appearing for myself in court tomorrow.

[Lostinkitimat]

hello all.

i have been on these boards for a few months dont post a lot but read quite a bit.

i have been split from my suspected BPD x since march 2015. it was quite the process just getting a separation agreement hashed out. with some effort it was all settled the house,pension,child support,spousal support. through out the process my x has had a hatred for my mother. and from the start was adament that she would do everything in her power to make sure that the children would have no relationship with there grandparents.

i generally stayed away from the topic but knew ultimately it would come to a head. so i collected every threatening text message, harrassing email etc.

last month my x filed for supervised visits when grand parents are out . which on one hand is a step in the right direction because her stance before is that they would NEVER see them. but she wants to be the one supervising the visits .

so to make a long story short tomorrow i appear in court. i have a lawyer but they are in vancouver. me being quite a ways away they suggested that i appear for myself? we have submitted a large amount of emails and text messages outlining x wifes behaviour.

i have never done anything like this before so im somewhat apprehensive. but feel that there is strong evidence to show x,s behaviour and how she generally conducts herself as a bully. so i am confident.

any thoughts.

[ForeverDad]

To have basis to request supervised visits, your stbEx would have to demonstrate a substantive level of child abuse, child neglect or child endangerment.  If your parents have no history of that (courts, CPS, police, etc) then her evidence will be minimal at best and mostly manufactured "emotional claims" declared to be "facts".

If you have a parenting schedule then one strategy would be to get the court to confirm that her time is her time and your time is your time.  She should not be allowed to rule, negate, control or place conditions on your parenting time.

In some states or countries grandparents have little or no rights.  That shouldn't matter, try to keep the court viewing it as her time and your time, separate.

If you were reaching a settlement, then she might be able to push for limits on your children's grandparent contact.  But now that the court is directly involved, let the court decide it is a non-issue or nothing to rule for.  If you can get that, then it shouldn't be a factor in any settlement negotiations.  She will try to worm it in but keep it out.

[Lostinkitimat]

thank you so much for your reply.

her affidavit is minimal. at best it proves she had an annoying mother in law? which i would suspect 9 out of 10 women would attest to BPD or not.

that being said it doesnt help the nerves much. and being dec 3rd a notoriously slow time of year in construction i could really do without the financial strain.

i had a pretty busy day which helped keep my mind of things. and once home had the best intentions of pouring over all the documentation making a strategy. about 45 mins in i hit a bit of a wall... .i dont know what to expect how can i prepare?

that being said the evidence of harassment, parental alienation, etc is there. so i thought just put it down and go to court tomorrow? if you can get the judge to even one drawn out email from the ex you will probably come out on top? now i feel maybee i should have done more? maybee i should have gotten my lawyer to appear by phone?



ahhh im stressed.


i will shoot back tomorrow once its all over and the smoke clears wish me luck.

[ForeverDad]

We advocate having a strategy to attain your goals and how to get there.  Or several backup strategies as the Ex forces the case to twist and turn.  Generally this means we have to be proactive, thinking ahead, anticipating what the Ex might do, anticipating what the court is usually inclined to do and preparing for various options to reduce obstructions, delays, diversions and feigned victimhood.

How does your lawyer figure into your strategy?  Is your lawyer a proactive problem solver?  Or is your lawyer a forms filer and hand holder?  Has your lawyer read or is knowledgeable of the warnings and strategies in SPLITTING: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder by William Eddy and Randi Kreger?

[Lostinkitimat]

considering my lawyer is not coming to court and figures i can handle this on my own i would say that she isnt a hand holder?

this is a new firm im dealing with and they seem to be a good team. basically with 1 hr till court at this point it doesnt matter? im at the point of no return . i woke up early and reviewed materials. mentally prepped myself. still nervous as hell .

this will be an interesting learning experience. no matter the outcome.

[livednlearned]

Hope things went ok, Lostinkitimat.

I do think there are some things that can be handled without our lawyers. My ex was a lawyer and I never got up the nerve to represent myself, though I was practically a regular in court toward the end 

Let us know how you're doing, how things went.

