ex keeps trying to get me to talk with her one on one

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

So I moved out and filed for divorce from my BPD wife on December 20th. We now have an initial agreement that I can live with. Part of her request/drama was to say that I am a pot head and need to pass drug screening before being with children. I have passed the drug screening and gave her and my attorney a copy of the results. Felt good to disarm her in this manner. Now she keeps trying to get me to text or speak with her one on one. Today, during our exchange with children, she tried to get me to talk about what I want to change concerning our current agreement status. I refused to answer or engage in any discussion concerning this. I just said okay and walked away. From what can I see and have experienced from her in the past she did not want to know what I wanted to change but instead put that out there to try and negotiate something that she wanted to change. As I said I did not go for the bait and walked away. I do worry about these attempts from her to communicate with me one on one and hope to avoid these situations in the future for fear that she wil cause or make up a dramatic event to use against me and my childrens time together. Hanging in there but certainly worried about this.

[free and happy]

So I moved out and filed for divorce from my BPD wife on December 20th. We now have an initial agreement that I can live with. Part of her request/drama was to say that I am a pot head and need to pass drug screening before being with children. I have passed the drug screening and gave her and my attorney a copy of the results. Felt good to disarm her in this manner. Now she keeps trying to get me to text or speak with her one on one. Today, during our exchange with children, she tried to get me to talk about what I want to change concerning our current agreement status. I refused to answer or engage in any discussion concerning this. I just said okay and walked away. From what can I see and have experienced from her in the past she did not want to know what I wanted to change but instead put that out there to try and negotiate something that she wanted to change. As I said I did not go for the bait and walked away. I do worry about these attempts from her to communicate with me one on one and hope to avoid these situations in the future for fear that she wil cause or make up a dramatic event to use against me and my childrens time together. Hanging in there but certainly worried about this.

[GreenMango]

Email is a great way to have a record of what she is asking for and a pretty easy way to follow up with things in writing.  I do this for work with potentially litigious clients and to c.m.a.

Could it be as easy as saying Please email me what you would like to discuss and I'll take a look at it?  It gives you time to review it in a less stressful spot and not under her pressure of an immediate answer.  I also have a "go-to" response in situations where it could be detrimental - "I don't have the answer to that right now, I need to look into it/think about it".  This helps so I don't screw myself speaking before I know more.

Of course, you checking with your attorney on her proposals to change things etc is safest.

[free and happy]

Duly noted response. Thank you.

[momtara]

you could do the exchanges in front of the police station.

and carry a tape recorder.

[Waddams]

My first thought is she's trying to get you one on one because it's the only way she can FOG you to try to regain control.  She knows if it's not private and out of view of others, she can't play her games. 

[Thunderstruck]

My SO's uBPDx keeps doing the same thing, trying to get him to talk to her on the phone or in person because she knows written communication is being monitored. He hasn't complied because he doesn't trust her one bit. He started filming the exchanges with his GoPro and magically she's nice now.

I'd agree to put everything in writing. Plus it's easier to reply unemotionally via written communication. She might push your buttons to get you to say something in anger and then use that against you.

[free and happy]

My mom recommended a recorder as well. I just don't have the energy to go through with that. I am already dealing with depression and anxiety (with meds and therapy) and think focusing to much on her games would only make me feel worse. I will most likely just have to do exchange with others present. I would like to think that I have detached enough from her that she cannot FOG me again, ever no matter what. She really seems to think that she still has some control over me via her lawyers requests for urinalysis and other agreement details.

I am not just settling for whatever I get to get away from her though. I am also standing up to her via my attorney. They asked for hair sample analysis in agreement which is laughable because I don't have any hair on, nor drugs in, my body. So I presented a passed urinalysis. Also in response I asked my attorney to add that she has to pass drug screening as well if she demands this of me. Believe a judge would agree with her living up to the same standard that she is trying to place on me.

I will certainly not respond in anger to her attempt to create drama. For all I know she is recording these interactions. I usually just say okay and walk away. It is getting easier to do as time away from her progresses. I can now clearly see what she is doing. Trying to push buttons and trigger a response. During our ten years of marriage I now see how isolated she made me. I lost interest in the things and people I love and devoted myself to her sick world. No thanks I have better things to do with my life, like be happy, peaceful and surrounded by loving and supporting people.

