Hello

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

Our MFT shared with me after my husband left me in November that she believes my husband demonstrates 8/9 symptoms for BPD. He quit couples counseling and his individual therapy and says he's fine now that he left me. My husband believes he has anxiety caused by his perceived threat of me abandoning him. Until a year ago, I had no idea anything was happening and I believed we were very happy together. Typical communication struggles occurred infrequently, but things were mostly magical for first 6 years. Now he has filed for divorce. I'm scared for him and sad for me and our children 1&4. I know they need to remain my focus. I pray he will seek help and realize what's happening. He's exposing our children to all kinds of scary things that he'd never have done a year ago. He's cut off contact with all our shared family and friends. I filed for temporary emergency custody and it was denied. I want to keep everyone safe until, my husband stabilizes and I pray gets some help soon. He wants custody of our children. He's told his mom awful lies about me and she won't talk to me. I love him but I cannot reach him so I'm doing my best to let him go. He's all alone. Thank you in advance for your guidance.

[Emily21]

Our MFT shared with me after my husband left me in November that she believes my husband demonstrates 8/9 symptoms for BPD. He quit couples counseling and his individual therapy and says he's fine now that he left me. My husband believes he has anxiety caused by his perceived threat of me abandoning him. Until a year ago, I had no idea anything was happening and I believed we were very happy together. Typical communication struggles occurred infrequently, but things were mostly magical for first 6 years. Now he has filed for divorce. I'm scared for him and sad for me and our children 1&4. I know they need to remain my focus. I pray he will seek help and realize what's happening. He's exposing our children to all kinds of scary things that he'd never have done a year ago. He's cut off contact with all our shared family and friends. I filed for temporary emergency custody and it was denied. I want to keep everyone safe until, my husband stabilizes and I pray gets some help soon. He wants custody of our children. He's told his mom awful lies about me and she won't talk to me. I love him but I cannot reach him so I'm doing my best to let him go. He's all alone. Thank you in advance for your guidance.

[livednlearned]

Hi Emily21,

I'm sorry you're going through this. It's not easy to be a single parent of two small kids, and worrying about the mental state of your H on top of everything.

When you say he wants custody of your kids, do you mean he wants full custody? Or he wants 50/50 custody? It's pretty common in divorces for the default to be that both parents share custody. What kind of visitation schedule is he asking for? Do you feel comfortable sharing what kinds of scary things he's doing when the kids are in his care?

Have you talked to a lawyer yet? One helpful resource often recommended here is Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing a BPD/NPD Spouse. Family law court has its own set of rules and it's important to be aware how BPD can mix with those rules. You care a lot about how your husband is doing; meanwhile, you may have to shift your focus to protecting yourself so you can protect your kids. He probably doesn't have the capacity to do what's in their best interest.

What made you file for temporary emergency custody?

Hang in there, I know it's hard. This place is a wonderful resource of collective wisdom. You're not alone. 

LnL

[Emily21]

Thanks LnL!

He wants full custody of our children (1 &4) but he says he'll accept nothing less than 50/50 because "it's my right". Most recently, he wants a 2/2/3 schedule. There's exposure to guns, cigarettes, unexplained bumps and bruises (mostly minor), an absolute hatred of me, and expanding to a widening circle of family and friends perceived to be taking sides, though no one is. The children's play is different both in context and in quality. They are stressed beyond what I'd expect from experiencing such a big change. Lots of nightmares and lots of "dad says he's gonna shoot you if... ." He's blocking me from getting our children in therapy and I'm trying to get a court order. Honestly, we're all worried about children first and my husband second, though how he is, directly affects them most of all.

I see no evidence that he has the capacity to put our children first. It's such an extreme shift and we don't really know what happened over the last year or if this is truly BPD. It started with him saying I threatened to divorce him (about 2 sleepless weeks after the birth of our second child). I don't really trust I remember being said, but he had me convinced that everything wrong was me, all me, and has been for years.

Since he left, I'm sad, and I'm scared, but I know me again. I'm not who he accuses me of being. I never have been and never will be. He's convinced his mom/others that I'm a monster. For me, it's not really about what they think of me (I care but they if they believe that, that's there problem and they're not worth my time to try to prove myself.) it's about them reinforcing his distorted perception and continuing to enable him. He's needs to hit bottom before he's going to be willing to face whatever is going on with him and he will need support and unconditional love (which he won't get from his family). Our children need him to face this before he turns on them, like he has me and others before me. The false allegations are unreal and include an attack on me personally and professionally. the court doesn't seem to care.

I filed for emergency custody because he threatened to take them and said I'd never see them again. Since there has been no physical abuse, it was denied. Verbal threats were not good enough, and he's too smart to put anything other than vague threats in writing. My attorney has seen the problem first hand now, but thinks it will take years to get the court to see it and then she says she's seen therapists work with a patient and then say they're "cured" and it so starts all over. I'm in CA and I'd like to learn what to do to protect our children. Everything I do or don't do gets twisted and shared with our babies and the world. The documentation needed is overwhelming.

All positive advice is appreciated. I'm going to read Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing a BPD/NPD Spouse next. Thanks for being there and for sharing your knowledge. Though I know I'm not, I feel alone. I wish I could stop missing the sweet man I've loved for so many years.