[Lostinkitimat]

the short version. a small positive was gained and we didnt go backwards.

now the long version.

i arrived at the court house in the morning. i was so nervous and didnt know what to do or expect not having done this sort of thing before?

that being said we have strong supporting evidence through e mail and text messages that this is nothing more than a smear campaign by my ex. i think we have 100 pges of evidence exhibits a-f. there side has nothing really?

my council had offered an opportunity to drop the whole thing prior to court. her council turned it down at that point her council had not seen our evidence?

so the court room opens i report to the clerk like my email instructions from council say to do then i sit in the front of the court room and wait for the judge and our matter to be called.

in walks xs councill and approaches me. asking what were going to be looking for/ is there any deal we can make to clear this up? (which is a totally different stance than before?) i was so nervous i was studering/shaking/and could barely think . i just looked down at my email instructions from council. told her we were seeking an interim order etc. etc.

about then a well of emtions rise up i began to cry. really embarrasing there i am sitting in the front of the court room crying and her council almost going through my paper work . that being said she signed the interim order right there. then bassically left me alone? i sat and convinced myself to pull it together.

once the judge showed up i made my way to the front of the court room looking like a deer in the headlights. before xs councill showed the judge asked what we were seeking. i read the e mail instructions off and waited. xs council showed up walked up to the stand and stated that we had sorted everything out prior to court? luckily the judge had asked what we were seeking and sensed that that was not the case?

so now it will all go to a mediation w a judge then trial. so i got the interim order signed. im glad its continuing though because we are seeking d&a counsilling, anger managment, and parenting after separation for the x as a counter claim. i believe that there should be some consiquences on her end for the lies/slander.


so it wasnt a total fail. but i do feel if i had the strength/knowhow i could have acccompished everything in our counter claim to.

i feel like her lawyer knows she has nothing and just wanted to close it out because shes "cornered" ?

i dont know. gues we can spend forever thinking about the what ifs.

[livednlearned]

Hi lostinkitimat,

My case went on for 4 years and there were over 60 filings, so I spent a lot of time watching my very own family law court reality show.  

There is a surprising amount of last-minute negotiation that goes on, because like you experienced, people get to their moment and suddenly have a rush of emotions. Either about appearing in court, or following through with their claim, for whatever reason. Lawyers leave things to the last minute, they don't look at briefs until they're walking out their office door as their paralegals pass them your file. It's a harried, frenetic business of last-minute wheeling and dealing. Plus, as many of us here have learned, our lawyers sometimes do backroom dealing to try and use their positions in our lives to negotiate what they think is best for us. I had a good lawyer, she was also a very busy person, like a lot of lawyers.

To be candid, you may one day feel confident about handling your own case. Yesterday was probably not the day to try the rest of your counter claim. Now you have a sense of what it's like to be in court, so that particular bit of anxiety won't be so consuming.

I lost count of the times I was in court, and only toward the very end did I stop trembling. I live in a hot climate yet I would shake, my hands would go numb, my mouth would get dry. Just sitting in court, nevermind testifying on the stand. A friend told me about the power pose, a TED talk you can Google online. I was so desperate to try and calm my nerves I even spent 2 minutes in the bathroom stall before trial so I can strike a power pose in private   It actually made me laugh out loud and that helped calm me down a bit.

Not sure if this is comforting or not, but I also saw a lot of people cry in court, myself included. I have seen the judge stop proceedings to collect himself, I have seen lawyers cry, or need to take a moment to collect themselves. In my court, all DV and child molestation cases go first, so anyone who is on the docket must wait for those cases to be heard.

You did something really hard.  

What are the terms of the interim order?

[Lostinkitimat]

the interim order states.

1. pursuant to section 225 of the family law act, the parties shall not.

     

     (a) question the children about the other parent or time spent with the other parent beyond simple conversation questions.

   

     (b) discuss with the children any inappropriate adult, court or legal matters

     (c) blame, criticize or disparage the other parent or the other parents extended family to the children

2. pursuant to section 225 of the family law act, the parties shall communicate with eachother only in relation to the children and only through council or through written electronic communication.


i dont expect it will do much but 1-c should keep her from harrassing my family through text and email? should is the key word i doubt she will change her ways .

[Lostinkitimat]

sorry i should add. with my chilren being 2 yrs and 1 yrs at least she cant be questioning them/brainwashing them yet.

[livednlearned]

That all sounds like very standard language.

It also sounds like standard bluffing. Opposing council sees if you will show up, fold, go away, etc. You not only show up, you have evidence and a counter claim with your own requests. Oops!

Opposing counsel thinks it is best to hash this out in mediation (parties have more control), you get a standard interim order with not much in it from the courts, and the stone gets kicked down the road.

You are asking for:

d&a counsilling, anger managment, and parenting after separation for the x as a counter claim. i believe that there should be some consiquences on her end for the lies/slander.

How does mediation work? Is the judge assigned in mediation also the same judge for trial? Is the mediation judge able to arbitrate a binding agreement? If you resolve things in mediation, is trial off the table?

What is your current custody arrangement like at the moment?