[ForeverDad]

She really seems to think that she still has some control over me via her lawyers requests for urinalysis and other agreement details.

I am not just settling for whatever I get to get away from her though. I am also standing up to her via my attorney... . Also in response I asked my attorney to add that she has to pass drug screening as well if she demands this of me. Believe a judge would agree with her living up to the same standard that she is trying to place on me.

Projection or transference is a common blaming tactic.  Even if she's not abusing drugs, she is trying to make you look bad, or perhaps more accurately, at least worse than her.

You have to be careful to avoid, if possible, any hurdles and requirements that apply only to you.  It's a way for you to try to keep the field as level as possible and avoid being stuck playing a defensive-only game.

Dear Opposing Lawyer,

  My client has taken and passed a drug screening.  I will share the report with you once your client has taken her own certified drug screening and we exchange the reports.  Please be advised that your client raised the issue of drug screenings and if your client does not voluntarily submit to drug screenings as well then I will make it official in a motion to the court.

I can now clearly see what she is doing. Trying to push buttons and trigger a response. During our ten years of marriage I now see how isolated she made me. I lost interest in the things and people I love and devoted myself to her sick world. No thanks I have better things to do with my life, like be happy, peaceful and surrounded by loving and supporting people.

Isolation is a major tool used to keep us off balance, confused, distracted, impotent and blocked from support.

[free and happy]

Thanks foreverdad,

Copied your quote

":)ear Opposing Lawyer,

My client has taken and passed a drug screening.  I will share the report with you once your client has taken her own certified drug screening and we exchange the reports.  Please be advised that your client raised the issue of drug screenings and if your client does not voluntarily submit to drug screenings as well then I will make it official in a motion to the court."

and sent to my attorney. So far he has told me that our attorney's are discussing the case issues and leave it at that.

[livednlearned]

I don't even talk to my ex during exchanges. He is not allowed to get out of his car when he drops off S11. If he needs to talk to me, he must email -- text if it's an emergency. No phone conversations.

My new philosophy is that if someone makes false allegations about me, that person loses the privilege of having ordinary, reasonable conversations with me f2f.

You did the right thing. 

LnL

[free and happy]

Thanks LnL. You folks on this site have helped me to stay strong and do the right thing. Much appreciated. I am slowly but surely learning what "normal behavior" is. Am seeing clearly her attempts to present and maintain a her superiority complex.

[VeryFree]

My soon-to-be x also tries to communicate 1-on-1.

Advice from everyone, from psychologist to policemen: don't do it!

Communicate through email not in person and even then: when concerning major things, let it to your legal advisor.

If you have to meet face-to-face: be sure to have on or more witnesses. And make sure you're never alone with your x and a witness of him/her!

[free and happy]

Excellent advice veryscared. Thanks. She did it again this morning.

I quote: Me: Sunday agin witht the kids?

EX BFD: Have you had a look at the FA draft? My lawyer recommended for us to talk as much as possible with each other in order to get this over with quickly. What do you think?

I have advised my attroney about this exchange and asked him to ask her attorney to stop with this harassment immediately. It is obvious to me that she is using the opportunity to communicate, not about the childrens visitation, but to create a drama and/or record me responding in a certain manner to be used against me later and/or or try to communicate about her wants and needs disguised as an innocent question to me. Now she will most likely say I did not respond back to her so she has already planned something else with the kids on sunday. We have no temporary agreement cooncerning visitation at the moment but this surely reinforces the fact that I need one.

