Co parenting after split

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Am I co parenting with someone who suffers from a PD or someone who is just spiteful, evil, rotten to the core? After this weekend access with my 9 year old son, I have to ask my self this question and write to the people on this site who have suffered the hedious abuse and know first hand. My ex wife is not diagnosed with a pd but she fills the criteria very well, having the traits off all the main PD's. We did have a very indepth assessment done through the courts and I of course was codependent and she scored hi on having a PD that, the forensic psychologist stated in her report that she would probably carry this to any relationship she will have. But what she did this weekend, I don't know what to say, I have no where to put it in my brain. Maybe someone who co parents like I do will write back and say oh ya, PD's do that or say that falls under a category of its own. On Thursday evening past, she text that our son has a project due on Monday morning, I text no problem, I will make sure it's done. She text some more jibber jabber and I made it very clear I will make sure his project is finished. I picked my son up on Friday, he forgot his reading book, I took him back to his mothers to get his book, down the road again, I am talking to him about his project, he said I forgot my project folder but he was dead set against going back for it. That was no problem I talked to his teacher and had his log I. Code to print off his project. On Saturday we finished his project except for the pics. He laid it all out and we glued it to backing board, he did a nice job of it. I text his mother and told her the project was finished, only for the pics. The teacher is giving extra time on Monday morning for touch up but if you want to meet me somewhere with the pics it will finished completely. To me I was communicating in a positive manner about our son. I certainly didn't expect her response to be " get your own pics". I was floored. I don't care how horrible and evil she is to me but this was all about our son. I have been a solid, consistent father and get treated like dirt, less than nothing. My son talked to his mother on Sunday afternoon and all of a sudden he wanted to go home, he was very upset. We talked about it and he decided to stay the night. His mother called 9 times and text 2 times. I did not answer bc it was upsetting my son. She has been applying lots of pressure on me to change the new court order and I've been standing fast bc in the past she always manipulated me to change the order and it always has to do with cutting back on my time. When I agree she doesn't budge to return the lost time and I have to always take her back to court. She is applying pressure to my son now. My standing up to her is not going to have any effect on her bc she has no empathy or moral compass, she will just apply the pressure to my son. He told me his mother drills him with questions. She will do what it takes to get control of my access even if she has use emotional manuplation on our son. When I dropped my son off on Monday she was, if it's humanly possible even more ignorant than usual, had her boy friend involved with meeting me at the drop off, he's been involved in my sons life for 7 months and he seems to be getting comfortable in his unnecessary roll. She is probably manipulating him as well. Red flags were everywhere but that poor man didn't see them. My being a good solid consistent father, she gets worse and she has nothing to go on so she lies on her court affidavits. She hates me for being a good man and she did every thing to sabotage our sons project. So, is this traits of a PD or something more sinister? She is bent out of shape about my being involved in my sons project, I am only doing what any father would do but if I let her control the situation and that's what I done in the past, thinking I was being a good person by going along with her concept of what's best for our son and than she would turn around and say I refuse to be involved in my sons life.

[bus boy]

Am I co parenting with someone who suffers from a PD or someone who is just spiteful, evil, rotten to the core? After this weekend access with my 9 year old son, I have to ask my self this question and write to the people on this site who have suffered the hedious abuse and know first hand. My ex wife is not diagnosed with a pd but she fills the criteria very well, having the traits off all the main PD's. We did have a very indepth assessment done through the courts and I of course was codependent and she scored hi on having a PD that, the forensic psychologist stated in her report that she would probably carry this to any relationship she will have. But what she did this weekend, I don't know what to say, I have no where to put it in my brain. Maybe someone who co parents like I do will write back and say oh ya, PD's do that or say that falls under a category of its own. On Thursday evening past, she text that our son has a project due on Monday morning, I text no problem, I will make sure it's done. She text some more jibber jabber and I made it very clear I will make sure his project is finished. I picked my son up on Friday, he forgot his reading book, I took him back to his mothers to get his book, down the road again, I am talking to him about his project, he said I forgot my project folder but he was dead set against going back for it. That was no problem I talked to his teacher and had his log I. Code to print off his project. On Saturday we finished his project except for the pics. He laid it all out and we glued it to backing board, he did a nice job of it. I text his mother and told her the project was finished, only for the pics. The teacher is giving extra time on Monday morning for touch up but if you want to meet me somewhere with the pics it will finished completely. To me I was communicating in a positive manner about our son. I certainly didn't expect her response to be " get your own pics". I was floored. I don't care how horrible and evil she is to me but this was all about our son. I have been a solid, consistent father and get treated like dirt, less than nothing. My son talked to his mother on Sunday afternoon and all of a sudden he wanted to go home, he was very upset. We talked about it and he decided to stay the night. His mother called 9 times and text 2 times. I did not answer bc it was upsetting my son. She has been applying lots of pressure on me to change the new court order and I've been standing fast bc in the past she always manipulated me to change the order and it always has to do with cutting back on my time. When I agree she doesn't budge to return the lost time and I have to always take her back to court. She is applying pressure to my son now. My standing up to her is not going to have any effect on her bc she has no empathy or moral compass, she will just apply the pressure to my son. He told me his mother drills him with questions. She will do what it takes to get control of my access even if she has use emotional manuplation on our son. When I dropped my son off on Monday she was, if it's humanly possible even more ignorant than usual, had her boy friend involved with meeting me at the drop off, he's been involved in my sons life for 7 months and he seems to be getting comfortable in his unnecessary roll. She is probably manipulating him as well. Red flags were everywhere but that poor man didn't see them. My being a good solid consistent father, she gets worse and she has nothing to go on so she lies on her court affidavits. She hates me for being a good man and she did every thing to sabotage our sons project. So, is this traits of a PD or something more sinister? She is bent out of shape about my being involved in my sons project, I am only doing what any father would do but if I let her control the situation and that's what I done in the past, thinking I was being a good person by going along with her concept of what's best for our son and than she would turn around and say I refuse to be involved in my sons life.

