Staying with 50/50

[nona]

Since I am out of money, shot of cashing out a small IRA, fighting for relocation/custody will $ break me.

Mr UBPDH has as usual made the illusion look pretty good, including D10 brainwashed.

RAther than fight him, and risk losing all my cash and perhaps more of d10

I am thinking of settling with what we have here. 50/50.

i am scared the judges will like his happy little horshs**t story.

Little quaint village, Mayberry. Everybody loves D10.

he is everyones doctor.

one room schoolhouse... .  "little house on the prarie"

kitties at daddy's

involved in tons of extra activities (exhausted child)

d10 "loves 50/50"  (child states "exhausted ,but want to be fair, and mommy has had me all my life, so daddy should have me now, and mama should stay nearby (2 blocks away).


My version


extreme isolation 400 population, dying demographics

I am ostrasized  (is THIS in my D10 best interest?)

NO JOBS

except at the hospital which is a hostile work environment for us both now.

The hospital could close... .  (economy)

cant PROVE UBPDH is an untreated porn addict in denial

he has major anxiety impulse/ control issues AEB (dermotillomania, big time)

he is BPD (w/NPD traits)

High conflict marriage requiring counseling most years

he has a psych history, I DO NOT.

I homeschooled my 3 successful adult children exclusively, successfully... .  (I have an excellent LOng parenting record, PRE UBPDH)

All 3 my adult children HAVE NO CONTACT with him, (reducing D10 access to family )

Due to his "call schedule", 24/7x7days, he is only AVAILABLE EOW.

I am available FULL time


would a judge make her go to him?

make me stay here in Tiny town?

crappy little school, little resources.

OIt has taken 9 monthsto even get a psych eval for D10

etc etc.

thanks


will this really matter or will they brush me under the rug.

[nona]

there is no immediate pressing need to change things.

of course I have been miserable in many ways here .

I have income, spousal.

d10 is stable. worn out, but better each week.

I have a nice rental house.

If I settle and we get clear access/holiday  orders, I wont have to keep "negotiating" and losing to Crazy.

I can wait it out here in "paradise" for a few years and let more be revealed, and see if D10 and her needs somehow lead the way.

I ran away from suburban US to "paradise" for a reason. D10 has lotsa perks here compared to suburban lifestyle, she is a mountain child.

Im guessing by 12-14 she will be even more keen to leave the bush, and join her family in the US. movies, rolloer rinks and malls... .  cell phones etc etc.

I never made new community here, living in crazy land

all our family and friends and spiritual community are in the US, not here in Canada.

BUT... .  he IS crazy and the tables ARE SLOWLY turning here, as time goes by.

his anxiety symptoms are showing

his girlfriend from a threesome, is pregnant

I cannot leave the house without people asking me if it's UBPDH's baby !

So Im thinking rather than lose all my money fighting him, and risking losing d10 more, maybe I should take the middle road, slow things(changes ) down, stabilize more and let him unravel.

since I dont have the money and cannot trust the L or the system

I feel so riteous (sp?) sometimes, like its so obvious what is right and where she belongs, but I am not convinced it will be seen?


thoughts?

[tog]

nona,

People on here advocate to fight fight fight... .  I'm with you. My SO's uN/BPDstbxw is good, as narcissists are. She can spin anything to sound plausible. She is a professor, very articulate, looks great on paper. Friendly, charming, presents as a loving MOTY.

She is also bipolar, has stolen from her job, had an affair in her office, alienated her older child from her father, is emotionally abusive, rolled all her debt into her mortgage and walked away... .  

The court does.not.see it. They just don't. SS13 is loyal and says he likes the 50/50. He won't say anything bad about his mother. He has a therapist that thinks his mother poops rainbows. We have spent 30K plus, we are exhausted and depressed.

I think you are doing the right thing, quite honestly, I really do. Your H will probably fight to the death and if you get 50/50 plus good spousal and CS, then you are doing well under the circumstances. SO and I are done fighting too. The money is gone, we have got to move on or lose our minds.

50/50 with her making decisions is the best we are going to do. If she alienates him further, we will have to deal with it as it comes.

[nona]

Thanks Tog,

Any affirmation feels so great.

I just became aware of a shift,

the shift is: If I decide to quit fighting and stay

I JUST MADE THE DECISION, I WASNT manipulated, forced or tricked into it.

Just bullied... .  

