... .up until the point that I filed for divorce my wife was very dysfunctional in the home and with the kids. I had the lion's share of the house work while being the only breadwinner in the home. I was working like a dog to keep the house functioning, help the kids and hold down a job. The second that I filed she all of a sudden started cleaning up, doing dishes, cooking, laundry and taking care of the kids.
On one hand it has been a big relief for me not to have to do everything but on the other hand it makes me nervous that she is going to show this to the court and prove that she is a functional person.
My Ex too was very dysfunctional. Before our separation and divorce she would often moan and groan around the house, making demands, slamming doors, kicking them into the walls. I would do the shopping then she would complain I took too long. One time when she was crying and shut herself in the bedroom, my son eating breakfast said his first sentence, which most would get so excited about but not this... ."Mommy bad." I interpreted it as 'Mommy feels bad'. That was life then. As soon as we separated (and she was arrested for Threat of DV, later dismissed at trial) I never again saw a helpless person. She changed but she was still disordered and messed up. Previously her focus was herself and her 'baby' (then growing from 3 to 4 years old) against the world. She had a new focus, to make me look worse than she already looked. She tried to make me look like an aggressor and child abuser and her the target and victim by making allegations to every agency she could find. Didn't work for long but it was a very scary couple of years.
And to be truly honest, it makes me unsure if I have made the right decision to fight for custody. Maybe she can take care of the kids? Maybe she will be a good mother? This dilemma bothers me a lot and I am struggling with it.
I know that she is not a healthy, happy person and she is not going to be able to help my kids grow up to be happy. But she is their mother and they do have a connection with her so it scares me to try to pull them away from her. I am truly confused about this issue.
She would have visitation rights and they would see her but is this the right way to go?
Make a priority list: You and your children at the top. Her, somewhere below. Can you do that? Remember, she's an adult, the children aren't. Court will focus on the children and so should you. Even when it comes to the allegations made against each other keep two things in mind... .(1) court will pay vastly more attention to poor
parenting behaviors than poor
adult behaviors (2) and
documentation such as logs or journals of prior family status and all her dysfunctional behaviors will support your testimony and stance as father seeking to remain very involved in meaningful parenting.
Why do I put you in the top group as the priorities? Remember what every airline attendant states at the beginning of every flight? "In the event of an emergency, put on your oxygen mask first before you help others." You can't help anyone if you're powerless or unconscious.
So don't doubt yourself. As a capable father you can and should stand up for yourself and the children's best interests. But that means finding a very good, proactive lawyer, also learning as much as you can in peer support here about solid strategies that generally work and avoid well-meaning but misguided impulses that seldom work or can even sabotage you.
One mistake was a botched attempt to have my ex psychologically evaluated. To this day it is my feeling that the results of that evaluation would have changed the outcome of my case significantly. There would have been much less possibility of "hiding" things and everything would have been out in the open closer to the beginning and it would have given me more control.
The environment around your BPD attachment no doubt has you second guessing, maybe doubting yourself. This is normal and something you have to get accustomed to dealing with. Preserve your self-esteem.
If I had it to do over, I would have started out with a game plan for full custody. I may not have ended up with that but I feel I would have had a better Custody order that would have had the teeth to better control parallel parenting with my exNPD/BPDw.
A custody evaluation - if handled by an experienced, unbiased and perceptive evaluator - is invaluable to get a better than usual outcome. On the other hand, a biased or inept CE can do a world of hurt, as david learned the hard way. I recall my CE, a child psychologist that my lawyer said was viewed like god by the court and whose reports were always accepted, told me in our first session that majority parenting time was half of his evaluation. Like you, I worked and my then-spouse had stopped working when our son was born. Evidently they don't want to make major changes to the child's life. (As if major changes aren't needed to limit the craziness and flying monkeys?) Well, about 5 months later I saw the initial CE report considered by the main judge and lawyers. It was relatively short, less than a dozen pages. The summary stated "Mother cannot share 'her' child {CE's own quotes} but the Father can... .Mother should immediately lose her temporary custody... .If Shared Parenting is attempted and fails then Father should have custody." It was solidly in my favor. Though court never acted on that report, several months later on Trial Day I was greeted with the news that my ex finally wanted to settle. That report and the fact that she couldn't keep her favorable temp order any longer made it possible for us to settle. Her sense of Entitlement was dinged. The final decree wasn't totally in my favor but it pretty much followed the CE's report in that we began Shared Parenting and I was able to stand firm that I would be the Residential Parent (which would determine where our son would attend school). It wasn't long before we were back in court and I got bumped up to full custody (3 years later). It wasn't long before we were in court yet again and I got bumped up to majority time during the school year (nearly 3 years later).
I will typically recommend that the reasonably normal parent seek as much custody and parenting time as possible. Don't worry about being 'fair' or seeming 'mean'. Put your children first, not the messed up parent. Since you already can be sure she'll try to get 99% custody, parenting, whatever, then you don't have to be locked into seeking comfy terms. For example, if she seeks/demands 99.9% and you seek a 'fair' 50%, do you want to risk the judge taking the usual path favoring mother (or take a shortcut and split the difference) and then she gets majority time and you get the 'standard' father schedule, alternate weekends and maybe an evening or overnight in between? That's why one important strategy is to seek more than the standard father's outcome. Don't be timid to ask for majority anything or think it looks bad on you. If it's what the children need, then ask for it. Yes, you might not get it all but very likely you'll get more than if you didn't.
Also, if you can't get full custody - many court avoid that until it becomes obvious that prior decisions didn't work - then try to get lesser but nearly equivalent orders such as Decision Making or Tie Breaker status for major decisions. Frankly, you know there will be many times you two won't reach agreement. So DM or TB lets you proceed with reasonable decisions without having to wait months for a mediation outcome or a court decision. Yes, she could still object but then it would be her trying to object to the court and odds are your reasonable decision will stand.
Do you see? You need to have practical strategies and an assertive stance. Not aggressive, not vindictive, but strategically smart and proactive. Sadly, sitting back and letting a settlement-oriented passive lawyer file forms and hold your hands won't work.
Do you have Bill Eddy and Randi Kreger's
SPLITTING handbook? It is invaluable!