[Lostinkitimat]

thats a great question. i dont know if the same judge is at both the hearing and mediation?

the proper term for this mediation is a "family case confrence". and my council asked for this im not sure the strategy behind it.

im no expert im learning as i go. theres another wierd twist in that they filed a notice of motion to start all this but its the same file number as the notice of motion from june that was supposed to be withdrawn. this is also part of our evidence im not sure the implications of this?

my current parenting plan is i have the children every second day.

this is all terrible timing and i dont have a ton of money to be fighting this. she is getting a healthy amount of money 2500 spousal/2230child support per month.

which is fine if im working 70 hrs per week but this time of yr things notoriusly slow down for about 3 months. so eiven if she looses she wins by way of causing financial hardship .

[livednlearned]

Financial hardship goes hand in hand with these divorces  :'(

I always asked my lawyer where I was sending her daughter to college because I figured I pretty much pay for her entire 4-years of tuition, room, and board. 

The file number question is a good one for your lawyer. You want to make sure that things don't go belly up over a technicality. Sometimes you have to hold their feet to the fire. I was really surprised how many big mistakes (typos, usually) that my lawyer made. Only once did her wording cause me trouble, and she gave me a professional courtesy recognizing it was her error.

There are people here who can help you prepare for mediation and how to negotiate. If you haven't read Splitting by Bill Eddy, that's a great book to download. He's based in the US but the 35,000 foot view of the basics apply to courts based on common law, including the UK and Canada. He also has a site called www.highconflictinstitute.com and I think there are articles on there about negotiating in mediation.

If you think that you will be emotional, I wonder if you can do mediation in a separate room? I had to do this for mine. The pro is that you are not as triggered, the con is that you don't hear word for word what your ex is saying. Everything gets filtered through the mediator.

What is your bottom line in mediation? That grandma visits can occur? She has gone from no visits to supervised visits. You are asking for D&A counseling, anger management, and parenting classes? Usually, judges (at least in court) will try to settle things in the middle so that both parties feel like they won something (I call it losing less, since there is clearly no winning in these cases).

If she relents and allows grandma visits, would you drop everything else?

Also, if it looks like she might continue to use the courts to settle her beefs, think about asking for legal fees. Where I live, they are called sanctions. Often they do not cover anywhere near what it costs you to go to court. It can be a way to make sure she thinks good and hard about filing more suits. People with BPD do not have good conflict resolution skills and may abuse the legal system because it represents authority that they do not feel they have.

[Lostinkitimat]

mediation from a separate room might be a good idea cnsidering.

yes the bottom line is that there is no issue my family visiting on my parenting time. her affidavit proves nothing. at best one could say you had an annoying mother in law which is definetly not grounds for no contact with grand children.

in canada if its provincial court you cant get reimbursed for legal fees. it has to be fedaral i believe?

if she relented and let grandma visit would i drop everything? at this point no the ball is rolling. ive incured the cost. she has threatend and followed through with denying me access to my children, put in in writting in harrassing emails and texts. frankly i will go the extra bit to try to get the courts to order something like the d&a counselling. wont do her any good but it will be an inconvenience? and maybee she wont follow through with the ordered councilling?

maybee its a bit spitefull but there should be some consiquences to her actions its like these people get a free pass to be bullies etc.

[ForeverDad]

I recall my early days - okay, years - post separation.  For self-protection I recorded my calls with her, generally limited to exchanges.  (She was very confrontational at exchanges so we had to have then at the local sheriff's office.  Later we had child care and they handled some of the pick ups and drop offs.)  Ouch, my words sounded so bad.  Almost stuttering but I was really parsing out each word one by one trying not to trigger an outburst.  And in the early court hearings I didn't sound so good either.  And that was me who for decades had given hour-long religious discourses in two languages (Russian too but I had a translator) before 50-200 people.  That is what high conflict for years had done to me.

You have daily exchanges?  That should not last long unless there is good reason or it.  All those exchanges is hard on everyone including the children.  For young children you may want to seek another equal time schedule, if you stick with equal time, such as the common 2-2-5-5 schedule... .one parent gets Mon-Tue overnights, the other parent gets Wed-Thu overnights and the 3-night weekends are alternated.

I agree, if she had been willing to work things out without forcing court involvement and blacklisting to others elsewhere, then you could be willing to let a lot of it go.  However, it is smart to get the core issues before the court or mediator or whomever the professionals are early in the case.  Be aware that she won't agree to anything that makes her look bad, she's probably rather chew nails than that.  It probably would have to be some sort of order from some official with authority.  (She needs to learn the long and hard way that she doesn't Rule the Roost any more, now the various professionals do.  Still, they may do it so slowly, hoping everyone will comply, that she may still think she's in charge.)

Don't be timid, be proactive.  While being respectful to the professionals, stand up for what you feel and know is right for the children and you.  While you may not get everything you ask for, it lets them know where you stand and that you're relatively well informed and able to be the problem-solving parent, not the problem parent.