[livednlearned]

Hi Emily21,

One pattern I notice here, that seems to be confirmed by (admittedly limited research) is that dads with BPD different in small ways from moms with BPD. You may notice over time that he will do anything to try and push your buttons, to get control of the kids, and yet not focus on them, if that makes sense.

Meaning, his goal is to have control. His goal is not necessarily to spend time with the kids. Full custody for him means controlling you. Full custody for you means protecting the kids.

It is quite possible that even if the judge awarded him 50/50, he would find excuse after excuse to not be able to take the kids. You know his patterns best -- if he was not a hands-on dad during the marriage, he will not be one after the divorce.

Like you mentioned, documentation alone can be overwhelming. Because these custody issues tend to get dragged out, it is important to create a system that works efficiently for you and start using it. I created a whole separate label for "Legal" in Google calendar to track comments, emails, appointments, legal docs being filed, hearings, anything that might eventually help me in court. When it was time to construct a timeline, I clicked the agenda view and everything printed out in chronological order. When you are experiencing the level of stress you are, remembering becomes very difficult so if you can figure out an easy way to track things it will go a long way.

You have a good head on your shoulders and understand what's going on. Don't lose sight of that! Crazy things are going to happen, including court hearings that leave you baffled. Keep your sights set on your goal and just know it is a marathon, not a sprint. Just because court denied this one emergency order does not mean they didn't believe you. It could be that there was not a legal basis upon which to grant you the emergency order. Court tries very hard to not escalate the situation (even though it often does... .), and can be aggravatingly passive when it should be proactive, and then adversarial in a resting state.

It took me 4 years to get full custody of my son, and I live in a county where my L said it would be unlikely that I would get that. Divorce is very triggering for someone with BPD, and your ex is probably going to dysregulate even more as the process moves forward. If you live in a one-party consent state, you can record things he says. There is always discussion here about whether it's wise to record your ex, regardless of whether you can record or not.

While you did not have a good experience with your first ex parte emergency order, I found that taking actions to protect my son was taken seriously. It didn't mean that court always acted right away, sometimes it took repeated orders to show a pattern. You have laid the first stone, and there will be others.

I did not agree in mediation to shared legal custody, though our temporary custody order moved forward anyway, with one paragraph saying "The parties do not agree to shared legal, therefore this matter will need to be heard by a judge." I didn't act on that right away, I waited a few years and N/BPDx handed me enough material that when I did file, it was clear there was an established pattern.

Document everything, and surround yourself with people who support you and help you stay centered and grounded.

My experience turned into a powerful life lesson that has rippled throughout every relationship, for the better, including my son. What I learned here I have learned to model for my son and in many ways he is wise beyond his years, and more self aware than the average child.

There is a silver lining, though it can be faint when you are just beginning.

We are here for you when you need some shoulders and hugs and collective wisdom. 

LnL

[ForeverDad]

There's an old phrase, "His bark is worse than his bite."  That is, his demands are more to intimidate you than what would really happen in most courts.

LnL has good points, most disordered fathers do seem to have less of a focus on their children than most disordered mothers.  But most who don't wander away do persist in conflict, far longer than the court expects of reasonably normal parents.

His demand to get Full Custody would be hard to accomplish.  I recall my days in temp orders (about 2 years!) when my then-stbEx and I separated and divorced.  I had protection from another court due to her Threats of DV but family court still give her temporary custody and majority parenting time of our preschooler.  My point is that even if he says he wants something, doesn't mean he will get it.

Eventually in final decrees courts generally assign joint legal custody and are very reluctant to grant full legal custody.  I've concluded they don't want the other parent to feel shut out of parental authority unless there is a substantive reason to do so.

As for 50/50, while there are some states that have been reported to default more easily to equal time, the majority do seem to start with one parent as the primary parent with majority time.  And in many cases the policies and procedure do give an unwritten preference to mothers.  For example, if you've had majority time with the children, then that History is important to document to the court since that means a lot when they make such decisions.

[ForeverDad]

... .but he had me convinced that everything wrong was me, all me, and has been for years... .

Since he left, I'm sad, and I'm scared, but I know me again. I'm not who he accuses me of being. I never have been and never will be. He's convinced his mom/others that I'm a monster... .

Invalidation, isolation, blaming and blame shifting are all weapons used by people with BPD and other acting acting-out PDs.  So while we can't stop them from doing such things, we can at least find strategies that will limit the damage they can do to us, the children and our relationships with others.  Bill Eddy and Randi Kreger's SPLITTING handbook is excellent.

I filed for emergency custody because he threatened to take them and said I'd never see them again. Since there has been no physical abuse, it was denied. Verbal threats were not good enough, and he's too smart to put anything other than vague threats in writing... .

My Ex had said that too.  She even ended up in court for making death threats against me, documented, but the judge ruled that without a weapon in her hands then the threats weren't "imminent" threats and ruled she was Not Guilty.  However, I got as far as I did because I had a recording of her threats.  Even if he does not put in writing his threats, you can chose to record yourself when you have interactions with him in case you need to prove you're not the one misbehaving.  At least that's how you explain it if he complains about you recording him.  (Of course, never wave a recording device in front of a person, it's likely to create an incident.)