[mywifecrazy]

The only advice I can give is don't rely on a mentally sick person to decide what's best for a child.  This is gained from my personal experience and my experience of reading these boards. The best thing you can do is think CLEARLY of what is best for your child, Keep firm boundaries with your X and be civil while maintaining your healthy boundaries.  You might want to read up on what some on here call Parallel Parenting. My X is the Waif Type of BPD and I found it very hard to Co-Parent with her as she is very self centered and very child like emotionally.  I feel more like her Father than a co-parent

Hang in there and keep your focus on yourself and your child

MWC... .

[Nope]

I'd say that's pretty standard behavior for either a person with a PD or simply someone who is very immature. I agree with Mywifecrazy about parallel parenting instead of co-parenting. I would also tell your son that he is a child and which parent he spends his time with is not up to him. It's for you and his mother to work out. The best thing you can do for him is take the choice out of his hands. If he can't influence you then his mom will eventually realize that applying pressure to him gets her nowhere. Do not deviate from the court order. The court order is "the rules" and everybody has to follow them. Make court the bad guy as much as possible so it's not on you.

[bus boy]

Thank you for the good advice. I will defiantly look into parallel parenting. I am willing to try anything to make this bad situation better for my son. Her viciousness will never stop she will just try different underhanded tactics. I like this site but my ex is more NPD even malignant NPD more than BPD but she cross border shops into BPD. Someone said I should be on an NPD site. It seems the NPD has an endless appetite for there bottomless pit of heinous dark behaviour more so than a person who leans more to BPD. This is just what I'm told. A year ago I never even heard of NPD or BPD I just knew something was wrong and that I would rather be dead than face what I was living with. But now I look at everything different. I still struggle with trying to wrap my brain around how a person can have absolutely no empathy what so ever. My ex saw someone get killed a few years ago, I asked her if she wanted to talk about it, she said about what? I said you saw a man get killed today, ya, I know, it was no big deal.

[ForeverDad]

My Custody Evaluator didn't use co-parenting or parallel phrases, he used "tag team" parenting.  And that's basically how I constructed our later orders.  Since she kept invading my parenting and parenting time, I had to ensure that my time was my time and her time was her time.  Not easy and not perfect, but overall it worked.

Over time she gradually let go of more parenting time so that right now, with our child now a teenager and her schedule filled with schooling and work, the arrangement is quite loose and I have more time than ordered.  For now, at least, it works and we have only about 4 years to go before he ages out of the system.  Whew!

[bravhart1]

We (DH and I step mom) spent A LOT of time trying to figure out if his ex was NPD,BPD, or just rotten and vindictive. Sounds like this is where you are.

For us, it finally came down to this, who cares? What does it matter why she does this nutty, scary, hateful stuff which hurts her own child, all the while claiming from the roof tops to anyone who would listen that she is the mother of the year.

In the bitter ugly end we ended up doing what we needed to do and her motives or problems all ended up being her own. They hurt SD7, but mom only cared about hurting me and DH more. The court finally put her in check, but SD has suffered for it greatly.

My only advice to you is to read up on parental alienation, which it sounds like she's doing, and arm yourself with knowledge and a plan to protect your relationship with your son.

Why she's doing it does not matter as much as what she is doing to your son. I wish we had abandoned all hope of working things out with mom earlier. Once we did we saw that SD was being put through more than she could bear and is now paying the price emotionally.

Too much effort was placed on trying to keep mom happy. I wish we had just been as ruthless as she had been, only to protect SD, not hurt her.

