Awaiting verdict.

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

I am in hell.

I tried to finally leave stbexBpdw.

She had me charged with assault with a weapon.

She went back to the police station and made another statement which  resulted in 2nd more  charges being added.

To keep up appearances she stayed in a women's shelter with our son  for three weeks.

I was released on recognizance order. No contact except through a lawyer.

I had to go to family court to fet time with my  3.5yr old son.

I can see him two days per week unsupervised from 9 am to 5 pm.  It has been that way for a year.

I have been  to trial.  1of the charges was dropped.

12 weeks later the closing statements were made.

I am waiting for a decision.  It could next week.  It could be three months.

It looks like the weapon charge will be acquitted.

I will probably get convicted of the remaining charge.

The crown painted her as the battered wife never reached out for help because i'd convinced her that no one would believe her.

My truth never came out as my lawyer said courts won't believe a man is abused.

My truth does not exist.  My pain does not matter.  I stay to the  script, document everything, and be silent, never to rock the boat as it will only against me.

I have exhausted all my savings.

If i'm acquitted, i can maybe get overnights if I take her into family court again.

If found guilty, i lose both my jobs, and possibly am restricted further from seeing my son.

There is so much sympathy for those who suffer from BPD and the pain they feel.

What about those whose lives  they  ruin?  How much suffering do we go through.

There is no truth that matters it seems.

I give my son the best of  me I can.  I validate him, love him, and only speak happily of mommy.

Everyone, I'm over it.

I'm afraid, very stressed, and tired.

[chefbruce]

I am in hell.

I tried to finally leave stbexBpdw.

She had me charged with assault with a weapon.

She went back to the police station and made another statement which  resulted in 2nd more  charges being added.

To keep up appearances she stayed in a women's shelter with our son  for three weeks.

I was released on recognizance order. No contact except through a lawyer.

I had to go to family court to fet time with my  3.5yr old son.

I can see him two days per week unsupervised from 9 am to 5 pm.  It has been that way for a year.

I have been  to trial.  1of the charges was dropped.

12 weeks later the closing statements were made.

I am waiting for a decision.  It could next week.  It could be three months.

It looks like the weapon charge will be acquitted.

I will probably get convicted of the remaining charge.

The crown painted her as the battered wife never reached out for help because i'd convinced her that no one would believe her.

My truth never came out as my lawyer said courts won't believe a man is abused.

My truth does not exist.  My pain does not matter.  I stay to the  script, document everything, and be silent, never to rock the boat as it will only against me.

I have exhausted all my savings.

If i'm acquitted, i can maybe get overnights if I take her into family court again.

If found guilty, i lose both my jobs, and possibly am restricted further from seeing my son.

There is so much sympathy for those who suffer from BPD and the pain they feel.

What about those whose lives  they  ruin?  How much suffering do we go through.

There is no truth that matters it seems.

I give my son the best of  me I can.  I validate him, love him, and only speak happily of mommy.

Everyone, I'm over it.

I'm afraid, very stressed, and tired.

[ForeverDad]

Chef, it's a mixed bag, glad at least one charge has been dropped, concerned about the other charges.

I can see him two days per week unsupervised from 9 am to 5 pm.  It has been that way for a year... .

If I'm acquitted, I can maybe get overnights if I take her into family court again.

If found guilty, I lose both my jobs, and possibly am restricted further from seeing my son.

I give my son the best of me I can.  I validate him, love him, and only speak happily of mommy.

Good news, some time is better than nothing, also it gives a history of parenting without allegations, at least not unsubstantiated or meaningless ones.

The future for parenting, well, you will soon know how that goes.  Either way, it will be an uphill struggle since she is so oppositional and willing to make false allegations.

I have been to trial.  1 of the charges was dropped.  I am waiting for a decision.

It looks like the weapon charge will be acquitted.

I will probably get convicted of the remaining charge.

The crown painted her as the battered wife never reached out for help because I'd convinced her that no one would believe her.

My truth never came out as my lawyer said courts won't believe a man is abused.

My truth does not exist.  My pain does not matter.  I stay to the script, document everything, and be silent, never to rock the boat as it will only against me.

So sorry about your predicament.  Let's hope the court will consider that your history of spotless behavior before and after you had a relationship with her will reduce the court's inclination to make a guilty finding.

From your post it sounds like your lawyer had you playing only a defensive strategy.  As they say with football, soccer and other competitive games, you'd have a hard time winning a game by only playing defense.

Be aware of one thing.  If you had made a plea deal and admitted to some level of guilt, you would never be able to legally claim you are innocent (or framed).  Even if the judge rules against you and makes a finding of guilt, you can still proclaim your innocence.

Going forward, I'm sure you've learned, you can never ever display improper behaviors toward your ex or express your feelings to her.  If that happened you can be sure they will be used against you.  Lets hope the next step forward is getting overnights and weekends.  (We can help with that when the time comes.)

One aspect that saddens me is that you haven't posted here about your case since the first month you came here and therefore you didn't take full advantage of our peer support, hard-won insights and extensive collective experience.  We wish we could have helped you more as the case developed and wound its way through the court.  Please, don't hesitate to ask and share.  We're more than willing to "pay it forward" to you.

