Daddy didn't want you to go this weekend to the amusement park

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hello Everything,
This is an update to my previous "Fighting on all fronts".  I recently posted how the mother of my child would create a long distance goodbye at custody exchanges and how I refused to go out with her and my son for her shoplifting sessions.  Two weekends ago she asked if she could have my son during my court order custody time to take him to an "event".  I kindly decline because I had plans and she flew off the handle.  Now at custody changes she goes when my son cries she goes "its ok Daddy didn't want you to go this weekend to the amusement park". She is making it seem to me son that I didn't want it to go to her "event"
Any suggestions on how to handle this?

[Newyoungfather]

Hello Everything,
This is an update to my previous "Fighting on all fronts".  I recently posted how the mother of my child would create a long distance goodbye at custody exchanges and how I refused to go out with her and my son for her shoplifting sessions.  Two weekends ago she asked if she could have my son during my court order custody time to take him to an "event".  I kindly decline because I had plans and she flew off the handle.  Now at custody changes she goes when my son cries she goes "its ok Daddy didn't want you to go this weekend to the amusement park". She is making it seem to me son that I didn't want it to go to her "event"
Any suggestions on how to handle this?

[kells76]

Ugh, what a horrible position to be put in. Really sorry your son's mom is doing this -- that's not good coparenting.

If it were me, I would be tempted to JADE:

"Well Son, we couldn't go anyway, because A, B, C"

"You're just as bad, Son's Mom! You wouldn't let Son do Z with me last weekend"

"I have every right to decide what Son does on my time. I did nothing wrong"

etc.

These might all be true. That's OK to remember. But they might not be helpful things to say.

One really helpful thing you can do, that I 99% guarantee you your son's mom can't or won't do, is focus on how your son is feeling. Maybe it would go like this:

Exchange time, Mom says "Blah, blah, isn't Dad bad, he wouldn't let you do this, blah, blah"

You: Ignore, ignore, OK I have the diaper bag (or stroller, or whatever), I'll drop him off at X time

In the car, you finally have privacy with your son: Hey buddy, how ya doing? Your face seems sad (or whatever you happen to notice about how he's feeling). Or, What was it like for you when Mom was talking about the amusement park?

I know your son is younger, but there might be some age-appropriate ways to focus on how his body is communicating what his experience is. You could follow up with some validation: "Yeah, I probably would have been bummed, too, if I thought I could do something fun, but it didn't work out".

DH's kids are older now (12 & 10) so I'm a little out of practice with the younger ones. If someone else has some more ideas on ignoring coparent bait and focusing on feelings of young kids, chime in!

[Panda39]

Hi Newyoungfather,

I wanted to piggyback on what kells76 was talking about in terms of Validation and share some of the site's information on Validation/Validating kids... .

TOOLS: The Power of Validating How Kids Feel

Validation is important for raising emotionally resilient kids, not only to help them heal from the stresses of divorce and having a mentally ill parent, but to help them gain confidence in their own abilities to solve problems. The simplest way to describe validation is that feelings and emotions can never be wrong. Validation is arguably the most important skill to learn as a parent, and it has far-reaching impacts for your child's emotional health. Because BPD parents often have very high needs for validation themselves, and very low capacity to validate others, your child will likely have above-average needs for validation from you.

Read more: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=272638.msg12585648#msg12585648

Book Review: The Power of Validation (for parents)

The Power of Validation is detailed resource for parents seeking practical skills for validating their child’s feelings without condoning tantrums, selfishness, or out-of-control behavior. You’ll practice communicating with your child in ways that instantly impact his or her mood and help your child develop the essential self-validating skills that set the groundwork for confidence and self-esteem in adolescence and beyond. For all of us, learning to validate is a useful skill. If we are parents, whether parenting a child with BPD traits, parenting with a BPD partner or ex-partner, or parenting after having been raised by a parent with a PD, validation skills are especially important.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=166930.0

I'm also going to share some information on Parental Alienation, because her behavior here is alienating.  

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=182254.msg1331467#msg1331467

My advice is to stick to your custody agreement at all times (others here may be more flexible) based on my SO's experience with his ex you give an inch and she would take miles and never reciprocate.  For us it was better to have the custody agreement as a boundary.

Hang in there,
Panda39

[momtara]

Ugh, so manipulative and alienating. In time she will tire of this activity. I always hear about going 'grey rock' - not letting her see you react in any unusual way. Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of your child hearing this. I defer to the advice of others, because I haven't dealt with this, but validating your kid's emotions without accepting the false narrative is about the best you can do, I think.

