uBPDbm showed up at our house

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

Holidays seem to be a trigger to uBPDbm. In person exchanges are a trigger too. SD12 was with us for Halloween and there was no school the day after (hence an in person exchange) so…… guess what! Conflict.

I have to tell you guys, DH handled the situation like a champ. I was at work so I couldn’t do anything, but I think he did everything the right way. Although, I do wish he would have recorded more, but oh well.

uBPDbm asked what time for the exchange (there’s no specified time in the CO). We said SD12 has a friend over so we need to find out about when the friend will be going home and will get back to her. uBPDbm demanded that it be 4pm and stuck to that. 4pm happens to be in the middle of our toddler and baby’s nap time and the friend’s mom typically works until 5ish, so we said we could not accommodate that time and it would likely be closer to 5:30 or 6. uBPDbm said she was coming over to our house to get SD. DH said he does not give consent for her to come over and our CO says we do exchanges at the police station and no one gets out of their car.

uBPDbm texted and called SD12, which placed her in the middle of the conflict. Her friend overheard these calls. uBPDbm made threats to SD to call the police if she didn't come “home” at 4pm. She told SD that her friend doesn’t dictate the exchange schedule. (How embarrassing for your friend to overhear that stuff, right? Ugh.). The friend told her mom what was going on so the friend’s mom left work early to pick her up.

Not two minutes later, uBPDbm was in our driveway. She sent her older daughter (14, SD’s sister from another mister) to our door. DH says “You can not be here, please leave”. Sis14 argued with him so he said please leave or I will need to call the police. She said “Call the cops, bro!” as he closed the door. She went back to the car and told uBPDbm what happened, so uBPDbm got out and came to the front door and started pounding on our door. (Mind you, this was all while my babies were sleeping!). DH is very adamant that he doesn’t want the boys exposed to this. He called the police for help.

The police came and talked to DH and talked to uBPDbm. uBPDbm was in the front yard calling SD on the phone (SD was still in the house). She was yelling at SD and saying things like "just come out, leave your bookbag behind", "fine, if you won't come out then you can just live with your dad". This upset her greatly, stressed her out, made her feel guilty and like the conflict was her fault. She was crying and completely upset, ruining the fun day off she had just spent with her friend. uBPDbm was yelling at the police. DH showed them the court order where they’re supposed to exchange at the police station.

Finally the police got her to leave. Conflict is over, right? WRONG! As soon as the officers pulled away, she came back and again sent Sis14 to our door. DH called the police again. They came right back and stayed for about a half hour to make sure this time uBPDbm stayed gone.

DH told the police he was planning to exchange at 5:30 and they must have told uBPDbm that as well. He went to the police station at 5:30. He sent several messages which uBPDbm never read, but at 5:45 she showed up. She was aggressive and blocked DH's car in and parked inches in front of him, so that SD had to squeeze to even get into the car.

[Thunderstruck]

Holidays seem to be a trigger to uBPDbm. In person exchanges are a trigger too. SD12 was with us for Halloween and there was no school the day after (hence an in person exchange) so…… guess what! Conflict.

I have to tell you guys, DH handled the situation like a champ. I was at work so I couldn’t do anything, but I think he did everything the right way. Although, I do wish he would have recorded more, but oh well.

uBPDbm asked what time for the exchange (there’s no specified time in the CO). We said SD12 has a friend over so we need to find out about when the friend will be going home and will get back to her. uBPDbm demanded that it be 4pm and stuck to that. 4pm happens to be in the middle of our toddler and baby’s nap time and the friend’s mom typically works until 5ish, so we said we could not accommodate that time and it would likely be closer to 5:30 or 6. uBPDbm said she was coming over to our house to get SD. DH said he does not give consent for her to come over and our CO says we do exchanges at the police station and no one gets out of their car.

uBPDbm texted and called SD12, which placed her in the middle of the conflict. Her friend overheard these calls. uBPDbm made threats to SD to call the police if she didn't come “home” at 4pm. She told SD that her friend doesn’t dictate the exchange schedule. (How embarrassing for your friend to overhear that stuff, right? Ugh.). The friend told her mom what was going on so the friend’s mom left work early to pick her up.

