Questions

[tayana]

I'm just getting out of a 5 year relationship with my partner who I suspect has BPD.  For five years I've been made to believe that all of the problems in our relationship were mine for not being caring enough, too selfish, not paying attention to her, etc.  We have 1 child together and I have 1 from another relationship.  This is a same sex relationship so we are not legally married, however, we have joint accounts and share parenting responsibilities with the kids.  Although my ex swears she would never take our youngest child and deny me access, I don't really believe her.  She has threatened this several times.  I had this child for her because she could not have children, but she has not formally adopted him.  At this point, I'm not sure I want her to.  In the last two months, she has spent 3 weeks hospitalized for PTSD, recurrent flashbacks, suicidal thoughts, depression and anxiety.  I now worry about the kids being with her all the time, and since my youngest is "hers" that she will try to run off with him.  She has a girlfriend who is currently in jail that she want to have move in the house we still share.  I don't want the girlfriend there, but she might have to stay shortly until she can get back on her feet.  My ex currently does not have a job, money or a car.  She is spending "our" money to visit and talk to her girlfriend.  Since she is mentally unstable, her methods of dealing with my oldest child border on abuse.  She carries these out without talking to me.  I've had to disclose some of this to providers of services for my youngest child who are now concerned.  I'd prefer not to have DFS show up at my door.  What legal ramifications could happen because of this situation?

[ForeverDad]

Probably you need some private confidential consultations with family law attorneys.  An experienced lawyer should have knowledge and legal advice about your state's laws and processes.  Being the birth mother should give you a strong edge, but that may depend too on your state.  Good thing you didn't do adoptions or something like that.  How much other paperwork does she have that indicates it's 'her' child?  Or is the parentage all basically verbal and presented to the public as 'hers'?

Going forward, don't put anything in writing that indicates the child is hers and not yours.

Once you know where you stand legally, then you can move forward.  Get it done quickly.  Now, while she's behaving erraticaly and even dangerously is an appropriate time to make choices but first find out quickly what your options are.

[Forward2free]

Trust your instincts and plan for the best interests of both children.

FD is right, now is the time to consult experts and plan for the best outcomes.

Playing fair with anyone that has a mental illness is near impossible because they never see what you're offering as fair, they always want more and will climb all over you to get it.

[tayana]

Currently, there is nothing that lists her as his birth parent.  She has listed herself as his parent on forms for the state to get him Medicaid, and since she gets food stamps, she also gets assistance there.  The DFS office has just never asked for proof of parentage.  His birth certificate does not have her name on it. 

She wanted us to go through co-parenting counseling and wanted me to ask my T about doing it.  This was right after she got out of the hospital.  Unfortunately, four my last T appts were canceled for illness. Either I was ill or my T was, or once my toddler was.  So I never got to ask.  The ex claims I just blatantly ignored her request, but we never really discussed it except in passing.  She keeps piling up things like this to "prove" my unfitness as a parent, and I'm not quite sure how to counter that.   She is very convincing in person.  I tend to be more introverted and quiet and don't do well in confrontational settings.  We were discussing the adoption idea at one point.  I was supposed to be doing research and hadn't really found any information regarding cost or procedure.  When I mentioned legal guardianship, she wanted to know if I would do that.   When I said no because it meant surrendering my rights, she flew off the handle and basically threatened to blackmail me if I didn't pursue the adoption.  She said she would get statements from both boys' providers regarding parenting "mistakes" or "neglect" because everyone knows that she is the one doing everything, not me.  She threatened to get video footage of me breastfeeding in the hospital when I wasn't supposed to, even though we had agreed to switch back to breast milk at that point.  Our son was having digestive problems and he was tolerating this better than what we were supposed to be doing. 

