Finally taking the plunge

[kells76]

DH & the kids' mom had been emailing to try to work out what they hadn't decided on in mediation. Mom had suggested some vague clause about "prioritizing listening to the kids when reasonable" and DH, after consulting with L, told her Sure, let's put that in. L said nothing about it was enforceable in the way she probably thought, so DH threw her a bone. DH then suggested they add a clause about if one party unilaterally deviates from the pp, & it goes to court, the deviating party must pay court fees (or something like that). Which, as far as I know, could still take place even if not enumerated in the pp.

So Mom writes back to say basically No to the legal fees clause -- you see, she's already so motivated by the kids' best interest that it's not necessary    She then changed her original suggestion about "listening to the kids" to add a line saying essentially "and we need to do things how they've gone since the divorce". Yup -- let's do all this parenting plan stuff but make sure we don't change anything that hasn't worked for DH. Let's keep it how Mom wants it!

And DH has seen the light. His only question now is whether to call Mom on her bs and meet with the L to draft his own pp, or try to keep working with Mom while meeting with the L to draft his own pp. Yay! He's at the point where he doesn't care whether or not the pp they come up with is something she wouldnt contest. And he recognized that he is going to have to be less accommodating.

I'll keep y'all posted. I hope he sticks with this realization. I think it's big... .

[ForeverDad]

   Like recovery and so much else, it's not a single event, it's a process.  Let's hope you and the members here helped him get There a little quicker with minimal carnage along the way.

[bravhart1]

I'm so glad to hear that he's finally out from under the fog of trying to appease BPDm. That has got to be a relief for you too, as I know it can't be easy to watch DH dealing with such a hard person and never feeling like you get a break.

There is a book I got for my DH some years back called Do Fathers Matter?, and it was very good for him to see why it was important for him to defend his relationship with his daughter from BPDm who was trying to marginalized him very much the way your BPDm is doing. She also wanted VERY much for SD's opinion to matter in visitation. SD was three at the time

Best of luck, I just know DH will be shocked to find out how much time and influence he will get from the court rather than wishing it came from BPDm.

[Nope]

I think it doesn't really pay for him to continue trying to work with her. If he's going to work on a PP himself then it's not his responsibility to look out for her interests. The plan he works out with his L should be what he wants, plus some items that if the judge doesn't give them to him he can still live with that.

He can just tell her that he doesn't want to have to keep revising the pp down the road and the current negotiations aren't going in a direction that he can work with.

Once he submits a draft and actually has a court date, then he can reopen negotiations from a place of strength. Sure, she'll get continuance after continuance but eventually she'll either sign the pp with a minimum amount of changes, or the court will figure it out for her. Either way he will absolutely get a better deal than anything he could get from her right now.

[ForeverDad]

Also remember that if she wants him to suspend the case or agree to a Continuance for a later hearing date, it is usually best in our sort of cases to respond, "Sorry, the case is on, if you have an offer or idea to add, I'll consider it but the case has to move forward."  Continuances sometimes are necessary but if there's not a legal or procedural reason then you don't have to agree to them.  Delays generally don't help us.  Sadly, trying to be (overly) reasonable generally doesn't help us either.

The one behaving poorly seldom gets consequences and the one behaving well seldom gets credit.

[kells76]

Thanks bravhart... .Yeah, it's been a slow process, and to DH's credit I think he really wanted to believe that Mom would cooperate at some point. Mom has been doing a great job lately of disabusing DH of the idea that she's genuinely cooperative (she aaaalllllmmmost had DH fooled post-mediation):

Radio silence from Mom for a week after L emailed her the proposed PP. DH emails her the other day on advice of L, asking what she thought of it, as DH was planning to file. Mom responds in minutes that she's been so busy and could she have another week to think about it. DH ran that by L who basically is frothing at the bit to take her to court for a slam dunk win, but L said he understood settling would be better if possible. So DH said fine.

