ex is imagining things

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

We are finishing our divorce and that's a big trigger for my ex, who is starting to imagine things.  This has happened before.  He is basing parenting decisiosn around this.  He wants to give my son medicine for a symptom he doesn't have.  I don't want to get more specific right now.  It's over the counter medication, but I don't like giving him a license to give him medicine that, if abused, could hurt him.

We don't have a parenting coordinator or GAL or anyone involved other than lawyers.  I managed to avoid psych evals and that stuff, figuring it was just a waste of money.  I got a good parenting plan via mediation, but he has unsupervised time with the kids every other weekend.  

I know he is capable of using them to try to scare me, although he hasn't done physical violence.  He is vengeful and likes to keep me on edge.  SO I worry that any perceived loss of control on his part will cause him to harm them.  

Our divorce isnt' final yet.  I am curious if you have suggestions on how to handle this without it a) backfiring on me b) enraging him more.  Get child services involved?  Ask for a psych eval?  Try to get supervised visitation (although it's hard to get?) Ask for a GAL, even tho we already have a custody order in place?   Something I'm not thinking of?

[momtara]

We are finishing our divorce and that's a big trigger for my ex, who is starting to imagine things.  This has happened before.  He is basing parenting decisiosn around this.  He wants to give my son medicine for a symptom he doesn't have.  I don't want to get more specific right now.  It's over the counter medication, but I don't like giving him a license to give him medicine that, if abused, could hurt him.

We don't have a parenting coordinator or GAL or anyone involved other than lawyers.  I managed to avoid psych evals and that stuff, figuring it was just a waste of money.  I got a good parenting plan via mediation, but he has unsupervised time with the kids every other weekend.  

I know he is capable of using them to try to scare me, although he hasn't done physical violence.  He is vengeful and likes to keep me on edge.  SO I worry that any perceived loss of control on his part will cause him to harm them.  

Our divorce isnt' final yet.  I am curious if you have suggestions on how to handle this without it a) backfiring on me b) enraging him more.  Get child services involved?  Ask for a psych eval?  Try to get supervised visitation (although it's hard to get?) Ask for a GAL, even tho we already have a custody order in place?   Something I'm not thinking of?

[Forward2free]

Can it hurt your son?

Can you speak to your doctor or to the chemist?

Is your son old enough to say no?

If you can build up some evidence that your son does not need the medication, and proof that his dad is obtaining and administering it, there may be sufficient evidence at some point in time to present to the court and affect parenting orders.

[david]

My xBPDw is a registered nurse. She has many times imagined either boys being ill. She has taken them both to pediatricians many times. The docs never prescribe meds anymore. They used to as a precaution since she was a nurse and said exactly what was needed to get an antibiotic. Now they test first and when nothing shows up they don't give a prescription. I never could get enough proof this was going on to go to court.

Our oldest can take care of himself when she tries this so she leaves him alone now. He is 15. Our youngest is 10 and she did several stunts this summer. She insisted he was running a fever and started with tylenol. We are week on/ week off during the summer. When I picked him up the first time I had a thermometer with me and his temp was 98.8. I sent her an email after several days noting every temp, time, and the fact that I gave him no meds. The next week the same thing happened. She took him to the doc both times and they found nothing. I sent a similar email the second time too. I also talked to S10 for the three weeks this was going on. I showed him his temp every time and I read the directions in the tylenol bottle to him and explained it. I found that when I give the boys the facts they are able to say no to their mom.

This would not have worked several years ago but they trust me now. Ex used serious alienation tactics against me 6 years ago. It took me about a year for our oldest to start to trust me and it took around twice that time for our younger one.

[momtara]

I'm glad it worked out in the end.

My concern is that my ex tends to use the kids to get back at me.  He may be doing this partly to create fear in me.  And I just don't know how far it can go.

He seems to have calmed down for now, but I believe the worst is yet to come. 

Still wondering if I should involve more authorities.

[Waddams]

Probably best to start with a doctor visit. Get stbxBPDh to describe symptoms, make appointment, tell him to show up to voice his concerns to doctor.  If doctor finds something, hey, get it taken care of.  If not, let doctor tell stbxBPDh the risks of giving meds when it's not needed.  And get it all documented in your son's medical files.  Get the doc to write down stbxBPDx's treatments and reported symptoms, and then also doc's dx that nothing is wrong.

Hopefully stbxBPDh will move on to something else after the doc sets him straight.  If he doesn't, I'd discuss it with the lawyer.  It might not be grounds for supervised visits (yet), but it could be grounds to get additional authority over medical decisions.

[david]

I don't know if this is the reason it worked for me but it was my thinking when I did it.

I tried to explain, reason, etc with ex. Eventually , with the help of this site, a T, and some friends I decided to try a different tactic using the idea that negative engagement is still engagement. I stopped reacting to it. I sent no email explaining, reasoning, etc... Of course, you have to expect extinction bursts but I stayed more focused on teaching the boys what to do when I am not around.                                                                                                                    I teach things that I didn't think would come up until later in their lives but I figured this was the safest thing for them. They also let me know that they don't bring me into their conversations with their mom. Example- well dad said... . They discovered that backfired on them so they keep that out of their conversations. My fear was that they would grow up too fast but that hasn't happened as far as I can tell. Most of these things are done when an opportunity presents itself. Our boys, and I think all kids, look to parents as role models. When one parent's role model works and the other doesn't they figure it out. I think the tough part for the child is to reconcile this difference without picking a side. Eventually, when the role model that doesn't work continues to not work the child finds ways to distance themselves. My ex is just pushing them away by her actions. Unless she changes the distance will only grow more.

My ex knows I value their education a lot. It was the biggest discussions a few years ago. She purposely sabotages their school work to get at me. I am slowly working around that. Last year, our S9 was given his homework assignments for the week on Monday. I have the boys on Monday and Thursday during the school year. S9 did over 90% of his homework on Monday and Thursday. The few he did with mom were grossly incorrect. I had him correct them when he was with me and never emailed ex about any of it. I have copies of them all as evidence. This year every homework she has done has errors. Their mom has a college degree and is a registered nurse so I don't believe she doesn't know how to do 4th grade work.

It does make it more difficult for me but I have learned to accept it because she ain't gonna change.

[momtara]

Those are all helpful suggestions.  Thanks.  I find this all alarming, but maybe it's standard practice.

My kids are too young, unfortunately, to verbalize much.  When they get older, I will have to give them more guidance.

[david]

I still find this alarming too. I've come to accept it and find solutions for the kids. I have noticed as they get older they figure it out, at least in my case, and that makes things much easier. Not the way I would want it but easier than it was several years ago.

[livednlearned]

LEGAL: You could document what he is doing by stating your opinion that the medication is unwarranted so you have a paper trail in case a) something bad happens or b) this is a pattern.

Unless the medication is something highly contested and known to cause harm, you probably won't get much traction about this by bringing in Ls, not at this stage anyway.

PSYCHOLOGICAL: You have to balance this with the good feedback david is giving -- disengage as much as possible and work with what we have, not what we wish we had. Teaching kids to manage this stuff on their own is the key, imo. Not easy, and it takes a lot of trial and error, and a TON of patience, but it's worth it.