The waiting is the hardest part

[Thunderstruck]

It's almost been a year since DH's CE was court odered. We've had to file three motions for extension of time. The CE said she's writing the report and it would be complete in March. Now we're halfway through June.       We've seen on the statements from the CE that she's written ~20 hours so far and she said it would take her 40 total (and two weeks to complete, but that was months ago).

It's been very frustrating to wait. We wanted to have this final hearing before school starts again at the end of August but it's looking less and less like that'll happen.

Please just reply to keep me sane.  

In the meantime, uBPDbm has started asking our L what DH's "end game" is. She sent this to the L this morning:

"Again, I am asking you, what is it that your client is seeking in all of this?  As acting as my own counsel, this is something I have a right to know so I can prepare as necessary, and it may change how I feel in regard to the Motion regarding [CE].  :)o you refuse to answer because you don't even know yourself?  :)oes anyone in your office know?  FOR MONTHS I have been requesting this information."

[GaGrl]

This must be frustrating! The CE doesn't appear to have a handle on workload and time management.

That being said, it's not your L's responsibility to disclose your goals or strategy to the ex.

Nice try on her part, though.

[bravhart1]

I can so sympathize!

We went through a CE last fall, got report in December and we got hearing in March. We have yet to see orders in writing. We NEED them in writing to enforce orders which we are following but now BPDm is not, knowing we can do nothing without the signed orders. She picks up SD from daycare when she feels like it and brings her back at whim. She has even been emboldened enough to email her intentions to take our ordered holidays. We got a parent co ordinator ordered but she I won't start without the signed order. It all sucks.

We are prob going to have to go back to court ($$$$) to get judge to ask her to pretty please follow the orders she agreed to in opine court (we are working off the transcripts at this point  )

Hang in there, and might I suggest that your L send the CE a email copied to other side asking for time frame update as her evaluation might be based on old information or too old once it gets filed if it's not finished soon. They only have a certain amount of time to complete the evaluation after the interviews, can your L tell you how close you are to that deadline?

[Nope]

I'm going to want a full rundown on what this document says when you do finally get it. It had better be longer than "The Grapes of Wrath" and just as detailed.

Since the BPD bio mom is representing herself, it appears she is pretty clueless on how all of this works. Based on what you've said, it sounds to me like she may be afraid and looking to settle out of court. Or at leaat find out what he has asked the CE for. She may just want confirmation that her view of what is happening is true. That DH wants to take the child away. Whatever the case, it's just noise, and should be ignored.

[Thunderstruck]

I'm going to want a full rundown on what this document says when you do finally get it. It had better be longer than "The Grapes of Wrath" and just as detailed.

  That's funny. I'm hoping that it is thorough, since it is taking so long.

It makes me nervous, because I'm thinking... .if it were me doing the CE and I thought a child was in a bad situation, I would want to resolve it quickly. So does she not think that this is a "bad enough" situation?

So I have to remind myself that after uBPDbm's first meeting with the CE, the CE had to call child services twice for abuse (mandatory reporting). And uBPDbm yelled at the CE when the CE got into a car accident and was late for an appointment (she told the CE it was inconvenient for her). I don't think uBPDbm did anything to mask her behaviors. She just stalled and data dumped (printed out books of "evidence" including our financials and a stack of emails with no reasoning).

L has already tried to touch base with the CE, and all we got was "she's working really hard on it". No estimated date of when it would be finished. L is at a hearing as I type this to extend the deadlines of the CE again  (and everything that hinges on it: parenting plan proposal, mediation, trial... .the last due date was in March). He's also hearing a motion to compel sanctions on uBPDbm since she hasn't complied with financial discovery.

[bravhart1]

If the CE saw BPDm at her worst (inconvenient for you to be in a car accident? Seriously?)

Then I would probably assume she is writing it to be sure judge sees it as rock solid, not to be questioned or challenged by BPD. This can be tricky and she is probably consulting with other CEs to make sure it makes the point without sounding prejudice. Just my take from what you've said.

