Should I tell the custody evaluator about BPD

[aparenti]

My parter has recently taken me to court in order to gain full custody of our four year old daughter by making false allegations about my parenting including accusations of sexual abuse. It wasn't until after this happened that I found out about BPD and realized that many of her behaviors throughout our relationship fit this pattern.

The case now rests on a full custody evaluation which will take place over the next few months. The evaluator has over 30 years of experience dealing with divorce and custody issues, but I'm not sure how best to approach this. Do I come out and say that I believe my partner may have BPD or do I just describe her behaviors and let the evaluator come to his own conclusions?

[Nope]

Evaluators love coming to their own conclusions. If you can describe the behaviors in detail and provide lots of evidence to back up what you are saying then a good evaluator should have an easy enough time reaching the correct conclusion.

[livednlearned]

It's generally recommended that you don't diagnose your ex -- this can look like throwing mud.

Those of us who have had third-party professionals involved recommend describing the behaviors. I had a parenting coordinator (child psychologist) and used key words like projecting, silent treatment, walking on egg shells. If there is substance abuse, you can ask questions, "I have some serious concerns about the degree of alcohol consumption. I'm also not an expert on drinking, so I don't know at what point it needs expert attention."

Sort of like that. Document everything you can so that the evaluator can work with the behaviors and evidence, and hopefully come to the same conclusion.

Have you read Bill Eddy's Splitting: Divorcing a NPD/BPD Spouse? That's a helpful book that (if I remember correctly) may even include a case with false allegations of abuse.

You may also want to read A Theory of the Pattern of Blame and High-Conflict Family Law Matters and Personality Disorders.

Not all people with BPD are high-conflict personalities, but all high-conflict personalities have personality disorders. To be a HCP, there needs to be a target of blame (you), persuasive blaming (false allegations), and negative advocates (child protective services in your case). So your wife is showing classic signs of being HCP. That's the bad news. The good news is that people on this board have walked in your shoes and can provide collective wisdom -- you're not alone. And your wife's behavior will play out in a relatively straightforward and even predictable way.

As stressful as your situation is, people here do get these false allegations dropped. Try to focus on what you can do, instead of what is being done to you. Someone needs to take care of you, and since she is already signed up to destroy you, then the job of looking out for you falls on your shoulders.

Hang in there. It will get better.

[ForeverDad]

A good custody evaluator (CE) is worth his/her weight in gold.  The last thing you want is a tradition-bound, gender-biased, inexperienced or superficial evaluation.  So the first question is whether you have an experienced and perceptive one.

A CE will almost certainly look in depth at the family members, their relationships, their behaviors and their behavior patterns, primarily as it relates to custody and parenting recommendations.  Court often follows their policies and procedures and generally ignores the 'minor' problems.  You generally only have a half-hour or so when you do get a hearing so only the more critical matters get addressed.  In a CE you get you paint the more detailed picture.  While a smart CE won't let himself or herself be perceived as bluntly taking sides, you can express your concerns, observations and personal conclusions.  Don't try to 'play doctor'.  Give sufficient information and documentation, point them in the right direction, maybe even open the door but any more and you could get an overreaction, "I have 30 years experience, even though you've lived it, I know better."

Perhaps you can list the patterns and behaviors and remark, "This isn't just disagreements and not seeing eye-to-eye, I've experienced a persistent pattern of demands, entitlement, denigration, obstruction, and sabotage of my parenting.  It is such an extreme blaming and blame-shifting that I'm worried a personality disorder is at the root.  While I can share our child, the other parent can't or won't share willingly.  That's not normal!  Though I am the one targeted now in the separation and divorce, our child is suffering with the continuing manipulation and extremes of the other parent.  Unless something major changes for the better, this will be a huge issue for the next decade, not just for my parenting but especially for our child.  Addressing it adequately now will help us avoid repeated returns to court.  Correct me if I've missed something, but due to the targeting and blaming I have concluded I need to be as involved with parenting as possible, even taking the lead as the more stable parent."

[scraps66]

A full psychological evaluation should be a key piece, required, as a portion of your custody evaluation.  If it isn't, there is a problem with the CE approach.

[Matt]

Say what you know and not what you don't.

If you have seen certain behaviors, and especially if you have seen the often, you can say that, in a balanced and fair way.  Not "She is constantly yelling at the kids!" if it's really "Once or twice a week she shows a lot of frustration and even anger toward the kids - raises her voice and says things I don't think are fair."

If you have any other specific reason to think it might be BPD, it's fair to say what you know.  For example, I told our CE that our couples counselor had told me, "Mrs. Matt has most of the behaviors associated with BPD.", and she told me to read "Stop Walking On Eggshells".  Those are facts - the counselor told me those things.  The risk was, if the CE called the counselor (he did) and she didn't verify what I said (but she did verify what I said).

Really bad idea to present yourself as having all the answers or doing the CE's job for her.  But answering her questions openly and truthfully, and telling her facts that you know, is a good idea.

As for psych evals, I think it's best to ask that both parents take objective psych evals.  I emphasize "objective" because if it's just a psychologist interviewing you both, it might not mean anything.  But objective instruments like the MMPI-2 can probably sort out what is going on very well.  By saying both parents should do that, you're not being offensive or defensive - you're asking for an objective process that will give the CE important information.

(We did the MMPI-2 - costs about $500 each.  The results were helpful to the process.)

[bravhart1]

We were advised to not go negative. So we didn't. She did of course, she can't help herself.

I regret not highlighting for CE better some of her crazy behaviour, and how it specifically affects SD6.

I believe if I had been more adamant, about BPDm's problems, that he would have been more stringent in the recommendation. It wasn't a bad recommendation, just too permissive for a BPD to handle. It required three months of adjusting to come up with an order that would set up the needed boundaries.

While we didn't call her "borderline" in our interview, I believe the child psych did. But CE still gave her a way to get back custody, which she took as a sign she was ok. He ordered her to therapy with a court selected therapist, which she is doing but still not taking to heart, not a surprise. She sees this as something she will do get out of the way and get more custody and start up her old tricks again.

I would give detailed examples of your ex's BPD behaviour and show how it hurts your child and your relationship with your child. I would ask for order written to protect your boundaries, and explain how ex does not /will not respect boundaries.

You can talk about ex in way that shows the BPD behaviour without seeming like you hate them, just want to put child first in all this, always make that the point you keep going back to.