Excessive contact/parenting agreement

[BonusMom]

I'm hoping to get some advice on how my boyfriend and I might handle his BPDx who contacts him at least every day or two, sometimes more frequently. We'd prefer and have been practicing limited contact, but we've encountered a stumbling block in their parenting agreement. It states if a response is necessary, the other parent should respond to non-emergency questions within 48 hours.

He has been enforcing boundaries with her such as not answering her when he's at work, keeping contact to texting and email, and responding in a brief (and still friendly) way, sticking to topics that involve their daughters. He's also gotten firm on wanting to stick to the parenting agreement, which she historically ignored and still tries to manipulate. As per BPD, she is throwing her BPD tantrum and trying to control him however she still can. She pointed out to him that sometimes he takes longer than 48 hours to respond to a question, and that is against the parenting agreement. Sure enough, we were surprised to read that yes, the agreement states that each parent should respond within 48 hours if a response is necessary to any non-emergency communication. Mind you, the majority of the questions she sends aren't urgent or necessary; her excessive communication usually seems intended just to make sure he's still on her leash, still under her control. He spoke to his attorney yesterday, and we're disappointed with his response -- that yes, he needs to respond within 48 hours and that yes, maybe he should check his messages from her daily.    :)amn it, he was trying to get away from that and had even set up a new email account so he didn't have to encounter her unwelcome messages popping up all the time.  I suggested perhaps he should talk to another attorney. I can't really see another way.   Can anyone here offer advice?  

[ForeverDad]

... .in their parenting agreement. It states if a response is necessary, the other parent should respond to non-emergency questions within 48 hours.

Well, if a response isn't necessary, then don't respond?   Yes, she will argue that a response is necessary and then he will consistently state, "No, a response wasn't necessary."  She could always pursue it in court but if he was being reasonable in his judgement of what was necessary or not, then it ought not be a major concern to the court.  Sadly, he'll still need to monitor her contact.  And if it does end up in court, be prepared to counter the court's inclination to find a middle ground and make the order worse by giving her part of what she wants.

What is the 50/50 schedule?  Is it week on, week off (7/7) or split weeks (2/2/3 - one has Mon-Tue overnights, other has Wed-Thu overnights and they alternate 3 overnight weekends).  In my final decree we had 50/50 as split weeks (2/2/3) and I had Wed-Thu so that I could monitor his schoolwork better.  My custody evaluator said it was better for younger children so they're not away from either parent for too long.  That was hard on me because my ex used in-person exchanges as ways to create confrontations.  As much as possible I tried to have exchanges at school or daycare transitions.

[BonusMom]

... .in their parenting agreement. It states if a response is necessary, the other parent should respond to non-emergency questions within 48 hours.

Well, if a response isn't necessary, then don't respond?  

The word "necessary" is exactly what I immediately keyed in on, too, FD! Apparently, his attorney did not. 

What is the 50/50 schedule?  Is it week on, week off (7/7) or split weeks (2/2/3 - one has Mon-Tue overnights, other has Wed-Thu overnights and they alternate 3 overnight weekends).  In my final decree we had 50/50 as split weeks (2/2/3) and I had Wed-Thu so that I could monitor his schoolwork better.

We have the 2/2/3 schedule, and we also have Wed.-Thur., which you're right, does help with the schoolwork (because she lets them get behind, especially as much as she pulls them out of school for long vacations.     We have quite a list of reasons she's an unfit parent.)

[livednlearned]

That's tough.

Do you plan to modify the parenting agreement for any reason?

If she is texting him, which can feel much more invasive, then maybe it's time to move things to email only. That way he can genuinely check once a day. If it were me, I might also start categorizing/labeling the messages as "no action needed," and "action needed."

And if you worry that this might become an issue in court, you could always propose Our Family Wizard. That might curb her feeling of entitlement that she can write anything she wants. Changing the parenting agreement is probably not worth it unless you have bigger issues to deal with because it's expensive and means a trip to court. Bleh.

Weirdly, I found this one technique worked in my situation (maybe because my ex was very narcissistic). If he wrote to say this or that, I would respond with, "What do you recommend?" And he would rarely if ever respond. Or, if he ever did respond, it would be some tangential insult like "I recommend you rot in hell." I got to a point where the insults bounced off me. What I was really going for was less interaction.

My ex also found email too much work. When I stopped texting, or responding to texts (mostly due to abusive language), that seemed to slow him down, though it certainly didn't stop it altogether.

[Thunderstruck]

When my DH and his BPD baby mama were texting she would send HUNDREDS of texts a day. He would wake up in the morning and she would send dozens just overnight. It was insane. He switched to email but he would always get the notifications and would fire off responses (same as in a text) and there was still a lot of back-and-forth. Now we use Our Family Wizard and it does seem to help.

We have a 2-2-3 schedule and send messages to uBPDbm almost every day filling her in on school work and grades and handouts about school functions. Of course, those are informational and we don't really demand a response (unless we specifically ask a question).

What sorts of things has she been asking that you feel is excessive?

[tryingsome]

Well as others stated if it isn't necessary, don't respond.

If the communication does not involve the children there does not need to be a response (it is a parenting plan after all).

Furthermore, if you want to play it another way, you could always reply for your boyfriend on your phone.

This is if you don't mind being in the middle, but it should make her cut down on the txts; especially if all the replies come from you.

Another option is just to save up all the questions/txts and answer them all in an email once a day.

Hope that helps. I am sure the txt's will die down once she finds something/one else to preoccupy all her time.

[ForeverDad]

If you're not previously involved in the texting, then you may want to stay out as much as possible.  I write that because she may feel/perceive (her feelings and perceptions = her reality) that you are taking over Her Turf as Mother and that can be very triggering to a person whose mental state is distorted.  It is their parenting plan after all.

[ugghh]

I would try to minimize the texting as well.  It really creates a hard trail to follow if you ever do need to go to court.  Even if the ex sends a text, I would try to respond by email.

As always when dealing with these situations the key is documentation and patterns.  While it seems an incredible pain, many times it is the person with the best documentation that wins. pwBPD are prone to throwing out wild, unsubstantiated claims, to which we respond with evidence.  During my divorce my wife file a false RO against me and accused me of harassing her via email.  On the day of the hearing to make the order permanent  I had printed out all of our email correspondence over the past 3 months and prepared a cover sheet for my attorney summarizing the number of emails she sent to me daily, the amount I sent daily, broken down into 2 categories - new topics and replies to her emails.  It showed that her emails to me outnumbered mine by 10 to 1.    It is hard to argue harassment when the supposed victim is constantly initiating contact.

You should be looking to show similar patterns.  Perhaps you categorize each of her communications along the lines of Urgent - Needs Quick Response, Non-Urgent - needs response 48 hours, Information Only - no response needed.