My anxiety level dropped tremendously to not be IN the fight

[Waddams]

Nona - I understand being stuck.  I'm in a place I'd like to leave too but can't due to 50/50 custody.

I also understand the pointlessness of fighting in court.  It just uses up your money and gets you very little in return usually.

If you settle and stay, start finding time to get out of town when you're D10 is on her father's parenting time.  Getting out is a great way to recharge.  I just found out a men's group trip this weekend is likely cancelled due to bad weather (camping/hiking trip but weather is forecast for snow/rain).  I might make a beach run instead as my son will be w/ his mother.  It's good to just get away for a day or two.

Of course, you could also plan a weekender with D10 too.  It would get her away from the fire drill of activities and give her some recharge time too, and you both some good quality time without interruptions.

[tog]

I think that those of us with a person with more N than B qualities have a different challenge. These people are often high-functioning and able to spin reality to cover their bad behavior. They don't lose it and start screaming and swearing in public or in situations to be recorded. They have enough self-control to not send overtly abusive emails. And they look really, really good on paper.

For my SO's stbxw, it's all about the image. She will fight to the death to protect her image as MOTY. She will not give up. The idea of my SO having custody of SS is an enormous threat to her image. People would think less of a mother who does not have primary custody. She doesn't care about money, she will borrow and never pay it back, from friends, from family, from the bank. She will drive us into the ground and destroy us emotionally and financially.

Your H, in that tiny town, will do the same to protect his image as the benevolent doctor. He doesn't need primary custody as that isn't essential to a man's image. But he isn't going to give you primary either and have people wonder if he's a bad parent. Or have you "win".

Find a way to stick it out there for a few more years, like Waddams said, taking care of yourself when you can.

[sad but wiser]

Hi TOG.  I don't know about yours, but my exBPD is very oppositional.  The way to win a fight is not to fight and let him get bored.  It usually doesn't take long.  Your isolation may not last long if you wait it out a few weeks or months.  Once the interest level falls off (because the focus isn't on them and you don't seem to mind) you may find yourself with your D10 far more frequently than the court order.  Just saying the issue may very well resolve itself.

[sad but wiser]

oops - I meant to direct that to nona.

[ForeverDad]

Once the interest level falls off (because the focus isn't on them and you don't seem to mind) you may find yourself with your D10 far more frequently than the court order.  Just saying the issue may very well resolve itself.

And if not, then over time you may accumulate additional documentation that makes you look like the more capable parent who can share should it ever go back to court.

[hadenoughtoo]

My UDPDex (alcoholic also) demanded 50/50, I offered him 3 nights a week and no CS rather than spend $ fighting. Why? Because after 16 years of marriage I knew him well enough to know he would not be able to handle even the minimum care a 13 year old needs. Ex soon realized it meant that 3 nights a week I was free to do things like go out with friends and date. In no time at all he was refusing to pick up at the agreed time (our son heard him ranting to his friends that he was not going to be "a babysitter so she can go out and whore around". Within a month he was down to two days a week. Many weeks he would only keep DS one night. If ex was "acting up" DS would simply not go. Despite all of this DS remained loyal to ex to a certain extent and made excuses for him.

DS stopped spending the night at all when he turned 17 and now he only sees ex to have lunch one every two weeks even though ex lives 3 miles away.

It is probably not possible for your ex to actually exercise 50/50 with his demanding career and social life any more than it was for my ex with his drinking problem.

[tog]

I agree. I think after the dust settles, he will start having your D10 for less and less time. He wants the 50/50 for image.

[livednlearned]

It's the same for me, nona.

My ex is down to 4 hours Sat, 4 hours Sunday. He keeps canceling -- this weekend, he won't see S11 at all, and hasn't asked to replace that time. Meanwhile, he is fighting like h@ll through the courts to get more time. 

I think a lot of men who are BPD (w/NPD traits) fight more for legal custody because they care about control, not about doing the work of raising kids. Lundy Bancroft refers to the focus on legal custody vs. physical custody as classic abuser behavior. Where you live, do they carve things into legal custody and physical custody?

The main reason I am fighting for sole legal custody is because my family lives in Canada and I'm in the US. I can't travel there without permission from N/BPDx, and he has already written some high-flying crazy letters that don't pass as letters of consent to travel with his child. I need a legal document that will allow me to prove sole custody so I can travel to see my family. My mom is getting older and is ill, and I'm putting buckets of money into my fight so that N/BPDx can't control that aspect of my life.

