It's harder when she's being "good".

[Nope]

My fiance's BPDex is actually following the parenting plan right now and has been all month. This is the first time this has ever happened. This week she went so far as to even follow the spirit of the parenting plan by calling when S9 was sick and making the mutual decision with my fiance that it was best for S9 to stay home from school an extra day. And then in a totally unheard of move she let him talk to both kids then instead of only on the parenting plan mandated time.

As far as I can tell there are three reasons for this:

1. She is single. I can see on her FB that she recently made friends on FB with a younger guy who would never be interested in her and has a girlfriend. But he is a lot like my fiance and even works in the exact same profession. So it's pretty clear she is seeing my fiance as good right now and probably hoping for a recycle.

2. We had to withdraw our last filing basically due to our lawyer's incompetence and health problems my fiance is having. So since there is no pending court date and nobody has actually forced her to pay a penny of the Contempt finding she owes, she is probably not feeling any threat and figures if she is good for awhile we won't be able to use everything she was doing just a month ago in a new contempt filing later.

3. She is probably up to no good and if we went after her now we would be more likely to get somewhere. I say this because I'm pretty sure she now has her mom and a bunch of her mom's dogs living with her and the three kids in a tiny two bedroom house. Certainly not a situation she would want a custody investigator walking into.

Still. We are on the verge of getting this whole thing figured out with a new lawyer and filing for Contempt and Custody of both kids. But my fiance us sort of more reluctant to throw everything at her while she is being good. I wonder if the judge will see her bad behavior as something we cause by dragging her into court.

[marbleloser]

I'm going through the same thing. It's a nice break actually,except for her wanting me to travel with them(Nope,not gonna happen!) and telling me how nice I look. 

Remember that you catch more bees with honey.  It's a good time to negotiate if you can when this happens.

Also,she may be aware of the contempt charge and is just walking the line to offset that.I would imagine her L would advise to do that.

[ForeverDad]

But my fiance is sort of more reluctant to throw everything at her while she is being good.

He knows it will change, it's just a matter of time.  You can't formulate long term strategies and actions based on the other's Moods of the Moment.

I wonder if the judge will see her bad behavior as something we cause by dragging her into court.

He's an adult, she's an adult.  Both are responsible for their own actions, not the other's reactions and overreactions.  If she gets triggered, that's just the way it is, not his fault.  Actually it should focus attention on his stability and her instability.  Hopefully the court won't look at her poor behaviors and blame it on him.  The court ought to be smart enough not to be fooled by blame-shifting.

[DreamGirl]

It is tough when the situation is neutralized to ask for change.

Still. We are on the verge of getting this whole thing figured out with a new lawyer and filing for Contempt and Custody of both kids. But my fiance us sort of more reluctant to throw everything at her while she is being good. I wonder if the judge will see her bad behavior as something we cause by dragging her into court.

It's part of not being attached to what she's doing.

If there is something that needs to be addressed in court because all other avenues have been exhausted? Then it needs to be addressed in court. He also needs to feel confident and focused - not reluctant.

My husband still, to this day, 9 years later, has a certain kind of black and white view of the mama of his kiddos. She really can be cooperative and accommodating when she wants to be. She also really can be neither of those things.  

As a covert way to help him in this, without vomitting all my views and assessments on their situation, I might ask my own husband what time frame he would need for her "good" behavior to feel that it was going to be her new pattern for her. Three months would be a good benchmark. My guess is that it can not be sustained for that long.

If it did? Who knows?

[Nope]

I'm going through the same thing. It's a nice break actually,except for her wanting me to travel with them(Nope,not gonna happen!) and telling me how nice I look. 

That's how I picked my screen name for this site. When we first started dating and she would call he would literally jump to always answer the phone immediately. Didn't matter what we were doing or where we were. He had no idea how to set boundaries with her at all. I tolerated it the first two times it happened. The third time I said, "Nope, this isn't how it's going to be." And that is when we began working on boundaries for his BPDex together.

If there is something that needs to be addressed in court because all other avenues have been exhausted? Then it needs to be addressed in court. He also needs to feel confident and focused - not reluctant.

I agree. Mediation went nowhere. Calm communication fell on deaf ears. She was actually talking about the good stuff in their marriage and, essentially, trying to circle around to a recycle back at the beginning of the summer. In the same breath she refused to give him the three extra days it would take for him to have the kids for Father's Day. Even when she's being "good" her "good" only goes so far. I reminded him of this and he agreed. He is just afraid that the little bit of nice she ever is will end totally if we take her to court for custody and lose.