We are filing today ourselves to get judges input on BPDms recent behavior and see if we can get some relief for SD from the PAS.

So basically back in court, two months after our CE was ordered to change it.

[Thunderstruck]

L's office contacted the CE's office yesterday. The CE says she believes we will have the report in a few days.

Fingers and toes and eyes and elbows crossed that it's strongly in our favor!

[Nope]

L's office contacted the CE's office yesterday. The CE says she believes we will have the report in a few days.

Fingers and toes and eyes and elbows crossed that it's strongly in our favor!

If the recommendations were going to be short and simple they wouldn't have taken this long. Be prepared to feel like you have to read the report five times completely to fully absorb it. At least that's how I felt. DH and I were also shocked by how much was in the report that we didn't know about.

Do you have a court date set up? Getting the evaluation is critical but is only one step. Then you'll have the waiting for the court date step and then be waiting for the decision. No other step should take as long as this one has. This was ridiculous by anyone's standards.

[Thunderstruck]

Do you have a court date set up? Getting the evaluation is critical but is only one step. Then you'll have the waiting for the court date step and then be waiting for the decision. No other step should take as long as this one has. This was ridiculous by anyone's standards.

If the report is strongly in our favor, then the L is going to file an emergency motion to get the temp order changed with the reasoning that we want to get it resolved before school starts.

We've also talked to the L about how uBPDbm is triggered and "working over" SD10 (our L has a good understanding of PD and factors her behaviors into his strategy). Her PA type manipulations will only get a zillion times worse once the report comes out if it's strongly against her. uBPDbm doesn't have anything going in her favor, and she thinks that manipulating SD10 to "choose" her side will have her win in court (even though the judge clearly told her he won't consider a child's opinion directly).

All of our deadline dates for mediation, court, etc were contingent upon the completion of the report so we don't have anything set up.

The first deadline is to file a parenting plan, then mediation, then pre-trial. We can knock the first two out quickly and move into trial, but I think uBPDbm is going to be uncooperative, dragging her heels, claiming to be "busy" to delay delay delay.

[bravhart1]

Our report was over eighty pages long from CE. Get your reading glasses ready!

The PA really ramped up from mom after report, even a stipulation in the order that mom must stop PA behavior sand vocalizations. But not happening, so we are back in court soon.

SD has told us that mom is asking her to " fight for her" in the upcoming battle. We try to explain to six year old that she has no power one way or the other so just roll with and trust what judge says.

Last night SD6 told us that she spoke to the judge on the phone recently. Which is either a complete fabrication or mom put a man on the phone claiming to be the judge to make SD think she was telling him what she wants 

Can't imagine the PA getting worse but since we are asking for supervised BPDm will go into full victim status.

She's back to telling SD that if she can get me out of the picture, then she will get back with dad and SD family can be restored and normal again.

I'm anxiously waiting to hear what your CE says, I almost think that there should be another layer of help and or support for us nons that have to go through this, like a data base of info when one of us gets the courts to listen and protect the child.

[Thunderstruck]

uBPDbm has that kind of behavior too. In the past she has told SD10 to write letters to the judge and has been caught (by CPS and the CE!) coaching SD10 to say negative things about DH. 

Right now the game she is playing is with phone calls. Usually she just never allows them. DH calls every night at 8pm and again at 9pm (bedtime) and most of the time is sent directly to voicemail. He leaves a message that SD10 never hears. He sends two messages on OFW asking SD10 to call him back that uBPDbm never reads.

uBPDbm claims that SD10 doesn't want to talk to him and she can't "force" her to answer the call. She keeps painting this picture like SD10 hates DH and doesn't want to talk to him and it must be his and her relationship. 

Whenever DH is allowed to talk to SD10, she immediately says she has to go take a bath or go to bed. Thanks uBPDbm, for finally answering the phone two minutes before bedtime so they can't even talk.

uBPDbm is always in the background saying "Come on hurry up you have to go" and then SD10 says "I have to go". DH says no stay on the phone and talk to me I haven't even heard from you in days. Now uBPDbm told SD10 that she's allowed to hang up on DH when he does this.

