No justice in this life.

[Jnah2004]

I don't know how much more I can take. My wife and I went to divorce mediation three weeks ago and after eight hours and 2400 dollars we came to an agreement. This was agreed to in the presence of a court appointed mediator and legal counsel for both sides. The papers were to be drawn up in a couple of days and to be signed. Since then my wife has avoided signing them and wants more money, money I don't have. Plus, my wife has cut off all visitation with my 13 year old daughter except for a couple of hours every two weeks. My daughter will not answer my texts of phone calls. I am tired of this sick person getting away with everything.

[marbleloser]

Any agreement that was signed in mediation is done. If nothing was signed,then it was all for nothing. Go to court and let the judge decide.I'll almost guarantee you'll get a better deal.

[GaGrl]

Agree.  Just tell your lawyer to proceed with a court date to take the signed mediation papers to the judge.  Tell your STBX that the court date is being set (better yet, do it quickly and tell her what the date is).

[ForeverDad]

Courts, lawyers and all the other professionals prefer agreements and settlements.  Besides not being able to appeal them to a higher court, they are hoping both parents can better accept the end of the marital relationship and move on in their lives with lessened animosity.  Well, that won't work with about 15% of divorces where one or both parents have a Cluster B (acting out) personality disorder such as Narcissistic, Borderline, Antisocial, Histrionic and I'll include Paranoid too.  When you can't reason with one parent then the only way mediation or settlement conferences can work is when it is done from a position of strength.  In my case (and for many others too) it was when the ex could not delay, obstruct, deny, block or oppose any more.  That generally is when a huge hearing or trial is looming.  Frankly, getting a reasonable deal any sooner is unrealistic, a deal too soon would be overwhelmingly unfair to you.

For example, after 2 excruciating years in court doing everything on the court's long checklist - mediation, parenting investigation, custody evaluation, settlement conference, various continuances, etc - when I arrived at the court house on Trial Morning only then was I greeted with the news my ex was finally ready to settle and my settlement was made during the time scheduled for the trial.

Do you have Bill Eddy & Randi Kreger's essential divorce handbook?  It is ridiculously inexpensive and available at both their websites as well as at Amazon and other bookstores.

Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

So why did your ex decide to renege on the settlement?  Duh!  Because she now knows how much you were willing to give in and so she thinks you'll give in some more, over and over and over again every time she balks.  That's my initial impression from here in remote peer support, based on prior experience.  At this point in the divorce process, you'd have better results getting an order from the judge than from her.  A judge will be at least somewhat reasonable, something you will never get from your ex unless she is forced to do that.

There are two major aspects to a divorce - (1) financial division of marital assets and debts and (2) parenting issues such as custody and parenting schedule.  The first is fairly straightforward and the judge will do it if you two can't agree.  The second is more complicated and will take longer for evaluations to be completed but it too can be decided by a judge if you two can't agree.  Yet the court really wants settlements and so will let the process move slowly hoping you two will see reason and get fed up with a slow court.  You can see that but it will have no impact on your ex.  In fact, since she probably have a favorable temp order right now, as mine did, she has every incentive to make both unreasonable demands and to drag it out as long as she can.

The problem here is that your daughter is only 4-5 years away from family court involvement.  All too soon, when she is an older teen, they may not even require her to see you.  After all, once kids get a license and a vehicle, they can vote with their feet.  However, meanwhile you need to try to get court to order counseling for daughter, stressing that it's not normal for a child to want to avoid a reasonably normal parent to the point where it's just a few hours - that's typical for supervised visitation and that's only done for extreme situations - and with mother refusing anything more, there's a risk of the child having been influenced to comply with those demands as well.

Besides getting the court to order more meaningful time with your daughter, you need to get your daughter into meaningful and effective counseling.  Mother of course will refuse or try to seek out a gullible enabler counselor, so you'll have to do that through the court.  Unless you're a horrendously terrible person, your daughter would not shun you by her own choice.  Likely she's been influenced for years to side with her mother and of course you're left on the outside looking in.  Do you have Richard Warshak's Divorce Poison?  It discusses parental alienation attempts and how to deal with them.

As a final footnote, what we have is a judicial system, not a justice system.  Yes, it's a lousy deal but it's the hand we've been dealt and so we have to work with it the best we can.

[Forestaken]

I agree with all the above.

My side has offered to settle.

Her L was ready with a counter.

It never was sent because she woudn't authorize it.

Accept the fact that there is going to be a trial. 

I know you don't want it but it's not in your control.

[momtara]

Are you sure she won't sign it?  Maybe at the last minute, she will.  Maybe her lawyer or someone else will advise her to do it. 

Also, she's not allowed to cut off contact.  Document everything.  Photograph your text stream.

I feel your frustration and hurt coming through.  Wish I could give you a hug.  But know that it isn't over. 

Very hard to get into the head of someone with BPD in this situation, and sometimes they surprise you (but you never know why!)  So she may still sign it.

[ForeverDad]

Was your daughter pulling away from you before the separation?  I ask for two reasons.  If your daughter really doesn't want to communicate with you then court might listen to her to some extent.  The other reason is that your daughter not responding to your texts or calls could be due to the pressure, manipulation or disinformation from her mother.  If your spouse is blocking or sabotaging your reasonable parenting, then the only recourse you have is to petition the court to set a parenting schedule.  You know you won't be able to reason with your spouse.  You may not like the court's temporary order, it may not be 50/50 as it ought to be to counteract her extreme alienation.  But it's a guarantee your spouse won't like the court's order since what she wants is something similar to limited supervised visitation.  As long as you're not neglecting, abusing or endangering your child, that won't happen.

In general the minimum visitation (I prefer the phrase 'parenting time' is 2.5 to 3.5 days on alternate weekends (Thu-Sun, Fri-Sun or Fri-Mon) and an evening or overnight in between.  An older teen - approaching the driving ages-  may or may night have the visit in between visits dropped.

Beware, temporary orders often morph into final orders.  Courts are reluctant to mess with a schedule that appears to be working.  So try to get the best parenting schedule and custodial involvement that you can from the very start.  You won't get that from ex, it has to be the court and possibly you'll even have to hold their toes to the metaphorical fire to get them to see the need due to mother's active sabotaging.