Impending custody issues with biomom in distress

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

Hi all,

This is my first time posting, though my fiancé has spoken very highly about this group. We have two kids (13 and 16). Their mom was diagnosed with CPTST (not in the US DSM but falls under BPD) and we struggle with parental alienation, co-parent abuse, and probably an imminent custody battle. I've been with my partner for almost eight years and close friends for three years prior to that, so I've long struggled with our lives turning upside down when she goes into distress. I see a therapist who specializes in BPD to help understand her better and cope with the uncertainty in our lives. The most disturbing thing by far that we deal is that, despite having a phenomenal relationship with our kids, if it ever came to a battle between us and her they would forsake us to her in a heartbeat- even to their own detriment.

A few examples of some of the chronic things we've gone through with her:
 
 |--->She loses her job every year of two, moves every year or two (often very suddenly with periods of homelessness and/or bankruptcy). The kids have had to leave behind pets and possessions, ever to be seen again, because she has so thoroughly burned a bridge that she can't ask for these things back.
 |--->She has a new partner very frequently, who almost always immediately moves in with her and the kids. When the relationships go bad they go bad quickly, and suddenly the kids who were taught this person is their family now jump on the bandwagon of hating this person they'd come to love.
 |--->She struggles to make payments on cars, houses, pay for basic necessities for the kids like food and medical care, but also buys them extravagant new phones, computers, ipads, concert tickets, even in the midst of a period of being financially destitute.  As a result we are very stingy because we know we will have to pick up the slack when things go bad, and the kids think that she is generous and we are rich misers (we are not rich, but compared to her anyone is). I very much worry for their relationship to money moving forward.
 |--->When she goes into distress she sends these awful long messages to my partner telling him how the kids don't want to be with him, how she's their real parent, how everything going wrong in her live is his fault and threatening to take them away from him.

Some disturbing things that have happened over the years:
 
 |--->We have 50% custody of the kids, but she (and the kids) insist she has full custody despite the fact that they spend 50% of their time with us. The paperwork says otherwise, but more disturbingly the kids should be able to just count the amount of days they spend with us versus her. She tells them that she's the primary parent though, and that's their truth.
 |--->A few years ago she pulled them out of school without telling us in order to secretly move them to another state. She told them to lie to us about it and when it was all revealed there was a lot of "don't be mad at mommy, she needs to do this". We went to court, asking for a guardian-ad-lidem and lost. The judge had no experience with family law and berated my partner for not supporting a mom who was clearly just trying to do her best. We've since had to move states and now our judicial record (written by the opposing attorney and signed by the judge) basically says that she is the best parent in the world and we are the monsters who tried to claim that she shouldn't be able to move if she feels its the right thing to do.
 |--->Any time anything is wrong with one of our kids she has encouraged them to believe its medical. Our kids consequently have at times claimed they have epilepsy, narcolepsy, autism, dissociation disorder, and more. Some ailments they have (anxiety, etc.) are legitimate and diagnosed but most are self-diagnosed.

For me; I struggle with watching my family suffer under the weight of all of this- what it does both to the kids and to my partner. I see my therapist because I do a lot better when I am feeling empathy for her. I think of our kids as medically compromised rather than subject to the whims of a person with conscientious decisions. If we had a kid with a long-term disease we would pay out the nose and move with them as many times as was needed to best help them. But moving and losing my career and all of my friends has definitely taken its toll. I don't know, other than being kind and supportive, what I can do for the kids until they recognize what is going on with their mom. I need to know how to better support my partner when he is verbally abused by her, or when she threatens to alienate him from the kids.

More recently she's insisted the kids want to be able to choose to spend time with her instead of him and that she's encouraging them to talk to a judge. I don't doubt that they want more freedom. They mentioned that when we were going have them help us move- they'd rather just be with their mom and who wouldn't want to avoid moving? I think they mean it in the way that teenage kids don't want to be away from their friends and do manual labor if they can help it. We pointed out that if it was a matter of each parent making their house more fun and less work that could get into an unfair and unpleasant arms race, which is what people try to avoid with child support and custody arrangements. But in moments of distress (she is currently out of a job and maybe struggling to pay for housing) all of her value comes from blaming my partner and feeling like the worlds best mom, and our kids will bend over backwards to get her out of distress.

I really don't want us to lose our kids, but dads experience so much bias in the court system I'm not sure we'd win if she tried to go to court. Additionally, at 13 and 16 they could just get in a car and drive to her house if they wanted to. I expected that the years in which they haven't realized that she's not okay would intersect with the years in which they have more freedom and result in some distance between us, but I didn't think it would happen this soon.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of custody battle in the teen years? Is there any hope, in your experience, with a court case? Or with explaining to the kids about the truth of the situation (we've avoided this so far)? Or with them coming around to understand things sooner rather than later? Any advice from other step parents or parents on how to cope with this constant feeling of uncertainty or the sadness of witness your kids cope with this without understanding it? Any advice on how to better support my spouse through the idea of losing our kids, or through the abuse? 

[stepmomof2]

Hi all,

This is my first time posting, though my fiancé has spoken very highly about this group. We have two kids (13 and 16). Their mom was diagnosed with CPTST (not in the US DSM but falls under BPD) and we struggle with parental alienation, co-parent abuse, and probably an imminent custody battle. I've been with my partner for almost eight years and close friends for three years prior to that, so I've long struggled with our lives turning upside down when she goes into distress. I see a therapist who specializes in BPD to help understand her better and cope with the uncertainty in our lives. The most disturbing thing by far that we deal is that, despite having a phenomenal relationship with our kids, if it ever came to a battle between us and her they would forsake us to her in a heartbeat- even to their own detriment.