[livednlearned]

Emotional loneliness is way worse than missing a day at an amusement park 

I try to focus on how my son feels before I bring him around to my view.

The kind of abuse you describe is tricky. She is abusing him on two fronts. One is that she is weaponizing you to hurt him. The other is that she won't let him have his own feelings.

What did you say to her son after the exchange?

[Newyoungfather]

Sorry everyone for the late reply, been dealing with a lot of nonsense, an attorney meeting may be inline for next month.
@LivedNLearned, my son is only 2 so its really hard to get him to understand, my L informed me that child alienation at that age is really hard to prove.  My L told me that its child alienation but its just too hard to prove.
@Panda39, yesssss thank you! Knowledge is the most powerful weapon in cases against the BPD.  Just bought the book too!
@Momtara, usually when she gets tired of one tactic, she will move on to the next, 1st was false allegations of child abuse, have that one beaten in court time and time over, now she focuses on my son, to hurt me through him.
@Kells76, I've been practicing the JADE technique, when my son gets older and understand I want to have all the weapons to counter the actions of the BPD.

[ForeverDad]

For a child who is 2 years old, it is less about specific events (such as an amusement park) than it is about having a consistently stable good time.  A day at the park, making cookies and a mess in the kitchen, and so many other good times will have a more lasting effect.  At that age its more about building a solid foundation for his personality to develop in the years to come.  Most people can't remember specific memories from that age.  For example, will a child know the difference between Disneyworld versus the local amusement park?  Probably not, unless he looks at the pictures often.  However, my wallet noticed a difference, I could buy a season pass locally for what one day cost at Disneyworld.

My ex did similar pattern of guilting and blaming but fortunately my son unconsciously sensed where safety was, he was daddy's boy.

My son was 3 years old when we separated.  Even before then the invalidation had started.  I recall one time I was leaving for work and she hugged our preschooler and said, "Yo te quiero pero papi no te quiere".  Translated, "I want/love you but daddy doesn't love you".  Imagine doing that to a child!  Still, he turned out to be daddy's boy for many years.  For the first few years after separation, he would literally come running to me and jump in my arms.  When I would bring him back to the exchange location he would be crying and struggling to stay with me.  Yeah, and she would accuse, "What did you do to him?"  Hey, he didn't want to go back.

[AnuDay]

Excellent posts here, excellent information. Thank you panda39 for all of those links and resources.
I've been dealing with the sabotaging done by the co-parent for a year now and didn't really know what to do.  My daughters are in such need of validation that it feels like every 2 minutes they need me to see something... .this BPD is truly dangerous on all fronts.  OP, your child is 2, you have a great head start on a lot of this stuff. Not to be demeaning, but the original issue in this thread comes up a lot, I have ignored it mostly. I'm not sure it can be stopped because it will certainly be done behind your back regardless of what you or a judge says.  Off-topic a little I wonder what the burnout rate for us non Co parents is. 

[livednlearned]

I'm not sure it can be stopped because it will certainly be done behind your back regardless of what you or a judge says.  

It can be neutralized by the way we build relationships with our kids and communicate with them.

Dr. Craig Childress has a really good article on jujitsu parenting that helps describe the mindset (with some skills, including phrasing) that our parenting takes when the other parent has BPD -- alienating behaviors are how BPD traits manifest in parenting.

Fortunately, validating how our kids feel can be done at any age. If a child is having a massive meltdown in a supermarket because she can't have candy, we can validate that yes, honey, wanting candy and not being able to have it feels bad. Let's hug it out here and feel sad for a bit." For you, it might be, "I would feel so sad if I couldn't go to the amusement park, too. You really wanted to do that, buddy, I can see that."

Your child wasn't upset about missing the amusement park, but at some point the alienating techniques will have more of an effect and the sadness will be real over something or other. Being sad is not always the worst hardship, it's being ignored that can gut a child, especially over time. We all have to feel hard feelings and if we're lucky, we will not be emotionally isolated in our sadness. If you grew up in an invalidating family, it may feel foreign to validate how your child feels, but it really is the antidote to alienation by the BPD parent.

If the alienation techniques start to get worse, there is always Divorce Poison by Richard Warshak. It's a good book to read proactively because there are strategies and tips to handle different alienation tactics that are likely to crop up.

We can neutralize a lot of this, even if we can't stop it.

But you have to level up and start using the skills consistently, and that's not always easy.

[Panda39]

... .the original issue in this thread comes up a lot, I have ignored it mostly. I'm not sure it can be stopped because it will certainly be done behind your back regardless of what you or a judge says. 

