Not Sure What to Do: Mediation? Ask for a Custody Eval? Go to Trial?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hi all,

It's been awhile since I posted.  Thanks in advance for reading and offering any guidance.

- My ex-fiancee is uBPD.  We have a 19 month old daughter.  I left my ex this past February, believing that our child would be better off having two homes where at least one is calm (as opposed to one completely chaotic one full of rage and fear).

- In February, I got a restraining order against my ex, along with a pretty crappy custody schedule (several afternoons a week and one Friday/Saturday overnight).

- We filed an RFO this past September, which the judge ultimately forwarded to trial for late March 2018.  During the hearing, the judge gave me a bit more time with my kiddo, turning one of my daytime visits into an overnight, so I currently have:
---- Monday: 3:30 - 5:30
---- Tuesday: 3:30 - Wednesday at 9 AM
---- Thursday: 3:30 - 5:30
---- Friday: 3:30 - Saturday at 5 PM

- The time I have is nearly-laughable, but I've been using every tool I've learned to make sure my kiddo always feels seen, heard and acknowledged by me (Janet Lansbury with Resources for Educarers has been my go-to on learning these parenting skills).

- I've been trying to get to 50/50, having been told by my lawyer that given the current evidence (even with 113 pages of journal entries documenting my ex's many moments of her anger turning into seizures, her having no problem slamming doors while holding our child, her believing that her yelling in front of our child doesn't affect her) is not substantial enough to get beyond 50/50.

- Our judge said during our last hearing that while he's familiar with the numerous studies showing that infants and toddlers are better off with a 50/50 arrangement when both parents are mentally and financially sound, he doesn't agree with the research.  Ugh.

- During the past two weeks, when I drop off my kiddo with my ex, my kiddo has refused to let go of my hand.  I've literally had to pick her up and hand her to her mom.  This is brand new, and while I can imagine why my kiddo seems to be feeling this way, I don't have new data to go by.  (For several weeks prior to this behavior change, when I told my kiddo, "It's time to go see mommy" at the end of my custodial visits, she began to turn her back to me, something she doesn't do when I bring up any other topic.)

So now, I'm trying to figure out what to do.

1) Try mediation, knowing with 99.9% certainty that my ex isn't going to agree to anything that's in our daughter's best interests.

2) Ask the court for a custody evaluation ahead of our trial in March so a third party can hopefully observe whatever's going on that's leading my daughter to

3) Suggest that my ex and I try "four way counseling" -- she and I would each have separate counselors (one of whom is a BPD expert), and they would bring us together to make decisions when they believe we're ready to do so.  This would be a long-term relationship that hopefully keeps us out of court.

4) Something else?


Thanks again, and please let me know if I can provide you with other information for you to help me figure out which way to go.

With gratitude,
Aiming

[Aiming4Kindness]

Hi all,

It's been awhile since I posted.  Thanks in advance for reading and offering any guidance.

- My ex-fiancee is uBPD.  We have a 19 month old daughter.  I left my ex this past February, believing that our child would be better off having two homes where at least one is calm (as opposed to one completely chaotic one full of rage and fear).

- In February, I got a restraining order against my ex, along with a pretty crappy custody schedule (several afternoons a week and one Friday/Saturday overnight).

- We filed an RFO this past September, which the judge ultimately forwarded to trial for late March 2018.  During the hearing, the judge gave me a bit more time with my kiddo, turning one of my daytime visits into an overnight, so I currently have:
---- Monday: 3:30 - 5:30
---- Tuesday: 3:30 - Wednesday at 9 AM
---- Thursday: 3:30 - 5:30
---- Friday: 3:30 - Saturday at 5 PM

- The time I have is nearly-laughable, but I've been using every tool I've learned to make sure my kiddo always feels seen, heard and acknowledged by me (Janet Lansbury with Resources for Educarers has been my go-to on learning these parenting skills).

- I've been trying to get to 50/50, having been told by my lawyer that given the current evidence (even with 113 pages of journal entries documenting my ex's many moments of her anger turning into seizures, her having no problem slamming doors while holding our child, her believing that her yelling in front of our child doesn't affect her) is not substantial enough to get beyond 50/50.

- Our judge said during our last hearing that while he's familiar with the numerous studies showing that infants and toddlers are better off with a 50/50 arrangement when both parents are mentally and financially sound, he doesn't agree with the research.  Ugh.

- During the past two weeks, when I drop off my kiddo with my ex, my kiddo has refused to let go of my hand.  I've literally had to pick her up and hand her to her mom.  This is brand new, and while I can imagine why my kiddo seems to be feeling this way, I don't have new data to go by.  (For several weeks prior to this behavior change, when I told my kiddo, "It's time to go see mommy" at the end of my custodial visits, she began to turn her back to me, something she doesn't do when I bring up any other topic.)