Next, dh gets a text from "SD10" (possibly) from Mom's phone, not SD10's saying could she please go to X event on DH's night for 2 hours, oh and SD7 wants to go too. First DH has heard of this, but he texts "sd10" saying Fine by me, but I'll talk to your mom about details. This is about 27 hours before X event, which has clearly been planned for weeks.

DH emails Mom about makeup time for this and another 3 hours he missed with sd10. Mom fires back with Well, sd10 said you were fine with it, and sd7 wants to go, plus it's for the whole family, and Stepdad will be there (  ). Oh, and Sd10 doesn't want to make up time, so I told her to work it out with you.

My guess is she's yanking DH's chain because she feels like the pp legal process is out of her control. But Wow, there goes cooperation... .Anyway, DH decided not to write back (no urgent logistics to decide), and my guess is that the best move at this point is for him to stay flexible with the kids until there's a solid pp backing him up.

ForeverDad, DH's legal plan is that if Moms response to the proposed pp isn't workable, he's ditching the lower-end-of-acceptable pp he proposed and crafting a new proposed one giving him way more time. His reasoning is that if mom won't go for this barely minimally acceptable one, he's got nothing more to "compromise" on and she's a fool for not accepting it, so he's going for way more.

And yeah, Mom is all about delays, fishing for info, and messing with the kids. Those are her strategies at this point. I think our L won't be into delays. He seems enthused by the process of taking Mom to court. Which, in a way, i get.

Nope, good suggestion on rationale of not wanting to keep revising the pp. I'll tell DH; thanks... .

Overall, just kind of crazy that she WOULD NEED TO THINK ABOUT ACCEPTING THIS PP. I mean, is she gonna come back with a LOWER time for DH, she just needs to figure out how little to give him? Seriously!

[ForeverDad]

It is totally reasonable (and necessary for us) for an offer or proposal to have an expiration date.

Making changes or concessions is a two-edged sword, most of our Ex's are controllers with All Or Nothing perceptions.  Either the Ex will feel like a Loser or the Ex will be enabled to demand even more.

The reasons to ask for more when turning to the judge for a decision is that (1) judges are "less unfair" than our Ex's ever will be and (2) judges typically don't want to have one parent be the winner and the other parent be the loser.  So if the judge sees his proposed parenting plan then he/she will scrutinize it for something to modify or toss out so he doesn't get everything he asked for.

A good negotiator always has some cards up his sleeve, things that won't make him feel devastated if they're taken or given away.

I recall our member David sets his terms (boundaries) and if they don't work then he always goes to court with solutions.  His Ex doesn't, she comes with just complaints.  His solutions are mostly accepted by the court.  Mostly.

[bravhart1]

^^we have also found that having a "plan" in hand makes things go our way more often than not in court and evaluations. BPDM seems to expect DH to get the guillotine and always seems disappointed and confused her complaining doesn't end in his execution.  

Couple things to keep in your back pocket:

It sounds like mom is beginning to use more coercion and PA than before, be careful dad isn't trying to keep peace with mom by keeping peace with the kids.

In other words, if mom is pressuring kids to ask for more mom time, and then mom says to dad they don't want make up time, I would have dad respond by saying, well then I guess it's not happening. (Drop mic here) 

I'm guessing mom will pitch a fit and use kids even further to try to get her way at which time I would have dad stand up for his time, asking if kids thought it would be ok for dad to ask for her time?

And maybe he should find something going on on her time and ask her for her time, she will most certainly be appalled he asked.

This can be used to show its a one way street in court. Moms a bully, dad needs to stand up for his relationship with his kids and tell them that, not the bully part,   but they need to know he cares and wants a relationship. Ask them what's wrong with that. He can express his concern about the things he is seeing going on without throwing mom under a bus.

[david]

My ex was able to do these kinds of things with our youngest. I, like DH, went along with it. Eventually I decided enough was enough and told ex I would be picking both boys up. Of course, when I picked them up our youngest complained. I told him I loved him and missed him. A few times and he no longer complained. Now he is 12 and enjoys seeing me.