The other thing that seems to be fairly standard is that pwBPD dysregulate over time in pretty spectacular ways. If you don't have the strength or money to fight now, it's likely that something will happen that requires action on your part soon enough. He will get so sodding drunk it endangers your daughter, or something equivalent. Raising kids as a single parent is stressful, and pwBPD don't have the skills to cope with the normal stresses that parenting entails, even when there is a second parent around to do the work. When they are alone doing it, they have to resort to coping mechanisms that tend to backfire.

Just putting that out there because custody is kind of a verb for those of us here. It isn't a one-time event, no matter how good your case is. It goes on and on and on and on until the kids age out, and even then, who knows. I anticipate that my ex will try to keep me fighting in the court system for the rest of his life, over one thing or another.

[nona]

we are all americans in canada.

all our family, my grown kids, grandkids and aging mom are all in the us, all BPDX family too!

Our spiritual family/community is all in the US as well,

those are points I thought a judge would see.

But after getting screwed in our settlement hearing, I have no faith in my lawyer or the system.

I have the laundry list of all the abuse he has done, but no proof.

we have already done the 50/50 for almost 2 years.

he shows no signs of spending less time with her.

he only lets me babysit as a last resort and if he is no available, he tries to place her anywhere but with me.

I think he does it because he knows witholding her hurts me.

I see no end, as was coping with this decision great while she was with me.

Now since she went to him yesterday I am furious.

He works the alienation crap big time, always has, ALL HER LIFE, not just since we split.

It hurts so much, I can only imagine what D10 must feel like, tonight she could not even tell me I love you like she usually does at bedtime.

Pleasing BPDDAD I suppose.

[tog]

nona,

Your XH sounds a lot like my SO's stbxw. She is very possessive of SS13 and will rarely give extra time (only when it suits her) since the court battle began. I think it's about her own anxiety about losing SS13 but also about hurting my SO and claiming "what's hers".

For what it's worth, he went through the worst of the alienation at 10-11. He seemed to believe everything she told him and got very negative about my SO, even claiming to be afraid of him. He would complain to me about stuff his mother told him his father did, about stuff his father really did do that he misinterpreted, etc. He too went through a period of not saying "I love you" anymore to his Dad.

Now, he seems to see what's going on with his mother, but he's still very protective of her. He won't say a word about what happens at her home and when push comes to shove, he will still sometimes throw my SO under the bus if she asks him to. But now, the minute he gets over here, he's hugging my SO, saying I love you, leaning on him, being affectionate.

We have done a lot of talking to him, though, about what his mother is doing and the court has been very unhappy about that. They still seem to think that despite all of her alienation, SO should say nothing. He regularly gets chastised for trying to explain the alienation and hold SS13 accountable for how his lies affect SO.

I think that once the court case is settled for us (if it ever is), his stbxw will go back to being a checked-out mother and give SO more time, especially if she meets a new man. For her it's survival to have "control" over SS, and once she gets that, she will likely be less possessive. I say this because when I first met SO, they got along fairly well and she will let him take SS whenever he wanted on her time, including holidays, because she basically ignored him much of the time.

[nona]

just this week, D10 stopped saying I love you to me on the phone from BPDDADs house.

soo wierd , heartbreaking and triggering for me.

I keep reading how vulnerable 8-10  year olds are re: alienation.

BPDDAD is so effective with it.

My being triggered by the alienation so easily makes me feel like A PWBPD.

a new layer seems to be d10 is now implementing this as a manipulation as well.

[tog]

nona,

Parental alienation is incredibly painful, please don't feel bad about letting it get to you. My SO has experienced enormous pain and feelings of rejection from his son's behavior. At this point, SS13 does not call my SO at all when at his mother's, unless he has her permission (such as when they are on vacation and she wants to look good for court). Otherwise, he tells her that he "doesn't want to talk to him" or that his phone is lost. When he's at school, however, on SO's custodial days, he calls at 3 on a school phone to tell him what time to pick him up and ALWAYS says "I love you" at the end of the conversation. I guess this is his solution to his mother being displeased by him talking to his father.

