Not taking parenting time

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Spring break for my SD4 is rapidly approaching. BPDbiomom is supposed to have her for a week, she is only going to have her for 3 overnights. Kiddo's spring break starts on a Friday and goes through a week until the following Sunday. She is violating the court order on this too. Mediation isn't until August of next year. Should we file a pro se contempt motion, or just let it lie. I am happy kiddo won't be with the crazy for 10 days.

Should we try and amend her parenting time now? Her dysregulation is starting to show.

[newlymarried]

Spring break for my SD4 is rapidly approaching. BPDbiomom is supposed to have her for a week, she is only going to have her for 3 overnights. Kiddo's spring break starts on a Friday and goes through a week until the following Sunday. She is violating the court order on this too. Mediation isn't until August of next year. Should we file a pro se contempt motion, or just let it lie. I am happy kiddo won't be with the crazy for 10 days.

Should we try and amend her parenting time now? Her dysregulation is starting to show.

[DreamGirl]

newlymarried  

Sometimes I feel like your SD's mama can't win for losing.

If she does take the parenting time, you'd be worried sick about the little one because mama has shown that she can't handle her for that long.

If she doesn't take the parenting time, you're wanting to file a contempt motion and to modify her parenting time.

She can't really do anything right in this scenario. You're also unhappy with her no matter what she does.

Mom takes her daughter = newlymarried frustrated and worried and stepdaughter in her mom's care

Mom doesn't take daughter = newlymarried frustrated with mom not caring about daughter

I feel like this situation is going to be unacceptable to you as long as mom is around. I don't know if you should depend so much on that outcome in order for you not to be frustrated.

Let her take her for three days, and then enjoy the rest of Spring Break with her.  

The list you are compiling against her mama is mounting. You say that attorney fees aren't really available - is that becoming less and less of an issue?

Is there a line in the sand for you?

-DreamGirl

[newlymarried]

My DH might do everything pro se. BPDbiomom pays no child support. She has now actually violated every single provision of the parenting plan, and faced no consequences. I am glad she is giving up parenting time. I am livid that she faces no consequences for her actions.

[DreamGirl]

I am livid that she faces no consequences for her actions.

I know you are.

I also know this is really hard for you - she really struggles as a mama. 

What does your husband want to do about all of this?

Does he want to wait until mediation, keeping it status quo?

Or does he want to file contempt?

Is he ready to pull the trigger?

[newlymarried]

I think he wants to see what plans she has for summer. There is no way she can actually care for kiddo. She cut down her parenting time because she can't take time from her job. The summer would require her to take a month off from work. I think hubby wants to see if she just is going to give us the summer. I believe he is going to start pushing that as soon as spring break is over.

[marbleloser]

DO NOT go to court over her NOT taking her parenting time.It'll make you look like you don't want the kiddo and the judge will look at it that way.Document it,but keep the kid with you as much as you can.

I got my kiddos a few days this week that "technically" she could have fought and didn't.No way am I complaining!

[newlymarried]

Should we just file a motion to get her parenting time reduced?

[david]

Mediation isn't until August of next year.                                                                      Sounds like the best course of action is to let things happen the way they are and document, document, document. When mediation comes up and you have everything in place then you can ask for more time and have it in the order.

[newlymarried]

So we just let her do whatever she wants and hope that kiddo doesn't get caught in the crossfire?

[david]

If she doesn't take her parenting time on a regular basis the courts will view that as she believes you are the better parent or at least not a problem.

If she does something that puts the children in danger that should be addressed immediately.

[newlymarried]

Her fiance is a gang member. My husband used to put his gang in jail. Some of his relations are doing my husband's time, so I believe having kiddo around BPDbiomom does put kiddo in danger. I don't know if a judge or magistrate will believe me/us though.

[AnotherPhoenix]

Her fiance is a gang member. My husband used to put his gang in jail. Some of his relations are doing my husband's time, so I believe having kiddo around BPDbiomom does put kiddo in danger. I don't know if a judge or magistrate will believe me/us though.

Can you document any unsafe/harmful exposure or access to guns, knives, weapons, drinking, drugs, etc?

AnotherPheonix 

[ForeverDad]

Never ever complain that ex isn't taking all of ex's parenting time.  Yes, you can report it as part of your basis to request less parenting time for ex, it would be seeking the order to be more in line with the actual history.  Courts sometimes are reluctant to make changes just for that reason since they reason the other parent may decide to take more time sometime in the future.