[david]

The last time I was physically present with xBPDw was three years ago. She had just kicked our oldest son out of her place and called me to pick him up or she was calling the police and having him taken away. We were going through a custody issue in court. Son was by the curb sobbing because of whatever happened. He was an honors student and a very good kid. He was 11.5 at the time. I picked son up and ex came out of her place "wanting to talk about it". I thought it best to leave and find out his side first and then email ex. I went to jail for the weekend and later was convicted of disorderly conduct and put in prison for two weeks. I didn't raise my voice or touch her in any way. The courts are extremely dysfunctional. Since then I carry a video camera and an audio recorder that recfords for 1100 hours. Both can be downloaded on a computer. The video camera is eyefi (similar to wifi). I let ex know what I was doing and she hasn't come near me since. I only communicate through email. She has tried a multitude of methods to get around that but I am very strong with that boundary. I have no desire to visit prison again. Email is a great form of documenting and as long as you stay focused in your email things work well for the kids and me.

[DreamGirl]

In certain divorces (a lot of the time actually) both parties are able to sit down and come to an amicable agreement. In my own divorce from my ex-husband, we sat down at the local pub and hashed out the parenting agreement and division of assets in an afternoon. My divorce cost less then $1,000 because we were able to agree on just about everything (and where mediation ironed out the rest).

However, my current husband's divorce from his ex-wife cost him 20 times that because they weren't able to agree on anything. His wife suffered from BPD and the stress of the divorce sent her into a tailspin - including but not limited to: false domestic violence accusations, parental alienation efforts, withholding visitation, and manic phone calls (ranging from crying, screaming, giddy, yelling).

I'm guessing that your wife's lawyer is probably encouraging his client to take the cheaper route - agree on as much as possible and iron out the rest in lawyer negotiations (or mediation). He perhaps may not know that his client isn't an agreeable person.

Our job in this, as the non-disordered half of the parenting duo, is to keep ourselves protected from what is sure to not be an amicable divorce (when a high-conflict personality is involved).  It is also in our best interest, along with our children's best interest, to try our very best to remain grounded in that. I think you are absolutely spot on in showing the courts that you are being non-reactionary to the person with the high-conflict personality. Like my husband's ex-wife, she probably won't need a whole lot of help in proving that she is the one who has issues.

I don't know that firing back with "harassment" accusations and demanding she be drug tested even though you know that it's not an issue (since she did it to you) is going to prove that you won't engage in her conflict style. (Not a judgement, just an observation)

What boundary, exactly, are you trying to set with your ex-wife?

You want all communication about court stuff to be thru the lawyers?

You want communication to be only about the kiddos?

You want Email communication rather then face to face?

-DG

[free and happy]

Thanks dreamgirl,

You may be right about the mutual drug screen question being more of a reaction from me. I will let that one go.

As far as what I want as boundaries:

Court stuff should be through lawyers. She is only trying to play control games with me in attempting to communicate about them. She is hoping that I will negotiate with her since she has placed such "unreasonable expectations" of me. I have already answered her that I am fine with the agreement. So its a mute point for me. Her question about what I want to change is selfish at best. It is she who wants to change things but I don't want to hear it. It would only be a continuation of the emotional abuse that I am trying to get away from.

I would like for all our communication to be only about the children,i.e., visitation, health, school, etc... I have nothing else to say or share with her. She has never listened to me anyhow. The reasons I filed for divorce were. 1) To get out of an emotionally abusive relationship 2) To guarantee my time with my children so we can freely express our ourselves with one another without the intference of their mother. It is really that simple for me.

Our communication should be left to emails. Face to face she continually makes insulting remarks and facial expressions that I do not want to experience in my life any longer.

[david]

Our court order specifically calls for email communication and only in dealing with the kids. Ex still sends emails about all kinds of things that are wrong with me. I put them in a folder and ignore. If an email also contains something about the kids I answer that point only and ignore the rest. It takes practice. I used to receive about 40 emails a month and only replied to about 5 max. The rest had nothing to do with the kids. After three plus years this has subsided a bit.

Think about what you want from the court order and why it is best for the kids. Have it spelled out for the judge. Several years ago a judge said he would give us two weeeks to come up with a plan and he would make a decision based on that. I had 14 points written. 13 of them were spelled out very precisely. Ex rambled about how I was trying to control her, the courts, the judge, etc. The judge wrote his order with the 13 specific things I had written exactly as I had written them. Ex has tried many times to change or circumvent the orders since they all came from me. I spelled out holidays (you really need to look at their school calendar for all days off), ROFR, how changes are to be made (through email only and once both parties agree it can not be changed without both parties agreeing in another email). I basically sat down and thought about all the difficulties we were having and wrote a way to minimize confrontations and disagreements.