I love how uBPDbm paints this picture like she tries so hard for SD10 to call but SD10 just hates it and hates DH. In the meanwhile she's playing all these covert games, with the sole intention of trying to interfere and drive a wedge between them. I really hope this crazy making behavior is included in the report. Her emotional reasoning can be very convincing, and proving it's all a charade is very hard to do.

I'm completely annoyed at the whole situation. You can't tell a disordered person to stop being disordered and just be frickin normal. She wants to hang on to this fantasy like she's the "good guy" and DH is the "bad guy". And poor SD10 is in the middle trying to play a game of allegiance. We keep stressing to her that this is not a fight, we don't want a fight, we just want everyone to cooperate. Then she runs to her mom and tells her things that her mom wants to hear "it was horrible there, I don't want to talk to him, blah blah blah".

[ForeverDad]

I separated 2005, divorce process 2006-08, Shared Parenting 2008-11, Legal Guardian 2011-now, Majority time during school year 2014-now.  My son , 3 years old in 2005, never went to court except for GAL until late 2013 by ex's request.  The in camera interview was with magistrate and GAL.  My lawyer was pleased that the interview was on my time, I think the court cooperated to set it up on my time.  Son was nearly 12 and refused to side with either parent.  However, magistrate noted in the decision that he was more relaxed and had eye contact when talking about his father.   All those years of "mother disparaging father" - court's word choice - impacted our son tremendously and yet in the end it didn't help her.

Oh, and early in the case when ex had majority time, my successful phones calls were brief, few and far between.  Once I moved up to equal time then she started demanding her calls and complained vociferously to everyone if her calls failed.  She always called my cell phone and if she didn't get an answer she never tried the house phone.  If only her complaints weren't so intense and serious I would have laughed at how ridiculous it all was.

My CE report was just barely 11 pages.  But it was accurate.  "Mother cannot share 'her' child but Father can... .Mother should immediately lose her temporary custody... .If Shared Parenting is attempted and fails, then Father should have custody."  (No the temp order was never changed, the judge just moved us on to the next stage of the divorce.  The change didn't come until final decree some 6 months later.)

[Nope]

Ours was forty pages. The GAL pointed out in the report that while she stood talking to the BPD mom, SS10 (then 9) walked up to them and said to his mom, ":)o you want me to say what you told me to tell her when we were in the car?" 

DH was supposed to get at minimum one phone call per week when the kids lived with their mom. He often didn't even get that and when he did she would stand over them monitoring the conversation on speaker phone. We recorded phone calls for the occasions she didn't like something DH had to say and would break into the conversation to rage at him. Those were helpful in court.

[Thunderstruck]

Welllllll, the CE told our L on JUNE 30th that the report would be available "in a few days". Yeah, it's been two weeks and still nothing. 

This is taking soo loong.

L is going to a hearing next week (I misstakenly thought it was last month) to extend the deadlines for the 3rd time. But L wants to shorten up the timeframe. Get mediation done quickly so we can get to trial quicker. I don't think uBPDbm will like that. If things aren't looking like they're in her favor then she's going to want to balk.

[bravhart1]

WOW when I saw the refresh on the thread I thought " ok here it is!" But this? Unacceptable! Lol

Seriously,call the L and ask him to "light a fire under this report" it's been so long I have to wonder if she'll be able to get out of it because the info is so old. ( our CE said that after six months has passed since the interviews, if anyone wants a ruling or to have something re looked at, new interviews were needed because the info would be too old)

This would certainly make your report at least getting close right? I'm not trying to make it worse, just don't want you to have the added drama of having her get this past and then you have you go back to CE and say hey you messed this up, etc.

This has got to be torture! I'm so sorry, after all is  said and done I think a letter to the CE giving some feed back about the long withdrawn report would be in order.