Not two minutes later, uBPDbm was in our driveway. She sent her older daughter (14, SD’s sister from another mister) to our door. DH says “You can not be here, please leave”. Sis14 argued with him so he said please leave or I will need to call the police. She said “Call the cops, bro!” as he closed the door. She went back to the car and told uBPDbm what happened, so uBPDbm got out and came to the front door and started pounding on our door. (Mind you, this was all while my babies were sleeping!). DH is very adamant that he doesn’t want the boys exposed to this. He called the police for help.

The police came and talked to DH and talked to uBPDbm. uBPDbm was in the front yard calling SD on the phone (SD was still in the house). She was yelling at SD and saying things like "just come out, leave your bookbag behind", "fine, if you won't come out then you can just live with your dad". This upset her greatly, stressed her out, made her feel guilty and like the conflict was her fault. She was crying and completely upset, ruining the fun day off she had just spent with her friend. uBPDbm was yelling at the police. DH showed them the court order where they’re supposed to exchange at the police station.

Finally the police got her to leave. Conflict is over, right? WRONG! As soon as the officers pulled away, she came back and again sent Sis14 to our door. DH called the police again. They came right back and stayed for about a half hour to make sure this time uBPDbm stayed gone.

DH told the police he was planning to exchange at 5:30 and they must have told uBPDbm that as well. He went to the police station at 5:30. He sent several messages which uBPDbm never read, but at 5:45 she showed up. She was aggressive and blocked DH's car in and parked inches in front of him, so that SD had to squeeze to even get into the car.

[livednlearned]

Wow 

That's a lot of BPD drama (and for what?  ), and probably a lot for poor SD12 to process, not to mention her friend. And the half sister... .

To come back twice, after police intervention. That's something.

We didn't have quite that level of drama here (no cops), but I totally get the exhaustion and whatever other emotion it is when someone creates a firestorm out of something that just ends up traumatizing the kids, for no reason.

I hope your kids were able to sleep through the racket!

When do you see SD14 next?

Will you mention anything about what happened?

[takingandsending]

Wow. That is quite sad for your SD12. Do your best to validate her experience when you see her next. What a horrible thing for a kid to get stuck in the middle of.

It sounds like your husband was holding his boundary. In explaining that to your SD12 (after you have provided all the validation you can and emotions are normalized), it may help for you and your H to be very clear what values you were protecting so that she doesn't think you were indirectly causing her harm because of a feud. It can be a place for her to learn from if she is reassured of her safe place with you both.

I am sorry your H had to go through that as well.

Just as a discussion of what can we do for our children: could your H have let SD12 go with bm after friend's mom had picked her up? I know that is feeding the BPD beast in some ways, but I wonder if it might have been easier on SD12? I don't know all of your dynamics. Clearly bm was severely dysregulated, so possibly nothing would have helped.

[david]

Get the police reports. You never know if/when you will need them.

[Ulysses]

I agree you need to keep the police reports.

I think, as significant as the legal violations are (and documenting them is vital), this is the most important point of your post:

This upset her greatly, stressed her out, made her feel guilty and like the conflict was her fault. She was crying and completely upset, ruining the fun day off she had just spent with her friend.

Did your SD express these feelings to you?  How sad for your SD. 

It's a fine balance between giving in to your SD's mother when she is violating court orders, and keeping the peace for the wellbeing of a child. 

[david]

My ex used to disregard the court order too. She also told our boys I was to blame. I simply told them that we had a court order and that if you don't follow it the judge will get upset and we could get in trouble. I followed the order because I didn't want mom or me to get in trouble. That worked great when they were young and it helped defuse ex's attempts at making me the bad guy.

[Thunderstruck]

I picked up copies of the callouts and the police report this morning.

I called DH and SD right after uBPDbm had left. The first thing I said to her was it's not your fault and you didn't do anything wrong. SD was with us this weekend. We did explain to her that we can't have people showing up at our house and yelling and pounding on the door, especially when the babies are sleeping. We explained how if you ask someone to leave and they won't leave then you have to get help. I specifically said to SD that I wouldn't have faulted her for leaving with her mom, but she didn't do anything wrong by staying either. (DH did manage to record for a short while and I heard him saying "Just go, just go" so it's not like he was forcing her to stay, she was afraid of getting yelled at by her mom which is why she didn't want to leave). We talked about how her mom uses fear, obligation, and guilt to get her way sometimes. I guess DH had described uBPDbm's behavior to SD as an extinction burst, but I'm not sure if she knows what that means.