You have 50% time. Keep your relationship strong. Confront any lies she is told about you and set the matter straight without putting down her father (":)ad is very angry at me and he wants you to be too... .  but what he told you is not the truth, here's how it happened... .  ). Make sure your D knows that lying is wrong and it hurts you when she lies to her father or others about you and things in your home. But don't dwell on it... .  keep your time together good. With 50/50, she will likely come out of it as she ages.

We struggle with being angry at SS for the ongoing lies and enmeshment, which may not be fair, but it's how we feel... .  

[whirlpoollife]

I filed last may, h court order to leave the house in oct. ( good I paid for most of it )

My xtb NPD h never said " I love you" to me or s14 and d12. H heard d12 say it to me over the phone. Now she does not say it to me but says it to him on the phone. Hurts beyond words. But I continue to let her know I love her. I continue to hug both kids. H blamed me and kids hated me for the break up, they lie for him still. When he lived with me he alienated the kids. To him it was a competition. Sick minded.   But as hard as it is I keep the hugs there and I'm finally getting the hugs back that I once had.  Not the trust and communication yet.

Be the same mom, nona, and give reminders of things you and her did together and things you did for her.

I have a custody hearing in may, it was a hard decision but I opted not to do an evaluation.  More money and more stress.   I felt relieved in my decision.  So far kids want current schedule.  Tough to hear that from them when I was the 24/7 parent.

[tog]

If you haven't read ":)on't Alienate the Kids", then do. It helped me to understand why the kids do this... .  they actually have a less secure attachment with the disordered parent and on some level they recognize that intuitively. They will blame and target the parent they actually feel more secure with to protect their attachment to the disordered parent.

So in my SS's case, when he goes to his mother and complains about his father, she validates his complaints (normal teenage complaints about rules, etc), and the two of them join over what a jerk my SO is and what a wonderful mother she is, "she would never make SS do x,y,z." So they both feel secure in the moment, but it's an unhealthy attachment pattern and it doesn't hold up over the long-term.

The custody evaluator in our case noted that when SS came in with his mother, they were both giggling and SS was crawling over her and laying on top of her. He stated this was "extremely regressive" for a boy his age.

The sad part is, the kids don't realize that they are damaging the relationship they have with the healthy parent while trying to protect the one with the disordered one. My SS and SO will never have the same relationship they had, and frankly, SS is in danger of losing the relationship entirely as my SO has little left in him to keep fighting and wants to move far away. And even though I do intellectually get what SS is doing, emotionally it's hard not to be angry at him and to give up when he continues to play both sides, lie and throw my SO under the bus, which has cost us loads of money, stress and heartache. There is only so much we can take.

[whirlpoollife]

tog, I will order the book today. LnL mentioned it too. You said in better words what I was thinking. h keeps them mentally regressed. when I ask if they watched anything on TV, I get the same answer... .  a tape of cartoons. Lie maybe, but it was like that when h lived with me.  Old cartoons are great but kids minds need to mature and grow beyond the bubble.   S14 now says' "ni nite" instead of good night. That's from h. I say though, good night.

50/50 is hard compared to what is was. Its like a cow with its calf taken away for veal.

A past T, had some good points. One was for me to stay the stable mom I always have been.  Nona, stay the stable mom.  Continue to say "I love you" even though d stopped.  Hold her hand though the FOG she is going through.

[ennie]

I do not know how the Canadian legal system works... .  but her in the US (CA), my DH was able to ask for a custody evaluation, a full psych evaluation.  His BPD ex is not high functioning, but she is very effective at presenting as a "good mom" who is having a hard time because of divorce or something else that is DH's fault... .  so mediators would believe her outrageous lies, as they seemed like they could be true, and in fact were often projections of things she was actually doing.  She has a lot of NPD characteristics, and has done things like obtained letters from a doctor indicating that DH is a fault for the kids medical conditions he had nothing to do with... .  so she is very good at obtaining "evidence."

DH was not willing to directly ask for more than 50/50, which is what he had already had for 3 years.  But the psych evaluator completely understood that DH was the stable one, BPDmom was not, but he still felt that with therapy, BPDmom was able to have 50/50, so long as she did not have the kids for more than 2 weeks at a time. 

DH ended up settling right before the trial... .  which may have granted DH more time, if only because mom responded to the evaluation by making some pretty extreme false accusations against our family.  But BPD mom settled, with a parenting plan that is extremely detailed and directive. 