[david]

As ForeverDad said, I learned to go to court with a solution. I always had reasons as to the why. I was even challenged once by the judge and stood firm, in a pleasant manner, with my belief that what I was proposing was best for our kids. The judge went along with it because ex had no solution. If I remember correctly, I had to do this four times and then ex changed her behavior and became more agreeable with my suggestions.

I also had it written in our court order that all emails that pertain to the children must be responded to within 48 hours. I put that in because ex let things drag out. Occasionally she takes a little longer but does reply much sooner then before.

[livednlearned]

I recall our member David sets his terms (boundaries) and if they don't work then he always goes to court with solutions.  His Ex doesn't, she comes with just complaints.  His solutions are mostly accepted by the court.  Mostly.

This has proven to be true for me as well. I learned to show up in court with a solution. For example, I would ask for what I wanted (sole legal custody), and would then suggest conditions that my ex had to meet in order to earn back the privilege of coparenting our son. That was mile marker 1. The judge would agree to the stipulations (i.e. ex had to get a psychiatric evaluation, get anger management, get substance abuse treatment, etc.), and most importantly, demonstrate that he could follow the order that stipulated no more obstructing, delaying, stonewalling, threatening emails, messages, etc., particularly when it came to medical, educational decision-making. It's a chance for the judge to say to the difficult parent, Can you show me that you have the capacity to be reasonable and follow orders? It's a little like putting the parent on probation for a while. And so, when the other parent does not or cannot comply with these reasonable solutions, then the next step is to go back to the judge and suggest other solutions, like sole legal custody (because the other things did not work). That's mile marker 2.

One boundary in your case that is particularly difficult is that your ex is giving the kids decision-making powers and making them choose between mom and dad. In my experience, courts hate that. Kids, especially in divorces, need for the adults to act like adults. Hopefully you have a judge who has strong opinions about that.

Is your L adding that kind of language to the order? Often, the Ls will try to make the language apply to both parents, but if there is a proven track record that one parent is doing this egregiously, try to get it so that the language applies to the parent who is guilty of abusing it. For example, "Mother must refrain from giving the minor children decision-making about changing the order. Any arbitrary changes to the visitation schedule can be made up by the father by adding those hours to his custodial time so that visitation is contiguous." Or however lawyers phrase it. Something to indicate that you don't need to ask her permission to earn back the lost visitation time, that it happens automatically on weekends or whatever.

It may be a slam dunk in court to get the PP you want. It's another thing to minimize the conflict she will try to stir in testing the limits of that order. You want to write that order so that you have consequences for non-compliance written into it, so that when she inevitably tests it, you have the judge's blessing to use the order as leverage to solve it without her input.

Pack as much into that order as you can so that it becomes the instructional manual for every possible scenario in which she tries to overthrow it. And if the PA flares up, you may need to make the order (or judge) the highest authority so you can neutralize biomom's accusations that dad is trying to do (insert bad thing) to mom, or to the kids. If your lawyer writes up the ruling, then he will have an advantage in making the language as specific as possible. It will cost you to do this, but in my experience, it was worth it. There will be another hearing after the judge rules when the order is officially entered. Both parties will be there, and if she disagrees with reasonable language that your lawyer proposes, it will draw attention to herself as the source of the problem.

[david]

Our court order evolved over several years. Over time I figured ways to eliminate conflict with ex by writing the court order in a very specific manner. The majority (over 95%) is exactly as I had written it. Some is very unique to my situation. Years ago we had a co parent counselor and she remarked that our order looked unusual. She said it was not something she had ever seen him, that particular judge, write before. The style and specificity appeared very different from what she was used to seeing from him. It was 14 points and they were all exactly as I had written. It took me two weeks to write it up as I thought best. Ex fought several of the points during the first year or two after it was in our order and they have all stayed. Ex was able to change one item through the parent coordinator and it hasn't been much of an issue.

A few of the things the judge did question me about. I gave my reasons and that seemed to satisfy him. He did ask ex about it and all she said was that I was trying to control her, I was abusive, I was blah, blah, blah, but she never suggested anything to fix it. I believe if she did the judge would have given her something she was asking for.