ETA: Oh, and we talked about how we understand that there are conflicts at exchanges, that's just the way things are. That's why we meet at the police station, to make everything as smooth as possible.

You guys. I looked at SD's phone records. uBPDbm sent 70 texts in a 7 hour period, starting when SD woke up until the exchange.   I took a screenshot of the texts. Two threats to call the police, two threats to call child services, accusations that DH is abusive, putting SD in the situation of having to choose (SD: "He's my parent too", threatening to go to the court to take away DH's time (SD: "No don't". A lot of these were sent long before uBPDbm showed up at our house. Afterwards uBPDbm made SD apologize because she "broke my heart and really hurt my feelings".  

I hate this, and I always hyper analyze each time this happens to see what we could have done differently. I understand trying to appease the BPD beast to keep the calm so SD doesn't go through drama. But some days it just feels like no matter what we do or say there's going to be a fight. Ugh.

[david]

70 texts obviously shows BPDm was already dysregulated before showing up. My ex was like that too and I never figured out how to handle it until I started recording pick ups with a video recorder. That changed my ex from coming out to my car, which is against the court order, to staying inside her place until I left, which is in our court order. A few times she would be standing in her driveway but stayed clear of approaching my car.
Sounds like SD didn't want to go and for good reason. I might be more clear about letting SD stay so she feels safe and that you are not putting her in a bad spot by "forcing" her to go. The "forcing" is how SD may be perceiving the situation.
A few things that may be helpful. If BPDm shows up like this again simply call the police and don't answer the door until they show up. You can show them the court order. The police will say this is a civil case and you both need to contact your attorneys and handle it through the courts. Of course, you don't have to go to court. That would be up to BPDm and she is in violation of the court order with no good reason. The most the police can do is a wellness check on SD to make sure she is okay. I picture this as the police come into your house and see SD playing with a friend. They will realize BPDm is the problem and they can go outside and handle her. Just let the police know you want the report for your attorney. If BPDm goes really ballistic on them they may include extra ammo for you in the report.  And most of all stay calm. A few times of this and things start getting easier. I view it now like a fly buzzing around my face, annoying but inevitable at times.
I have changed things slightly from our court order when the situation warranted it.
Once, I received a call from our oldest boys school. He vomited in school and the nurse said I needed to pick him up. I explained it was moms' time and the nurse said she called several times and left a message and ex never called back. I picked him up, took him home, and he went to bed. I emailed ex explaining what happened. I told her he was in bed and I would let her know if anything changes. I also told her if he was still ill in the morning I would make a doc appointment and let her know when. She replied within half an hour demanding I return her son to her as it was her custodial time. I replied with the same response as before. I received a call from the police several hours later. I told them what happened and what I did. They understood and asked me to reach out to ex again. I sent another email explaining the call and repeated what I was going to do. Ex sent another email which she also cc'd to her attorney telling her attorney to file a petition since I was in violation of the court order. Unfortunately   her attorney convinced her that was not a good course of action.

[Thunderstruck]

I should also add... .

In the past (long before Thunderstruck came along), uBPDbm has hit DH. She was arrested for battery. uBPDbm has also filed 3 restraining orders against DH (all denied for various reasons).

So... .not a good idea for anyone to be anywhere near each other's residences. That's why the judge put our exchanges at the police station only.

[Catsmother]

With regard to the screenshotted texts, you might want to 'discuss' those with someone, say for example in law enforcement  . Does SD have a counselor who she sees on a regular basis, if so, talk to them and see what they suggest. 70 texts over 7 hours is averaging a text every six minutes. That could be considered harassment.

[ForeverDad]

Good that you got the reports.  Police coming twice to resolve a dispute is noteworthy.

As the others noted, SD bore the brunt of the guilting and demands.  I hope she has a counselor to help deal with this.  At least then the matter would be included with the therapy records.  I wonder if Dr. Craig Childress's perspective is valid here, that 70 demanding, blaming and threatening texts to a child all day (much or most of which was clearly your family's time) would qualify as some level of child abuse.