A few examples of some of the chronic things we've gone through with her:
 
 |--->She loses her job every year of two, moves every year or two (often very suddenly with periods of homelessness and/or bankruptcy). The kids have had to leave behind pets and possessions, ever to be seen again, because she has so thoroughly burned a bridge that she can't ask for these things back.
 |--->She has a new partner very frequently, who almost always immediately moves in with her and the kids. When the relationships go bad they go bad quickly, and suddenly the kids who were taught this person is their family now jump on the bandwagon of hating this person they'd come to love.
 |--->She struggles to make payments on cars, houses, pay for basic necessities for the kids like food and medical care, but also buys them extravagant new phones, computers, ipads, concert tickets, even in the midst of a period of being financially destitute.  As a result we are very stingy because we know we will have to pick up the slack when things go bad, and the kids think that she is generous and we are rich misers (we are not rich, but compared to her anyone is). I very much worry for their relationship to money moving forward.
 |--->When she goes into distress she sends these awful long messages to my partner telling him how the kids don't want to be with him, how she's their real parent, how everything going wrong in her live is his fault and threatening to take them away from him.

Some disturbing things that have happened over the years:
 
 |--->We have 50% custody of the kids, but she (and the kids) insist she has full custody despite the fact that they spend 50% of their time with us. The paperwork says otherwise, but more disturbingly the kids should be able to just count the amount of days they spend with us versus her. She tells them that she's the primary parent though, and that's their truth.
 |--->A few years ago she pulled them out of school without telling us in order to secretly move them to another state. She told them to lie to us about it and when it was all revealed there was a lot of "don't be mad at mommy, she needs to do this". We went to court, asking for a guardian-ad-lidem and lost. The judge had no experience with family law and berated my partner for not supporting a mom who was clearly just trying to do her best. We've since had to move states and now our judicial record (written by the opposing attorney and signed by the judge) basically says that she is the best parent in the world and we are the monsters who tried to claim that she shouldn't be able to move if she feels its the right thing to do.
 |--->Any time anything is wrong with one of our kids she has encouraged them to believe its medical. Our kids consequently have at times claimed they have epilepsy, narcolepsy, autism, dissociation disorder, and more. Some ailments they have (anxiety, etc.) are legitimate and diagnosed but most are self-diagnosed.

For me; I struggle with watching my family suffer under the weight of all of this- what it does both to the kids and to my partner. I see my therapist because I do a lot better when I am feeling empathy for her. I think of our kids as medically compromised rather than subject to the whims of a person with conscientious decisions. If we had a kid with a long-term disease we would pay out the nose and move with them as many times as was needed to best help them. But moving and losing my career and all of my friends has definitely taken its toll. I don't know, other than being kind and supportive, what I can do for the kids until they recognize what is going on with their mom. I need to know how to better support my partner when he is verbally abused by her, or when she threatens to alienate him from the kids.

More recently she's insisted the kids want to be able to choose to spend time with her instead of him and that she's encouraging them to talk to a judge. I don't doubt that they want more freedom. They mentioned that when we were going have them help us move- they'd rather just be with their mom and who wouldn't want to avoid moving? I think they mean it in the way that teenage kids don't want to be away from their friends and do manual labor if they can help it. We pointed out that if it was a matter of each parent making their house more fun and less work that could get into an unfair and unpleasant arms race, which is what people try to avoid with child support and custody arrangements. But in moments of distress (she is currently out of a job and maybe struggling to pay for housing) all of her value comes from blaming my partner and feeling like the worlds best mom, and our kids will bend over backwards to get her out of distress.

I really don't want us to lose our kids, but dads experience so much bias in the court system I'm not sure we'd win if she tried to go to court. Additionally, at 13 and 16 they could just get in a car and drive to her house if they wanted to. I expected that the years in which they haven't realized that she's not okay would intersect with the years in which they have more freedom and result in some distance between us, but I didn't think it would happen this soon.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of custody battle in the teen years? Is there any hope, in your experience, with a court case? Or with explaining to the kids about the truth of the situation (we've avoided this so far)? Or with them coming around to understand things sooner rather than later? Any advice from other step parents or parents on how to cope with this constant feeling of uncertainty or the sadness of witness your kids cope with this without understanding it? Any advice on how to better support my spouse through the idea of losing our kids, or through the abuse? 

[kells76]

Hello stepmomof2, welcome to the group 

You're in the right place to get support for these MOST difficult relationships. Step/coparenting when the kids' other parent is disordered is extremely difficult at best. It's definitely not always "how about we all get together at Thanksgiving, for the kids".

I wish I had more time to reply now, but even though I have to keep it brief, I wanted you to know that we've seen your post.

Please don't hesitate to look through my post history (click on my name, in green on the left, then in the next window, , under Profile Info, you can select Show Posts). I'm also a stepmom to 2, and it's been traumatic at times. They're good kids, and are similar ages now (14 & 16), but it has been pretty challenging and hurtful. It is difficult to watch your spouse in pain due to the manipulations by the other parent of the kids.

The biggest thing for us was realizing we couldn't parent normally. Accepting that has kind of helped -- knowing that we have to approach stuff a LOT more from a cooperative/collaborative/flexible perspective vs a "these are the house rules" perspective. Reading stuff by Dr. Craig Childress has also helped, he offers a few ways to defang the pathogenic parenting and the "Mom told me..." or the "You never do what I want..." statements.

I have to wrap it up, but please settle in and read as much as you want. Lots of history on this board with a lot of stepmoms.

Looking forward to hearing more from you, when you have the time;

kells76

[CoherentMoose]

Hello!  I too welcome you and highly recommend reading Kells' posts.  I'm in a similar situation attempting to deal with significant intrusions into our family from a disordered divorced parent.  the sense of entitlement is amazing.   Keep doing what is best for the children and hopefully things work out for them eventually.  Good luck.  CoMo