[Thunderstruck]

We haven't gotten an invoice statement from the CE since June 1st (usually we get them at the first and 15th of the month) so we haven't seen what progress has been made since then. I think she's been "just about done" for awhile but I guess something is holding her up? (Waiting to hear back about something? Not having enough time to finish? Emergencies keep popping up? I don't know).

DH thinks if we go by her office it'll be empty with a "For lease" sign in the window. 

I haven't seen her evaluation yet, but from what I've reasearched I think her technical ability is good... .it's just that her time management skills SUCK!

Unrelated, but interesting: She's written papers on attachment and bonding, specifically for children being adopted or fostered. I wonder if she could see any attachment issues in the SD/uBPDbm's relationship?

[livednlearned]

Yeesh, what a boondoggle. You must be beside yourself.

Judges in my county/state are elected. They get a lot of pressure to keep things moving, moving, moving and there are lots of stats that get reported out about backlog and time to trial, etc.

Is your judge nominated or appointed?

[bravhart1]

Thunderstruck,

Any update or word? I'm hoping things are going well. 

[Thunderstruck]

I guess the update is that there's still no report.

On July 16th we got a letter from the L that the CE was requesting that we review a list of documents and make sure she didn't miss anything (court docs, emails, police reports, etc). The titles of the docs were kind of generic so we sent back a list of important docs that we weren't sure were on there and said "please verify that you have reviewed and considered these" (the 3 times uBPDbm filed false DV charges, and a few police reports). I'm sure the CE sent the same thing to uBPDbm, and I'm sure that uBPDbm is taking her sweet time to reply (if she replies at all).

We haven't heard anything since then.  :'(  We haven't received any billing statements either.

The L got an agreed order with uBPDbm (she's pro se) to extend the deadlines for the third time (so we didn't have to go to trial for it).

More waiting... . 

[Thunderstruck]

I'm dying here people... .aaaaarrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. Still no report. No word on when it'll be done.

DH tried calling a few weeks ago. His call was never returned. He sent an email. No reply.

Last week (I think?) the CE wrote back about the list of documents that we submitted in July. They were missing five police dispatch reports. We sent them over.

School starts on Monday. Today we're going to open house. uBPDbm won't let us take SD10 to meet the teacher and is declaring herself the "majority" parent for the school forms.   This is exactly why we wanted to have this wrapped up before school. To avoid this dumb power struggle. We have shared parenting but uBPDbm refuses to share.

[Nope]

Well, if there was movement last week then at least you know the CE was looking at your case and saw something missing. She wouldn't be looking at it unless she was working on it. So maybe not too much longer now? I feel like it's worse thinking your case is sitting at the bottom of a drawer.

[livednlearned]

That really is a bummer that things didn't get sorted out before school started -- I'm sorry to hear that Thunderstruck. That would make me nuts, knowing that conflict could be avoided.

Are you going to the open house? Can you go after bio mom has left so that you at least get a chance to meet the teachers?

[Thunderstruck]

That really is a bummer that things didn't get sorted out before school started -- I'm sorry to hear that Thunderstruck. That would make me nuts, knowing that conflict could be avoided.

Are you going to the open house? Can you go after bio mom has left so that you at least get a chance to meet the teachers?

We did go to the open house anyway. Met the teacher, she seems very nice and was offering any assistance she could give. We explained the schedule and that we don't get a lot of cooperation. We also said how we have a temporary agreement and expect that things may get difficult as we move toward a final hearing (hopefully!) this fall.

The teacher used to teach two grades below, and remembered SD10. She said from what she's heard, uBPDbm doesn't censor herself and will tell SD10 things that she shouldn't be hearing. We said yep, that's probably why during the final custody push things will get difficult for SD10. I guess uBPDbm's reputation precedes her.  

The teacher wrote us after and said there was "drama" about the school forms when uBPDbm showed up at open house.

Oh and the reason that uBPDbm wouldn't let DH take SD10 up to meet her teacher was because she didn't want him to "interfere" with her timesharing. Then Saturday she sent him a message asking him to watch SD10 for the night (which we did). Go figure that one out.