You may expect fairness from the court but soon you'll discover that it is a mass of laws, case law, procedures and default policies.  Technicalities can sometimes rise up and bite you on the rear end.  After all, it is a judicial system, not a justice system.

Be very cautious about being overly honest.  What do I mean?  Court doesn't care about you being overly fair, overly nice, overly whatever in the past.  Court is about law, case law, policies, procedures, etc.  They will often overlook huge issues and focus on technical violations.  (My ex took our son on vacation for a week without any written notice and just one vague verbal comment and though my lawyer said it was a slam dunk for her to be found guilty of Contempt of Court, the magistrate said she wasn't 'technically' in Contempt of Court because our old order had just ended and the new order was too new to be enforceable on the vacation notification terms.  Yikes, I had two orders, old and new, she didn't comply with either but neither was enforceable?)

Also, in court you don't want to say, "Ex did this and that, but I did some too."  You do NOT volunteer information that makes you look bad.  That would be self-sabotaging.  The same goes for how you state things in testimony, you follow your lawyer's instructions on how to respond correctly to questions.  Very briefly, just Yes, No or I don't know if possible.  You don't try to answer verbosely, it will too often get you into complications.  So your job is not to sabotage yourself by talking too much.

[Lostinkitimat]

thanks for all the replys.

it is hard. but the hardest part is over LEAVING. and that in its self is huge. finally able to heal,grow,flourish.

i realize its a long learning process. sometimes i wonder what i did to deserve this . but i also realize that the red flags were there i chose not to recognize them or to follow through anyway. i was ignorant in that i never realized i was dealing with a serious disorder i didnt even know about ptsd,BPD?

either way. i will not be pushed around,bullied,abused. because its about more than me or the ex... .its about my children. they come first.

so i may not want to but i have to. quite the learning experience . fml.

[livednlearned]

its about more than me or the ex... .its about my children. they come first.

This is really insightful, Lostinkitmat. Sometimes the legal drama makes it so we lose sight of the long game.

Lesson 5 on the Coparenting board is about Raising Resilient Children. You are very lucky in many ways because your kids are young. If you take only one thing away from this site, let it be about validating how your kids feel. Chances are that they are going to be genetically predisposed to emotional sensitivity or stimuli, and they are going grow up in at least one invalidating environment. You need to provide twice the validation that what they are feeling and experiencing is real. This is how a stable sense of self develops. BPD is what happens when a person lacks a stable sense of self. BPDs often grew up in invalidating environments.

And quite honestly, a lot of people who end up in relationships with BPD partners grew up in invalidating environments too. Many of us need to learn how to validate feelings.

Lesson 5 is a critically important step.

[Lostinkitimat]

i am learning about myself in the process.

so maybee thats the plan. i came from a broken home. and i dont want them to experience those things. i dont have all the answers but i will do my best for them.

thats what ultimately led t the decision to leave im not going to teach them a relationship like that they will still see it on moms side. but at least i wont be imursed in it. im an arms length away i need the clarity,confidence,strength for them.

i remember making the decision 8 months ago. i thought "if its not my mom itll be some teacher,friend etc. she will always be angry at something or someone. this decision will be hard. but it will be much harder when the girls are 9 and 10 versus now."

i knew something changed as soon as the first kid came but i didnt realize how deep of a change? the decision to leave wasnt only about me.

doesnt make it much easier but im confident that as time goes on i will become more indifferent/stronger. i know i feel quite a bit better already.

but there is some lingering deppresion etc. i do miss the "good" relationship. but that was a trick thats probably the hardest to deal with the mask that represented myself mirrored back to me to lure me into a trap... .but even with that. i cant blame the x she didnt ask for her child hood, her disorder. its sad.

[ForeverDad]

But your ex is an adult now, just as you are.  She should accept the responsibility as an adult that even if she won't make big positive changes, then at least do as little harm as possible, just as you can do.  It's all about choices, it's evident you can make positive choices more easily than your ex can.  So it's up to you.  Wish it weren't so, but that's the way it is.

Living in a calm and stable home, even if only for part of their lives, will give the children a better example of normalcy for their own future relationships.  Nearly 30 years ago the book Solomon's Children - Exploding the Myths of Divorce had an interesting observation on page 195 by one participant, As the saying goes, "I'd rather come from a broken home than live in one."  Ponder that.  Taking action will enable your lives, or at least a part of your lives, to be spent be in a calm, stable environment - your home, wherever that is - away from the blaming, emotional distortions, pressuring demands and manipulations, unpredictable ever-looming rages and outright chaos.

[livednlearned]

Also, the research on depression and increased cortisol levels (ie. living in stressful homes) makes it clear that kids in particular need a break from high-conflict environments.

They have to exhale somewhere.