However, you can combine the history of minimal or reduced contact with ex's poor/risky choice of relationships when seeking to change the current order.  Throw in as much as possible because courts are known to discount (read: ignore) the less actionable behaviors.  Give the court as many reasons as possible to make a change so that even if something is disregarded then there will still be other behaviors left to be acted upon.

[newlymarried]

Can you document any unsafe/harmful exposure or access to guns, knives, weapons, drinking, drugs, etc?

AnotherPheonix 

My husband has screen captures of BPDbiomom's fiance throwing up gang hand signals in pictures and of him on last year's most wanted list. BPDbiomom is saying she is in AA/NA but I don't know if that is true. With the gang affiliation comes weapons, drugs and general bad stuff for kids.

[newlymarried]

I wouldn't be complaining about it, so much as another thing she is in contempt for. She has actually managed to violate every single provision of the order, from updating us to her new address and financials to not taking parenting time to not calling; she is pretty neck deep in contempt.

[marbleloser]

Not exercising parenting time is not contempt.A court can't make anyone spend their time with their children.Parenting time is a right,extended by the court,to "allow" interaction.It doesn't force anyone to do so.

[newlymarried]

She is ordered by the court to take parenting time. It is an order, I know in the state where she lives, she can face contempt of court for it, along with everything else she hasn't done.

The court doesn't make suggestions, it gives out orders.

[marbleloser]

Pursue it then.

[newlymarried]

My DH and I will most likely pursue it after she gives up these 7 overnights. Due to the fact that we have primary custody, we have an easier bar to get over; the best interest of the child vs endangerment; at least as far as my reading tells me.

[AnotherPhoenix]

You already have custody. You mean that custody has already been awarded to you when the divorce if final? Congrats on that!

But why try to force your ex to have her when she doesn't want to? That doesn't sound good for your daughter. Particularly when H's ex's bf is in a gang.

Later, your H's ex may will try to get more time. The contempt of court over H's ex not taking parenting time will help her.

What does your lawyer advise?

I'm sure you will have plenty of other opportunities for contempt of court.

AnotherPheonix 

[newlymarried]

Due to lack of funds, we don't have a lawyer. We have primary physical custody. She was scheduled to get exactly 92 overnights, but she has missed about 30 of them so far, and it has only been 8 months. She pays no child support, and hasn't contacted the school her child addends. She has shown in every way possible that she isn't really interested in raising her kiddo.

I think we will file a parental time modification, because BPDex can't handle anything more than EOW.

BPDexw is just now accepting that she isn't coming to live with my husband and she has to live with her very poor choices because he won't rescue her. 

[AnotherPhoenix]

I understand. Parental time modification sounds more appropriate than contempt of court.

Are you divorced? Or has custody been finalized?

92 overnights sounds like extended EOW.

Is she supposed to be paying child support. Now that is something that the courts would be likely to jump on.

AnotherPheonix

[newlymarried]

They are divorced, but they are supposed to have binding mediation in a year and a half. BPDexw is supposed to have kiddo EOW plus school breaks. At Christmas, she gave up 3 or 4 of those overnights, I don't remember how many; DH has all that stuff in emails though.  For Spring Break she is supposed to have her for 9 overnights and is only going to have her for 3. That is also all documented in email exchanges.

In Colorado, where she lives parental time modification is a special type of contempt of court. She also has never filed financials or updated her new address with gangbanging fiance. Those 2 things are contempt bearing things, along with her violating all of the parenting plan.

As far as child support, it can't be waived in Colorado; so it is just a matter of us pursuing it.

[livednlearned]

It seems like there are 3 things here. 2 are about legal strategy, 1 is about learning to deal with a disordered, consistently inconsistent predictably unpredictable person.

For the legal strategy, it sounds like you can thank BPD for all the hard work she has done to give you ample reason to file for modification of parental time. That is good for SD. Sounds like Colorado does it different than how things are done in my state, so maybe filing contempt of court is part of modifying parental time? FD is right -- you don't want it to look like you are complaining that BPD is not taking the ordered amount of time, but you do want the court to note that something is up. BPD has a questionable partner, is not taking the amount of time per the order, and the result is that you cannot provide the optimum care for SD because it is inconsistent, and you want to provide stable care for her. Something like that, maybe? And add in that she has been in contempt of court for multiple issues. Always tie it to the impact it has on SD.

How long has it been like this? Sorry, I am not remembering the particulars for your case.

Why is binding mediation being held a year and a half from now? So custody has been awarded -- then what happens during binding mediation?

