After a long year of stress, DH got the decision about guardianship of SS21, who has special needs. Last April, DH's ex (uBPD) decided she no longer wanted to be joint guardian with DH so took him to court seeking sole guardianship. More here:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=288949.0 . Guardianship is not custody -- it is about who helps SS23 with major decisions such as where he lives, works, etc.
The judge ruled this week that DH will be sole guardian and trustee for SS21. Right now we are mostly feeling relief. We've also feeling a bit of trepidation because we need to wait for a month to see if uBPD will file an appeal. She can only appeal on a question of law. DH's L says she can't see anything in the ruling that they would be able to appeal, although there a few errors in the decision where the judge positioned things incorrectly. The judge named uBPD as the "alternate" guardian -- so if anything happened to DH she would be the guardian.
The decision is a public document, so DH can take it to SS21's doctor (who is also uBPD's doctor), counsellor, support workers, etc. The document has lots of examples of uBPD's behaviour - both towards SS21 and DH. We hope it will allow for some conversations with these professionals that DH hasn't been able to have in the past because uBPD labels him as the bad parent. There is no reference to mental illness in the decision - we know the judge was confused by some of her behaviours but didn't try to determine why she did what she did.
The decision is good news but we have more waiting in store, with fingers crossed, before we can celebrate. We also know that in the future uBPD can ask for a review or file a complaint about DH's role as guardian at any time so we're putting some things in place to document his actions and financial oversight. We hope that the decision describing her controlling and overprotective ways will help should she choose to try to question this in the future.
Thanks to all here who provided support and ideas.