So now, I'm trying to figure out what to do.

1) Try mediation, knowing with 99.9% certainty that my ex isn't going to agree to anything that's in our daughter's best interests.

2) Ask the court for a custody evaluation ahead of our trial in March so a third party can hopefully observe whatever's going on that's leading my daughter to

3) Suggest that my ex and I try "four way counseling" -- she and I would each have separate counselors (one of whom is a BPD expert), and they would bring us together to make decisions when they believe we're ready to do so.  This would be a long-term relationship that hopefully keeps us out of court.

4) Something else?


Thanks again, and please let me know if I can provide you with other information for you to help me figure out which way to go.

With gratitude,
Aiming

[flourdust]

Hi, A4K! If your schedule is the same every week, you have two overnights out of seven, or 28% time. (Not counting the afternoons.)

It sounds like you have two big obstacles to changing your custody arrangement -- an intractable ex (pretty common here) and a judge who favors your ex.

I suggest your best option might be getting the court to order a custody evaluation. Mediation with someone who is holding the cards and doesn't want to give you anything is wasted time. Of course, the judge has to be willing to order the evaluation, and this might entail presenting him with evidence of your ex's damaging behavior - police reports, witness accounts, recordings, journal entries, texts, whatever you have.

You should also ask your attorney what weight a custody evaluation has in this courtroom. In some jurisdictions, it's rare for a judge to go against a custody evaluator's recommendation. In others... .maybe not so much.

[ForeverDad]

A bit unusual that you have time with your child each weekend.  Alternate weekends are standard in most schedules.  One benefit is that you can go away with your child to weekend events without dealing with your ex.  Also, you get a weekend off too for your own activities.  In my case, I had 72 hour weekends from Fri evening to Monday evening.  Later, when he was in school, it was basically from Friday end of school to Monday start of school.

My county has a sample guidelines schedule, though not enforceable, describing that children under 3 years of age do best with frequent if shorter visits.  Sounds like you have that.

As for exchanges, we separated when my son was close to 4 years old.  Due to the high conflict we exchanged at the local sheriff's office.  He would come running to me but upon return he would fuss, cry and struggle not to go to her.  (Yeah, and she would accuse me, "What did you do to him?"  )  So yes, like you, I got "you betrayed me" looks from my son at some exchanges.  It tore me up but that was the court order and I had to comply.  It got better when I moved up to equal time two years later in the Final Decree during 1st grade.  By 3rd grade he was accepting of exchanges as normal.

Of your options, a Custody Evaluation ought to to be most helpful, an expert peering more deeply into the family dynamics than any other professional.  But be forewarned that some take from 6 months to a year, perhaps more.  And they're not cheap.  Ponder how that might impact your March 2018 return to court.  Mine was scheduled for 4 moths but took 5 months.  There's a member here who's been waiting on her clueless distracted CE's report for some 3 years, though that's unheard of.

I'm not trying to be discouraging but actually what to avoid.  First, you need to select evaluators that the court really trusts and your lawyer trusts to do solid evaluations.  You cannot let your ex pick a biased or gullible person or it could risk making things even worse!  One approach is to make a short list of really, really good custody evaluators with solid reputations for solid work, then present that to court and suggest your ex choose from that most excellent list.  Probably her lawyer can't object since there are multiple choices.  Court will like having both parents involved in the selection but the key is that you've hand picked the best of the lot as the only ones for consideration!  Since a CE or two may drop out during the process - did we say high conflict? - your short list should have at least 3 and maybe 4 names if there are that many available in your area.

[david]

Backing up what FD said, you need a good evaluator. Our first was horrible and it took time and money to fix it. When we finally got a good evaluator, ex realized it in a meeting, ex showed her true colors by dysregulating and threatening to have the evaluator jailed.

[scraps66]

If the judge has already pronounced his bias, what would he then think about an arrangement with Dad having full custody and full decision making power in a high conflict case? 

Depending on your courthouse, I know if was the case in hindsight for me, it would have gone smoother if I had just petitioned for full custody.  I believe this would have triggered the need for a custody evaluation at which point most of the cards would be put out on the table. 

Instead, I have 50/50 without even trying, but an exuBPDNPDw who treats the arrangement as if she has full custody.  Also what I had was a botched attempt at having us both psychologically evaluated.  Ex was pro se at the time so there was no way of communicating with her and she didn't have an attorney that would have had to tell her to get her court-ordered psych eval.  Instead what I got was three trips to court to force ex to get a fraudulent psych eval that was loaded with lies performed by a psychologist that she chose.

Forget about the mediation.  I would file for full custody.  Many attorneys will tell you that full custody is a pipe dream and many fathers actually get full custody.       

[Aiming4Kindness]

Thank you, all.  I really appreciate you sharing your experiences.