Hello fellow travelers

[Penser]

Hi
Am looking forward to connecting with people who truly grasp the horror of this but can share in hopeful exchanges too.  Gutted to find myself in this drama yet again after years of therapy,
Avoiding relationships, and years of research into cluster b. Daughter of a narcissistic mother and alcoholic father.

 This time the box is my beautiful baby s dad.  He was utterly vile and diengaged during the pregnancy (we met through a co parenting site) and this culminated in police involvement and me ending it.  Once I did that the vitriol really kicked in and the sudden obsession with his ‘rights’.  He started court proceedings while I was still pregnant - it was a traumatic birth... and with a 6 month old baby he has cost me £6k in solicitors fees.  Money is no issue when it suits, the rest of the time it s the pity party for being on benefits.
 

He sees baby in a contact centre... believes he is a hero for fighting for him? Completely blames me and submits disgusting diatribes to court about what a crap mum I apparently am though baba is thriving.   

I raised the issue of his non payment of maintenance today and he went bat___

Struggling to type on phone hope this reads ok...

[livednlearned]

Hi Penser,

Welcome and hello 

Congratulations are in order on news of your baby. At six months I hope you are getting some much-needed rest, tho I know how hard it can be to sleep with high-conflict custody battles going on

Is the visitation supervised at the contact center?

I'm sorry for the difficult childhood you must have experienced with a narcissistic mother and alcoholic dad. It can be so hard to figure out what is healthy/not healthy when we have dysfunctional family of origin pathology.

There is an unfortunate relationship between paying maintenance and fighting for custody, because more custody means less maintenance, at least where I live.

How often does he see the baby, and what chances are there that he would get unsupervised visitation? In my family law court, it takes quite a bit to get supervised visitation. I hope you did not have to endure too much abuse in order to secure the visitation set-up.

LnL

[Penser]

Hi Lnl,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.  I was struggling in the dark on a small mobile phone to post, but desperate to!
Thank you - he is a lovely little guy (baby) and so far, literally the opposite of his dad - consistently loving, sociable and good fun. 

Contact is currently supervised (2 x 1 hr a week) and he completely blames me for everything, it is utterly mind bending.  Blames me for court (he began proceedings), blames me for the money *it's cost him* never mind that my income is £44 per week after the mortgage whist on maternity and in our last contact when a third party (a friend of his who supervises the second contact) ranted I was a 'manipulative, acting, drama queen asking for maintenance because his relationship with baby S is improving' What the heck?  I am still reeling and have to do it all again this week.

I feel poisoned and although it's not that much time I have to actually be around him, I'm scared and it's there, under my skin, all the time. 
Family court and indeed the whole legal system minimises psychological abuse totally and basically just compound te trauma.  The state (UK) will force him to pay just a pound a day!  As he 's 'on benefits' the equivalent of £1100 per month - and money (inheritance?) is no issue - yet these savings are discounted.  He used to buy baby bags of crap - loads and loads of clothes - often the wrong season/size bu he hasn't had a penny.  When I asked for doe instead via the solicitor (they discourage this as UK courts don't touch maintenance and the mum can't 'be seen ' as a 'money grabber' ? - so different from when my own maintenance paying dad fought for me from love instead of entitlement (he wasn't a bad drinker then)... .he gave twice as manay clothes, I was always worried I'd break mine and baby's neck by tripping over them nursing him for 3 hours a night in a tiny dark room at night.

I am wracked with guilt that my darling boy has such a truly poisonous dad ad feel scared and alone about the future.

I don't understand how much abuse I'm expected to take to meet my 'sie of the bargain' in making contact happen.
Do you know if borderlines ever fade away from child costody gights (if only) or am I looking at 18 years of this. ike the barrell of a gun?  I don' know how to cope with it.  I have coped before by no contact.

[Penser]

Hi,
High conflict battle in the UK - my ex applied to court for access/parental responsibility/ to keep me in my area and change baby's surname when I was pregnant! (practically unheard of but allowed). This was after being appalling/angry/unloving/disinterested throughout my pregnancy.  When this culminated in shouting and swearing at me in the street after couples therapy he came to then lost it in and I involved police when he tried to enter my house against my will. I ended it then and went no contact bar harassing letters from his solicitor.  That was 10 months ago.

He see's baby twice a week an hour each time, once at a contact centre, and once supervised by his family friend.  I am doing handovers briefly as I know there will be an expectation to move things forward but I am aware of an escalation in his rage and vitriol - since I asked him directly for child maintenance.  - I have now gone down the formal route but gave it one shot at pricking a 'conscience (?) for a decent amount.

In some ways I see him as utterly pathetic, but I am not without fear as he is so unhinged. 

We are at court again in October for a review hearing when I plan to represent myself which is anxiety inducing, but a free half hour solicitor said she felt I 'knew the score' and could handle it - and I'm spent up.

However my concerns about him grow - he does not observe boundaries from me/the contact centre etc and this week ranted I was an 'acting, manipulative, controlling drama queen' for asking for child maintenance... erm?.

Baby, atm, is on a pedestal so I believe/HOPE is safe (and ex is supervised) but I do worry about when baby invariably falls off it, for being an imperfect (though still totally lovable) child.  He is pushing for shared care.  This isn't on the cards atm and baby is exclusively breastfed, so needs me a lot... but I worry a lot for the future.

I myself am a dual qualified mental health professional (I know... the irony eh? ... .) and feel the UK generally are actually really backwards about personality disorder, with 'politically correct' service user movements in some ways having a lot of sway here - that personality disorder does not actually exist... I wish I lived in that world...

I am thinking about asking for the ex to be psychologically assessed.  I am worried they wouldn't pick up the personality disorder/s and even if they do whether or not it will make any difference at all in terms of minimising/not progressing contact.  In the UK everyone would probably be up in arms that that was discriminatory as access is over prioritised ime and the danger downplayed.  Also this is a massive expense (to me! Crazy!)... .has anyone any experience/thoughts in this area?

If I do request it should I wait until he unravels some more?  Will the assessor talk to me too?
How much abuse am I expected to take to ensure contact happens given it is court ordered?  Eg if I terminate it one day for that session because I find him threatening - what happens then?  I am not 'mainly' there but it is possible I may have to be on days the supervising friend can't do it and he can be vile during handovers.

I am not in a position to continue paying a solicitor.

[Penser]

 Aah thought I'd started another thread?

[livednlearned]

You'll get the hang of it here 

It's good to get the whole story in one place so others can follow.

About to dash off, so will try to post more later.

I did want to mention the MMPI-2 is a psychiatric eval used here in the U.S. It might be worth looking to see if it's applicable in the U.K.

You were able to get very limited supervised visitation for him, which is remarkable. Here in the U.S., status quo goes a long way. Judges tend to need substantial circumstances to demonstrate why any changes should be made. Does it work that way where you are, too?

Also, is your ex representing himself? That can be a blessing. My ex (former trial attorney) represented himself and went in and out of psychosis on a few occasions. That made for some pretty interesting moments in court.

My ex is no longer in our lives, he faded away. It is variable, but anecdotally, it does seem that men with BPD tend to fight to *win* but don't actually seem to want the actual visitation, though I don't want to give you any false hope.

My ex was very besotted when our son was born, but would lose interest quickly when things became stressful.

A good rule of thumb here in the US is to go into family law court with a solution so that you aren't letting the judge decide. "Ex has managed well with 2 x 1 hr supervised contact for the past x months, only missing x visits (if any). The limited visits are because of abc, and for the visitation to be extended, I respectfully ask the court to have ex undergo a psychiatric evaluation/anger management/substance abuse (or whatever) before expanding these visits.