[bus boy]

Thank you. I am getting great advice on this topic. It boiles down to who cares. My sons mother is completely 100% disagreeable 100% of the time. My son is only 9 and we've been to court almost as many times. I know the lady who takes care of all the family court cases for family court and she told me off the record that my case is the worse one the courts saw in anyone's memory. It has been expressed to me by my therapist that my son will probably need a therapist him self some day. And she does walk around like the mother of the year. She made a very rude remark to me in front of her BF about child support bc I was 3 days late. She knows it gets under my skin bc I've never missed one payment and help with the extras such as winter clothing. Who cares why she's evil, she's just evil. I have adopted the no contact only the very necessary texts. It's amazing how much energy I now have to direct to my son and my well being. The new order is working and it kills her. She try's to call under the no caller ID and I ignore her. She operates on bully and fear. My son loves his mother but it's mostly fear based. Thank you every one for the helpful advice.

[ForeverDad]

Counseling is good, good for you, good for your son too.  (Your Ex needs a double dose but it would be surprising if she really let any counsel sink in.)  Quite likely your Ex will refuse to allow it for your child, or insist that she control it, but court will almost certainly agree to have child counseling start.  The big concern is to not let her pick a counselor since she would try to find a gullible one and manipulate the counselor.

However, you may have a hard time picking one and her agreeing.  One way to make it appear more fair is for YOU to select a group of 3 or 4 name of experienced counselors highly recommended by local experts and then let EX pick from among them.  A judge would like that idea if you need to go that far.  The key benefit is that you selected the pool of better counselors, not her picks.

Since court already knows this is a difficult case, you may get the court to have the counselor communicate with a Custody Evaluator or GAL (Guardian ad Litem or lawyer for the children) or even testify in court if necessary.

[bus boy]

Long before I knew anything about PD's I begged her to come to councelling but she was dead set against it, she said I had to many issues and I needed councelling, she told me I better go but said " don't you dare talk about me. You are forbidden ( one of her favourite words) to talk about me". I did talk about her, thinking I was crazy and she was a saint for being married to me and was informed I am being mentally, verbally, and emotionally abused. When it told my wife we should get councelling that the councillor said we were doomed if we don't, she came unglued at me. Her mother was also dead set against councelling I asked my ex wife's father and sister to help us and they became very balugerant. Her family turned on me in a most vile and viscous way. We did go to a child psychologist but she was able to manipulate the sessions and I would leave more confused, it was probably a great chance to use me as a source to feed her bc she would tell heinous lies about me, she would a reaction out of me keep me defensive and off balance. I was an all you could eat buffet for her. My options are limited. I live in a very rural area. To sit in the same room as her for an hour and hear her lies will not work. You can't fix a lie. She can't be honest. She won't cheat you she won't steel on you but to take a deep look inward never happen, she will deny and lie. She had a miscarriage one time and even found a way to blame it on me. She started bleeding at work, called me to pick her up and than told me I took to long and she lost the baby. It wasn't until several years later that I found out when a woman is at that stage of bleeding the baby is all ready dead. So any kind of honest to goodness, getting down to brass tacks councelling for the sake of my son is out of the question, you can't fix a lie. If my sons relationship with me was severed but in the process he ended up stairing out the window all day drooling on him self she would consider it a success. I will attend councelling and find the best ways for my son and I.

[Moselle]

Hi Bus boy

I can rate to your situation even down to the gullible boyfriend (an ex friend of mine for 20 years)

Technically I understand why my ex behave like this. Her primary attachment figure has switched from me to the new boyfriend and I (with my knowledge of her) am a threat to her new enmeshment. So she tries to eliminate me from the children's lives, so she can create a new reality around someone she can control.

Mine is also 0% cooperative.  Thats her choice. I cant change that.  That's what the courts are there for.

[bus boy]

Sounds like you nailed it.

[Moselle]

Hi Bus boy

I can rate to your situation even down to the gullible boyfriend (an ex friend of mine for 20 years)

Technically I understand why my ex behave like this. Her primary attachment figure has switched from me to the new boyfriend and I (with my knowledge of her) am a threat to her new enmeshment. So she tries to eliminate me from the children's lives, so she can create a new reality around someone she can control.

Mine is also 0% cooperative.  Thats her choice. I cant change that.  That's what the courts are there for.

[mywifecrazy]

Bus Boy,

One more thing.  The best thing you can do for your sons well being and emotional health is to provide a warm, safe and stable home environment when he is with you. Forget about your X and why she is the way she is. In all honesty, the hell with her! I hate to say it like that but be glad you have the opportunity to father your child away from her. He's going to need you to be a ROCK of a Dad. Your stability as a Dad is going to be what he leans on to help him navigate the turbulent waters that are his relationship with his Mom. Also I found this to be very true. Validate his feelings when he comes to you about how sad or upset he is with Mom. Don't bash her but also don't minimize his feelings when he is hurt by her actions.

You can do this!

MWC... .