DH settled partly because we had spent way too much money, were tired of the extreme stress custody litigation placed on the kids, and tired of the stress on ourselves.  We live in a community where we are all known, where DH and I are from here and well loved and supported, BPDmom is seen as pretty crazy, and we still almost gave up many times. 

In the end, I think that what we got out of the process was worth the stress, especially because we were willing to settle and not "win" when the cost emotionally and financially got too high.  But what we got is :  1) an evaluation that clearly states mom is unstable--this is VERY valuable, and based on the analysis of someone who does not know us.  When mom made false allegations of abuse, this document made it so clear to CPS that the allegation was false, and saved us a lot of painful investigation, etc.; 2) we worked hard to put together a very detailed parenting plan based on recommendations for high conflict folks... .  it specifies all kinds of details, which has resulted in DH not having to negotiate over most things, something that used to result in regular intense conflict that had a huge negative impact on the kids. 

So we now have 50/50, like before.  DH chose to file the custody case about 3-4 years after they split up, because the kids were showing increasing signs of alienation, and they were saying mom was planning to get full custody and move away to another state, so it seemed necessary.  He would not have done it if things were more "okay."  But though I am surprised to say it, I am glad we went through all of that, glad we quite when we did.  Mainly because the kids are really happy now, and it totally changed the power dynamic, so the kids finally get that mom just going crazy does not always win.  They seem relaxed in their lives, not planning to move away with mommy tomorrow, liking their lives and settling in. 

I think whatever you choose, know that there is no "right" answer, and that you need to do what feels right to you, and be willing to change your mind if what you feel changes.  We got a lot of flack here and elsewhere for not "fighting" as hard as we could, but we were told consistently by professionals that we were very unlikely to get more than 50/50 unless there was clear evidence of something terrible--molestation, kidnapping, etc. 

Seek advice, but trust your heart, and know that with a BPD (w/NPD traits) ex, there really is no easy answer.  Whatever you choose will be hard, and the fact that you hang in there with your child will make all the difference. 

I guess that is the last thing I want to say.  Over the last  6 years with DH, I have seen my two SDs go from having some pretty big problems, to being really great, self-aware, thoughtful loving people.  SD12 was totally enmeshed with mom and had lots of behavior issues; she is now really able to own her own part in conflicts, love us and mom fully, and sees herself separate from mom.  I think this is mostly because half of the time, she has us as a stable, nurturing family.  So no matter what you do, if you are there half of the time, you are doing so much. 

[tog]

I agree, just having 50% of the time with a stable parent helps kids a lot. Even before the CE commented on the weird behavior of SS (then 12) and his mother, my SO had seen it (SS hanging on her, sitting on her lap, leaning on her) and had told him he didn't like it, and had stopped him from doing similar things with me. And that's one example of the many ways my SO provide "normalcy" for SS13.

It's easy on these boards for people to suggest everyone fight until they are in bankruptcy and give great legal strategies that will show everyone the other parent's disorder and get the stable parent full custody. Before I had any family court experience, they all sounded so great! Now I wonder if those people are in the same court system I am. Nothing we have done to show her disordered, destructive behavior has had any effect, in fact, she's been able to consistently make my SO look like the difficult party.

Enough is enough. We don't have 150K to spend fighting this woman who just enjoys and relishes the fight anyway. We've done the best we are going to do with 50/50 and her having final decision-making. She's too high-functioning, convincing and powerful for us to get anything different. I just want time to pass so SS can grow up and we can be done with her.

[ennie]

I think part of my post that maybe I did not emphasis is that the Custody Evaluator's documentation of the BPD person's instability was a very important outcome of our litigation.  Worth it, based on later false allegations of abuse made by BPD mom. 

Also, the timing of DH's custody case... .  they divorced and got an order for 50/50, with no specifics.  

He did 50/50 for 4 years. After we married and were living in the home we built and totally stable, and mom was having a really hard time, drinking and having crazy episodes, DH filed for a more formal custody order, and specifically requested a psych eval.  I think he thought the evaluator would be shocked by BPDmom's behavior, and would recommend that he have more than 50/50; unfortunately, he though that BPD mom's behavior would be helped by court-ordered therapy.  

We waited partly as DH hoped BPD mom would be better, partly because he needed to save up money and be totally ready when he filed.  But mom got worse, and the alienation started working more, so he felt he had to act.  But the point is, maybe now is not the time.  Maybe later is.