She pressured me into taking my oldest child to the hospital under threat of leaving with the baby, and at one point packed the car and started to leave.  I was still nursing at the time and the baby was six months old.  She swears now that it was going to be temporary, but at the time, she was taking him two states away and never offered to meet me in the middle so I could see him.  She swears she did.  My oldest ended up placed in a residential setting, and now she claims that I never wanted him and tried to get rid of him.  She almost always took him to the hospital though, and always pushed the hospital to keep him.  She had screamed at me over the phone when I had taken him because she didn't feel I was being aggressive enough in getting him committed.  I found out later she was exaggerating events.  I had to be the one to sign everything though since I was his parent.  She was the one making calls to police when he supposedly attacked his younger brother.  I am doubting the reality of these attacks now.  They always happened when she was home alone with the boys.  So my oldest child ended up with a reputation for violence that I'm not really sure he deserved.  I'm not saying he didn't have issues, but I think they were handled completely wrong.  Now though, she claims that all of these things were my ideas, even though I went along with them under pressure from her because the only time our home wasn't like a ticking bomb was when the teen wasn't here.  I didn't realize until she was in the hospital that most of the stress was from her, not the boys. 

So she has all this "evidence" now that she claims was my idea, when it wasn't, and I have no way to prove otherwise.  Right now, I feel like I have to comply with her to a certain extent because I don't want her to pursue trying to have me declared unfit.

[PattyG]

Tayana,

I totally feel for u. I too was involved in a same sex relationship and there are 4 kids involved. What state are u in? Can you Google case law for your state? (Use Google scholar) you need to separate residences NOW. You have all parental rights, but believe me if she senses u are leaving she will make it more difficult. Hide your important paperwork now. Birth certificates, ss cards. contact the pediatrician's offices and remove her name. After that start using singular verbage MY children, not our. I had such a hard time with this. If u weren't married, the kids are YOURs. She has mental health issues and was recently hospitalized... .   this is your window of opportunity.

I was still with my gf, but we didn't live together. She went behind my back to file for joint custody. The court was backed up 10 weeks. Fortunately, I found out. I am telling u this because she could go file and u not know. Also, her filing for benefits for your kids is fraud... .   plain and simple.

[tayana]

I'm in Missouri so we have no legal standing as a couple.  We did have a civil union in another state, but it's not legal here.  It doesn't seem like she can do much, other than file a DFS claim.

[ForeverDad]

Once you know where you stand legally, then you can move forward.  Get it done quickly.  Now, while she's behaving erraticaly and even dangerously is an appropriate time to make choices but first find out quickly what your options are.

You have all parental rights, but believe me if she senses u are leaving she will make it more difficult. Hide your important paperwork now. Birth certificates, ss cards. contact the pediatrician's offices and remove her name. After that start using singular verbage MY children, not our. I had such a hard time with this. If u weren't married, the kids are YOURS. She has mental health issues and was recently hospitalized... .   this is your window of opportunity.

I was still with my gf, but we didn't live together. She went behind my back to file for joint custody. The court was backed up 10 weeks. Fortunately, I found out. I am telling u this because she could go file and u not know.

That's why I wrote you need to find out where you stand legally and how to practically and legally disengage from her.  Clearly, she has serious issues and they won't go away anytime soon, if ever.  Her being in close or unsupervised contact with the children isn't helping her or the children.  Especialy not if she has been framing "your" older child as an abuser and "her" younger child as the victim.

This is a very, very important piece of peer support experience:  You need to keep some things confidential, especially regarding these custody/parenting matters.  She has no right to demand you do this or that, divulge this or that.  Be aware she knows how to interrogate you to get information.  She's no doubt had years of experience and knows your weak spots.  She knows how to make her demands, guilting, manipulating, pressuring, blaming, blame-shifting, etc.  Be fully aware of your past passive vulnerability to her tactics.  I cannot emphasize that too much.

Sadly, she's bad news in various ways.  Time to figure out what to do and then do it.  The longer you wait, the farther into the past her hospitalizations will be and the less impact those evidences of her mental illness will have to assist your efforts to disengage and protect both children long term.

Also, her filing for benefits for your kids is fraud... .   plain and simple.

A lot of agencies don't care much about fraud.  After all, it's not their money, it's only taxpayer money or borrowed Fed (deficit spending) money.   But allowing it to continue could weaken your efforts to establish you're the one and only parent.

By the way, don't move back to that other state.  Too risky and things would get a lot more complicated.

[PattyG]

What State were you legally joined in? The reason i ask, in NYS the only time the court over-ruled parental rights was when the couple was married in Vt a month before the child was born. In Vt all children born after a married are both parties kids, thus they upheld Vt law.

[ForeverDad]

Edit:  Sorry, posted to wrong thread.