The last piece -- dealing with a disordered person so that she can't ruin your life. That part is tough. I took my own sweet time on bpdfamily.com before reading about some of the techniques to help respond to BPD sufferers because I wasn't ready. But you get stuck, you know? Stuck feeling mad, irritated, always annoyed. I was scared of N/BPDx -- still am -- so I was stuck there too, and my stress was through the roof, so I finally started to look for ways to help me cope long term. I like the medium chill approach, and radical acceptance. You can read about those here on bpdfamily.com. Also, Karpmann's drama triangle stuff is good. It's so easy to get lured into BPD traps without even knowing you're in them, and that's not good for your own mental health. I understand the irritation -- by being disordered, she has control over your life, and you always have to react to her, and that sucks. She isn't going to change, tho. So then the next thing is to figure out how to remove yourself from the drama triangle. Not easy, but it's actually a hugely helpful life skill. Once you get it mastered with a BPD sufferer, you are at ninja level mastery and it works in other areas of your life. It doesn't mean that you check out and stop caring about SD, it just means that you recognize the triggers and throw some water on the anxiety and reactivity so you can problem solve and move forward with your lives.

I don't mean to assume that you're not already doing this -- you probably are. But I know from my own experience that I can do it sometimes, in some scenarios, and then completely forget I ever learned it.

[marbleloser]

"I think we will file a parental time modification, because BPDex can't handle anything more than EOW"

THAT'S what you do! When you file contempt over her not exercising her parenting time,after you've told the judge you want more parenting time,well,that would work completely against you and your H.

H "She won't exercise her parenting time"

Judge "What do you want me to do?"

H "FInd her in contempt"

Judge "What else would you like"

H "I'd like more parenting time"

Judge "But you just said you wanted me to find her in contempt and force her to exercise more parenting time,thereby giving your approval of her having the child in her care."

H "But she has questionable friends and values"

Judge " But you want me to find her in contempt for the child not being with her on her time?"

See where this could go? Leave the contempt to the judge on the parenting time issue.The cs? Nail her on it and prove you have the child more. Show that you have the childs best interest at heart.More so than you want exBPD to suffer.

[newlymarried]

When DH and BPDexw divorced, the court gave her 2 years to get her stuff together. You are allowed to make big changes to the parenting plan every 2 years in Colorado.

They have been officially divorced since August. Her lawyer had her scheduled for 92 overnights, which is the amount required for a reduced CS payment. She has already missed about one third of those overnights. When she has  kiddo, she brings her to the meth capitol of Colorado. BPDexw and her fiance are both meth addicts. Her fiance just finished drug court. It is the first time in the fiance's adult life he hasn't had the judicial system watching his every move. BPDexw and fiance have both been doing meth since adolescence.

I guess we should file contempt on all the other provisions of the parenting plan and then file a motion to reduce her parenting time.

It is just frustrating. Kiddo has a cold, low grade temp, cough, and stuffed nose. I feel like a heel because this weekend she goes down to her biomom. Biomom is incapable of caring for her when she is well, and I shudder to think how kiddo will come back since she is already sick.

Will this ever get easier?

[marbleloser]

She can't do 92 overnights out of 365? That's going to hurt her.She basically is giving approval for you and H to have the child,even on her time.She shot herself in the foot,but it sounds like it's best for kiddo.

It's only going to get easier the less time you have to interact with her.You do that by maximumizing parenting time.Then you don't really have engage with her as often.

Since kiddo is sick,why not ask mom if she can stay until she's well.Offer to swap times with her and see what she says.If it's no,then she'll have to go to moms.If yes,then document it that mom agreed to let kiddo stay because she was sick.Then take D to the doctor,so you have proof that she's not feeling well.

[david]

If boimom has substance abuse issues than why can't the court require supervised visitation to protect the child. The court is giving her two years to straighten out but is putting the child in danger during that time.

[newlymarried]

The court doesn't know of her substance abuse issues because we settled before BPD biomom had to take a hair follicle test during the divorce.

[david]

I have a SS with a substance abuse issue (xBPDw's child from her first marriage). He was kicked out of a multitude of friends houses, a halfway house, and a very close family friend. He came to me but I had boundaries he couldn't live with so he didn't move in with me. My boundary was drug tests and counseling. He moved in with his mom and our two boys. We were going through a custody eval at the time. I expressed my concerns because of the drug issue and his refusal to seek treatment of any kind. The evaluator told ex that he was not permitted to live there with our two boys. I was more than willing for ex to see the boys but not live there. Ex kicked him out because that would mean she lost support (money) from me. I think most courts would agree that putting children in such envirnments is not in their best interest. In Pennsylvania (the state I am in),  I believe this would force the courts to make a decision and give the stable parent more time until the other party gets help. It then becomes an issue for the problem parent to resolve and prove to the courts that they have gotten better.