[BillTheCat]

Our court order specifically calls for email communication and only in dealing with the kids. Ex still sends emails about all kinds of things that are wrong with me. I put them in a folder and ignore. If an email also contains something about the kids I answer that point only and ignore the rest. It takes practice. I used to receive about 40 emails a month and only replied to about 5 max. The rest had nothing to do with the kids. After three plus years this has subsided a bit.

Think about what you want from the court order and why it is best for the kids. Have it spelled out for the judge. Several years ago a judge said he would give us two weeeks to come up with a plan and he would make a decision based on that. I had 14 points written. 13 of them were spelled out very precisely. Ex rambled about how I was trying to control her, the courts, the judge, etc. The judge wrote his order with the 13 specific things I had written exactly as I had written them. Ex has tried many times to change or circumvent the orders since they all came from me. I spelled out holidays (you really need to look at their school calendar for all days off), ROFR, how changes are to be made (through email only and once both parties agree it can not be changed without both parties agreeing in another email). I basically sat down and thought about all the difficulties we were having and wrote a way to minimize confrontations and disagreements.

David... .   would you mind sharing the points you spelled out?  I may be in need of something similar, and I'm trying to get a general guideline.

Thank you!

[david]

I spelled out every holiday for an entire year. Any day you or ex consider a holiday is a holiday in the courts view. Our boys are 14 and 9 now. Schools have several inservices during the year and the kids are off. These days may not always be the same day each year but the kids are off and if the school normally has three inservices then you have three days to consider.  Thanksgiving week, Christmas week, Easter week are all spelled out.

Right of first refusal. I had problems with ex trying to play games with this before the court order. I was also contacted by ex's xmother in law and was told that she played this game before. She would offer the boys and then change things last minute. I wrote ROFR that had to be in an email and both parties had to agree. Once an agreement was reached it could not be changed unless both parties agreed in an email.

During exchanges , depending on who is picking up, the "residential" parent at that time must stay in their residence until the other party drove away. This kept a physical boundary so ex couldn't start to engage. Ex has tried to approach me but I have a video camera and an audio recorder with me because of false allegations of abuse.

All communication is through email and must be responded to within 48 hours. THis only applies to something that pertains to the children. I used to get about 40 to 50 emails a month and only had to reply to about 3 to 5. The rest were just letting me know what else was wrong with me so they didn't need a response. This has diminished but has not stopped.

Phone contact is for emergency only and the party calling must leave a voicemail. Ex has called me from a multitude of different phone numbers so I no longer answer my cell if I do not recognize the number. She still leaves voicemails and I have never viewed the call as an emergency. Prior to this she would call just to fight. I would simply state I was not able to discuss the matter at that time and ask her to send an email. I would say goodbye and hang up.

A lot of the things I wrote were because of issues we had prior to this hearing. Ex left in 2007 and this was not resolved until late 2009 so I had two plus years of issues to get straightened out. Most of the things I wrote eliminated the problems we were having.

Of course, you can always agree in an email to change something in the court order temporarily or permanently. If you do this make sure it is spelled out as such and agreed to in an email.

[BillTheCat]

Thank you David!

It's kind of sad that we have to spell everything out in such detail, but if that's what it takes... .  

[david]

We had two years of never agreeing on anything I suggested and ex always tried to "win" by restricting the children. I wrote things that made sense to the court, addressed the issues I was having with seeing the kids without saying it directly, and locked everything in writing. Ex will follow the court order if I need to bring it up in an email.

I looked up online all kinds of sites to give me ideas on how to word things. The judge actually thought my atty wrote it.

I just used one of the clauses the other day. Ex sent me an email about the summer schedule. She shorted me about 5 days. Our order makes the summer 50/50. If the summer is an odd number of days the extra day is switched from year to year. That goes the same for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter break. I just pointed out the odd number rule and sent a schedule that also took care of the 5 days.