[chefbruce]

Thank you for the reply Foreverdad.

I may not have posted, but it doesn't mean I haven't been around.  I have learned a fair amount from reading many posts here. 

I learned to accept that the fire will keep coming.

I learned much better how to handle family court lawyers.

I learned that there will never be comprimise, she will never settle.  (Believe me, I offered to walk away from everything we owned if I could get a little more time with my son.  She flatly refused.)

It is a small comfort, as much as it is crippling to see how others have been hurt like me. 

I have been validated by seeing others in the court system go through the same business.

I think I needed to vent really.  It's been a long frustrating year, absolutely. 

I've watched too many videos of BPD's wanting people to understand them.  I'm a little jaded.  I don't want to.

(I understand more than I want to, but I research the hell out of it to  learn how to protect myself and my son as he grows.)

I've done a lot of research over the last year about the family court mechanisms as well, but  quite honestly, my hands have been pretty well tied with the other matters, so it's been a hurry up and wait game.  I haven't been able accomplish much, with the exception of spending a lot of money in legal fees, and spinning wheels.  The decision was to go dormant and just let things play out until the criminal matter was over.

I keep all the communication from her lawyer.  As you can imagine, there's a lot of little hurtful remarks. 

I will be trying to limit communication, (when it starts) to email only (via a clause in a court order) so that communication can be tracked.  I will leave no room for her to set me up again. I will never answer a phone call from her.

Thankfully, p.u and d.o is at the daycare, so I don't have to see her.  We'll continue that way.

It feels like a cold war.  You know?

From what I've been reading, I'm in the early stages of it with many more chapters to come.

I don't know Foreverdad, what I could add that would help others here.  I would want to.

I looked at my last posts and it was a lot of 'woe is me.'  and I don't mean it to be.  It's just the place I was in.

I think I'm doing the right things for now.  LOL... .I mean, I'm not really doing anything, just keeping a low profile.

[livednlearned]

Hi chefbruce,

No need to apologize for feeling woe. That is what we all feel, you fit right here in if you're struggling to see the good in anything while going through these experiences. 

For a lot of people here, these divorces are the worst thing they've been through, and having kids together plus dealing with the legal system can be the eighth circle of hell. My ex is a former trial lawyer so he engaged in "legal abuse" to stay negatively engaged, and I began to feel that I had PTSD from the court hearings alone. Security guards at the court house would motion me to go through the lawyer entrance because I was there so often, they thought I was part of the system.

And it's hard to go through these experiences only to come out the other side and have years of coparenting or parallel parenting ahead.

What kept me sane, and actually made my life feel better in many ways than pre-BPDx, is trying to figure out how to offset my ex's mental illness with my own emotional resilience, so that my son had a flying chance to grow up whole. As far as I can tell, that is the only silver lining to the train wreck of a high-conflict divorce. Try to keep your heart open so your son sees your resilience. It's hard -- it can take time and there's no rush. You have a lot going on right now and the bitterness is fresh. It took me two years to return to a state of healing that wasn't rocked so hard by shock and hurt.

It's easy to feel jaded, like you mention, about the videos of people trying to understand BPD. A person with BPD has little to no empathy for all the reasons that go with the disorder. If you have a child together, there is an increased risk for the sensitive genotype that explains 60% of the disorder, at least in terms of genetics. I've seen the number as high as 70%, with the rest being explained by environment. Paying attention to it in my son has made me see BPD from a different perspective, although that has not precluded me from having zero zilch zero nada contact with my ex husband. N/BPDx lost custody and the judge terminated visitation, so if it weren't for the ongoing challenges my son has (anxiety/depression) it would be a relatively happy ending, as much as such a thing is possible in the wreckage of BPD relationships.

Make this about your son, like you said. That's the "win" if there is such a thing in these high-conflict divorces. I became a better parent, and the two of us, me and S13, have some fine-tuned emotional skills as a result. You can do the same with your son, and these skills will stick because they're a far better option than what his mother will offer. Help him learn to manage her so he is not the victim of her parenting.

Stay ahead of the parental alienation as best you can. Get "I Don't Have To Make Everything Better" to take your parenting skills to a whole other level. Validation is the empathy-based skill that keeps us deeply connected to the reality our kids experience, which is challenged on a daily basis by their highly invalidating BPD parent. We don't have any room to slip up and make mistakes, we have to be masters at this validation work. You've probably seen Divorce Poison mentioned here too. That's also a must-read. And I think the videos by Dr. Childress explaining parental alienation are excellent. He is the newer generation of researcher that in ways surpasses Divorce Poison, although more from an explanatory point of view, less helpful tips to protect our kids.

My custody order went so far as to prevent my ex from getting out of his car on my property. He had to drop S13 off at the curb. Of course, he drove into the driveway   though only once got out of the car, and that was after a full-blown all-night psychotic episode that broke something inside me. I will never let someone treat me like that -- all that codependency business collapsed and I grew a titanium backbone that has made me unapologetic about my boundaries. That's a pretty good silver lining. I hope you find the same strength in your own experience. You have certainly been through enough to earn that strength.