AnuDay, I hear your "Radical Acceptance" above which is good, your ex is gonna do what she's gonna do.  I think a judge can put a framework there, and the court is an option if things grow really out of control, but your right this low level alienating behavior is tough. 

To me the key isn't trying to make your ex change or do something... .back to Radical Acceptance again.  The key is how we respond in terms of the kids, and validation is a huge tool.  Your kids feel heard and understood (with the BPD parent it is all about the BPD parent), the nonBPD parent is also providing boundaries, consistency and structure that kids need.

Off-topic a little I wonder what the burnout rate for us non Co parents is. 

It's definitely there because essentially you are the only parent... .your ex is like co-parenting with another child (my SO's ex was a bully).  It's hard, it's really tough but we do what we need to do for our kids, we are their shot a growing up with the skills to go out into the world.

Panda39

[AnuDay]

More excellent stuff here.  Thank you Livednlearned and Panda.  I guess after a few thousand posts I will have the same level of insight.  I didn't even know there was a book on how to do jiujitsu coparenting.  I've been racking my brain trying to figure out tactics to outthink my UBPDex for soo long.  When I talk to other nons they just advise "if your ex is doing Y, why don't you just do B?" and I scream "Noo! don't you get it, if I do B then she will do Z ... .don't you see what she's planning?".  Most nons who are not in these types of relationships don't understand why the ex is doing the "Y" action.  They don't understand that the ex is not doing the "Y" action for the same reason a normal thinking person is doing the "Y" action.  I will definitely have to read that book.  I have bookmarked this page.   Thank you!

[livednlearned]

Trying to explain BPD parenting behaviors to non-BPD people can be very frustrating  

The jujitsu parenting is an article that you can read here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=320051.msg12932189#msg12932189

I think Childress did write a book? I haven't read it, but he is an academic, and his writing can be a bit hard to read. You may find Don't Alienate the Kids by Bill Eddy to be more accessible.

It does take time to learn how to develop a different parenting approach when the other parent is BPD. The skills you learn from here and from those books/articles can change your life, not only your parenting  

All the skills seem to boil down to the many ways of expressing empathy. With a BPD parent, you have to be a bit more attuned to the ways they may use (for lack of a better word) faux empathy to enmesh with the child. For example, "We alone are victimized by bad people out there." When in fact there may be no victimization, and if there were, the child's experience is his or her's alone.

My T once referred to my ex's relationship dynamic (with everyone) as revenge fantasy. Anyone who triggered feelings of abandonment or rejection was served a dish of revenge as payback for an entire library of recorded hurts and rejections from the beginning of time. Because ex had no boundaries, he enlisted our son into this fantasy, using what we refer to as alienation tactics.

Instead of rationalizing with our son about whose reality was more real, which can sow confusion, I just helped him recognize how he felt, helped him find words to describe those feelings, and gave him the wonderful sense that his feelings were ok, even when they might be different than how others felt.

That is intimacy  

Intimacy feels much better than alienation.

[Radcliff]

Another book I'd highly recommend is Don't Alienate the Children, by Bill Eddy.  He is both a therapist and a lawyer with expertise in BPD divorces.  He talks about child alienation as a product of a system of behaviors by not just the high conflict parent, but other involved people (including the "non" parent sometimes) and lawyers, counselors, etc.  He's honest about the impact of the high conflict person's behavior, but says that everyone else needs to have rational, reasonable response (not extreme responses like seeking 100% custody).

Professionals can contribute to the problem of alienation by both being too aggressive or too passive.  Eddy gives examples of this in his book.  In this situation it sounds like your lawyer may be too passive.  If you've got a history of successfully challenged allegations of abuse, that in itself is potential evidence.  Do not be passive.  The trick is to be reasonable.  Eddy calls this being "assertive."  An appropriate assertive response would be to ask for a parenting schedule that involves custody exchanges where both of you are not there.  If you have a caregiver or preschool, having one of you drop off and the other pick up could work.  Custody evaluators are trained to interview people very carefully to learn of trouble during exchanges -- it's one key indicator that things are not running smoothly.  Doing custody exchanges where both parents are not present is a very common strategy when one or both of the parents has a high conflict personality.

Another awesome book is "Transforming the Difficult Child -- the Nurtured Heart Approach," by Glasser.  Even if your child isn't difficult, the author's recommended approach of validating your child by making many many neutral observations "I see you're building a garage for your truck with your wood blocks" teaches them that you are engaged with them and interested in them -- strengthening your bond.

WW