SO. uBPDbm generally makes decisions in her own best interest and not SD9's, so SO would like to be the decision maker.

1) DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT... . the refusal to give out the names of health care providers, or share school information, is all a critical failure on her part. If this info is being withheld, you have to suspect that something's amiss.

2) Most schools now have some kind of online system where you can track grades, attendance, etc. Teachers also usually publish their email addresses in these systems, so you can contact them directly. In the absence of that, you SO can march right into that school any time he pleases and get copies of anything he needs from them. He's the student's father and is 100% legally entitled to this info. He also may want to mention in passing that he and Mom are having some difficulties working together, and he would like to set up a meeting with the school counselor to make sure he's doing the right thing and helping his child out through this. If there's any lapses in attendance, document the hell out of that. It helped me get full decision making on my kids' education. Judges don't like to see kids not going to school!

4) Make sure your SO attends ALL school functions, and most importantly, goes to parent-teacher conferences. You can schedule a time separate from his ex's time. Make sure everyone sees him being involved!

5) If the child is on your SO's insurance, he will be able to track the medical providers through insurance submissions. I'm using that right now to build a case against my BPDx, who is playing games with my daughter's therapy.

DOCUMENT all this as much as possible... . when the final hearings happen, it'll be obvious to the court who should get decision making.

Also, once a schedule is done, it's DONE. No re-negotiating. If BPDx wants to take the kid out of town on a weekend that's not "hers," tell her absolutely not unless it's a family function and you can see paid-for plane tickets. Otherwise, you're going to be horse trading ALL the time.

[Boss302]

Of course the best approach will be if you can work positively with the school - be very involved - be nice to everyone - that's what has worked for me.  I know all the kids' teachers, at least a little, and they call me by name when they see me, and I've met with the principal - they see me as the kids' primary parent, and I've never had to show them any court orders or anything.

But if the school ever refused to give me information they give to any other parent, I wouldn't take that sitting down... .

I can't imagine any school refusing to give out information to a child's parent. Do they WANT to be sued?

[Matt]

Of course the best approach will be if you can work positively with the school - be very involved - be nice to everyone - that's what has worked for me.  I know all the kids' teachers, at least a little, and they call me by name when they see me, and I've met with the principal - they see me as the kids' primary parent, and I've never had to show them any court orders or anything.

But if the school ever refused to give me information they give to any other parent, I wouldn't take that sitting down... .

I can't imagine any school refusing to give out information to a child's parent. Do they WANT to be sued?

Quite a few of our members - mostly men - have this problem.  The school may have been told "He's a creep and I have custody not him!", and they don't want to get "involved", so they just send the information to Mom and ignore Dad.  If Dad passively accepts it, then that's that.  :)ad has to be firm and insist on getting all the information, same as every other parent.

A related issue... .

In the run-up to our divorce, some of my friends here told me to make sure I knew not only the kids' current teachers, but their past teachers too.  I couldn't remember all their previous teachers' names, so I casually asked them, "Who was your teacher last year?  And who was it the year before?", etc.  I made a list and memorized it.  I thought, "This is a stupid issue but I'll be prepared, just in case."

Sure enough, when I was deposed, my wife's lawyer asked me to name all the kids' teachers, from kindergarten to their current grades, and their doctors and dentists too.  I answered all her questions - a ridiculous little game, but I won it.  If I hadn't been prepared, she could have claimed, "He's not really involved with the kids' lives.  Mom is the real care-giver." - not true but I would have been on the defensive.

Something else to do in your spare time... .

[Boss302]

Of course the best approach will be if you can work positively with the school - be very involved - be nice to everyone - that's what has worked for me.  I know all the kids' teachers, at least a little, and they call me by name when they see me, and I've met with the principal - they see me as the kids' primary parent, and I've never had to show them any court orders or anything.

But if the school ever refused to give me information they give to any other parent, I wouldn't take that sitting down... .

I can't imagine any school refusing to give out information to a child's parent. Do they WANT to be sued?

Quite a few of our members - mostly men - have this problem.  The school may have been told "He's a creep and I have custody not him!", and they don't want to get "involved", so they just send the information to Mom and ignore Dad.  If Dad passively accepts it, then that's that.  :)ad has to be firm and insist on getting all the information, same as every other parent.

A related issue... .

In the run-up to our divorce, some of my friends here told me to make sure I knew not only the kids' current teachers, but their past teachers too.  I couldn't remember all their previous teachers' names, so I casually asked them, "Who was your teacher last year?  And who was it the year before?", etc.  I made a list and memorized it.  I thought, "This is a stupid issue but I'll be prepared, just in case."

Sure enough, when I was deposed, my wife's lawyer asked me to name all the kids' teachers, from kindergarten to their current grades, and their doctors and dentists too.  I answered all her questions - a ridiculous little game, but I won it.  If I hadn't been prepared, she could have claimed, "He's not really involved with the kids' lives.  Mom is the real care-giver." - not true but I would have been on the defensive.

Something else to do in your spare time... .

Excellent move!

In my case, I didn't really have to go there. My BPDx was brilliant enough to pull our D17 out of school at the beginning of her freshman year so she could be "homeschooled" with an online program. Didn't matter that her school counselor, the principal and everyone else in the meeting told her that was a disaster... . she did it anyway, and the kid lost the entire first year of school hanging out with Mommy - GPA 0.0. And then she didn't attend regularly her first semester of sophomore year - GPA .5. Meanwhile the ex was also keeping D13 home for weeks at a time over ailments like "sick tummy." When did it all end? When she got kicked out of her home and the kids came to live with me. That was it for the attendance issues. GPA for D17 came in a little over 2.0 (borderline miraculous given all the make up work she had to do, and the horrid GPA for her entire first year and a half), and D13's teachers started commenting on how much better her attitude and work habits were.

Maybe the ex did tell everyone I was an ogre, but they all knew what the real story was in time.

I made a spreadsheet of all this and used it to get decision making over education.

[Matt]

Well with 8 kids, it must be near impossible to remember all the kids' teachers back through the dawn of time.  My older two were not relevant since they were already adults - same for your 18-year-old.  But it may be possible to turn the "He's not involved with their school, doctors, etc." claim to your advantage - over the course of time - by getting very involved, knowing their teachers, etc.

[david]

I went to pick up our kids at school years ago. It was my time according to the court order and the order was changed so I would pick the boys up at their school instead of at exs' place. It eliminated conflict. Ex informed school that she was sole custodial parent beforehand. I expected something from ex so I had the court order with me just in case. Sure enough the school refused to let me pick the boys up. I went out to my car and got the order. The order was written by the judge and wasn't typed out. The school said they required a typed copy. I told them to call their legal department and clear it. If they wanted a typed copy they would have to pay me $50 because that is what the court charges. The woman called legal and I picked the kids up. Ex made a big deal about it at the school. Fortunately I was not there and the school had to deal with her. That was a turning point for the school to "get it". Exs anger has been helpful in situations like this.