He's an adult, she's an adult.  Both are responsible for their own actions, not the other's reactions and overreactions.  If she gets triggered, that's just the way it is, not his fault.  Actually it should focus attention on his stability and her instability.  Hopefully the court won't look at her poor behaviors and blame it on him.  The court ought to be smart enough not to be fooled by blame-shifting.

The court aught to. But you never know. We've had this magistrate before and I've now had two lawyers tell me he is unpredictable and sometimes just plain doesn't listen. We actually lost the contempt case with him and had to win it on appeal to the actual judge. She doesn't know it yet but we are going back for both custody and a second round of contempt. (For the same issues as last time, plus a few more, plus non-payment of the first finding.)

The L is saying we should ask to have the crappy parenting plan that is in place (that she can't follow anyway) terminated and that he should ask for sole custody. Between the provable history of her being unwilling to negotiate, and a slew of provable facts that show she isn't the most fit parent, we might get somewhere. The thing is, all we actually want is residential custody. We live three states away so even joint 50/50 custody that we have with her right now plays out no better than visitation. (Six weeks in the summer, every other major holiday, and one weekend a month in her area provided we can afford the expense of the trip.) And that's exactly how it would play out for her if we had residential even if custody technically stayed 50/50.

Our biggest obstacle seems to be proving that the situation is bad enough that the court should let us take the kids out of the state because the court obviously knows that even at 50/50 custody she'll be getting approximately two months of parenting time per year. And, I hate to say it because I know it makes non mama's mad but, she *is* their mother.

[ForeverDad]

She will always be their mother.  But... .the children need as much positive in their lives as possible. 

"but, she *is* their mother."

I could just as easily counter with this reply:

"but, he *is* their father."

Ponder that.  Step back and see that objective perspective.   In these days of professed gender equality a mother is not more than a father, at least not in writing.

It'll be hard enough to convince the court to make a change, don't discourage yourselves over who is mother or father, they both are.  The question is with whom the children would do better and grow up mentally, emotionally and physically healthy!

[Nope]

She will always be their mother.  But... .the children need as much positive in their lives as possible. 

"but, she *is* their mother."

I could just as easily counter with this reply:

"but, [the e[/u] *is* their father."

Ponder that.  Step back and see that objective perspective.   In these days of professed gender equality a mother is not more than a father, at least not in writing.

It'll be hard enough to convince the court to make a change, don't discourage yourselves over who is mother or father, they both are.  The question is with whom the children would do better and grow up mentally, emotionally and physically healthy!

If that really is what matters then hands down they should be here and as long as the court and the custody investigator are willing to listen and look at the evidence this should be a no brainer.

Sometimes I have a hard time looking at this situation and picturing it without gender bias attached.My parents got a divorce over 25 years ago and no matter what my own mother did to prove herself unfit, no matter how many requests for a child services investigation were filed against her by the people at the school and elsewhere, nobody would give my father the slightest bit of help. Didn't matter that he had a good job, owned a house, and always paid support on time. He was always the bad guy.

I guess hearing him tell me over and over again that "She'll practically have to kill them before you can hope to get anywhere with the court" is really having a negative impact on my outlook.

[ForeverDad]

Look at me.  I mean, my experience.  I was not the one arrested for making death threats (later dismissed, I sometimes wonder if it was because it was her first time before the court).  Yet I consistently got alternate weekends from the start.  The court's own social worker recommended I get more time.  The matter of custody was referred to a custody evaluator and he recommended mother immediately lose temp custody. The court didn't act on either recommendation.  After over two years in the separation/divorce process I walked out with a settlement for equal time and Residential Parent.  Son had already lost his pediatrician (services withdrawn after an incident), then school gave me one day to transfer our son to my school, then I lost my daycare (services withdrawn after they had an incident with ex).  More incidents and I filed for Change of Circumstances and Custody which I got 3 years later.  Now, another 2.5 years and I'm still trying for majority time.

I cannot imagine in the least that if the genders were reversed, where a reasonably normal mother who had an unreasonable father start out with majority time, I can't imagine it would take family court 8 years to fix things for a mother.

However, we do have mothers here who have real struggles in court due to their possessive ex-spouses.  So it's possible that it's not just a matter of gender.  It can also be that the courts appease the determined but messed up parents too since they're so quick to demand their rights and threaten to appeal, sue, etc.

It's not a sprint for any of us, it's a marathon.