What has changed since having a court order?

[catclaw]

Hey!

My dh is just filing for 2 things:

1) he demands BPDm's consent for ss' therapy to be substituted by the court. It's  really likely this will be successful, because (except for BPDm just not wanting him.in therapy) there's not a single reason to keep ss drom going and many professional opinions stating the urgent need for him to get help.

2) he wants to go for full custody. They share it now with BPDm seeing ss eow (or having her bf keeping him conpany  eow). Our lawyer is not sure about this, but says that, following step 1, it's likely dh will at least get custody in medical decision making and getting to decide where ss lives (she FOGs him eow about how she wants him back and makes secret plans with ss on when to take him back in ad soon as possible), the rest is still unclear.

I wonder what difference it will make. Will everything get worse with the pwBPD trying to get back in control, or will they lose interest in a dynamic they can't control and leave? What are your experiences?

[Nope]

It really depends on the BPD. It also depends on how successful they are at hooking a new victim. After my DH got custody his BPDex spent a lot of time barking at him via email about all the things she disagreed with and telling him he was in contempt for this thing and that thing. Finally we filed to get a few last things in the order changed so that she wouldn't have anything left to threaten DH with. We go later this month.

Well, in that time she found a new boyfriend and had a new baby. She only sees DH's kids maybe four weeks out of a year because she won't go out of her way. Had we known she would become so preoccupied with her new life and start only making her threats sporadically when she felt bad for not being more of a parent to her two oldest kids we wouldn't have bothered filing anything and just ignored her.

Keep in mind though, sometimes the harder the kids have to work to keep the disordered parent in their lives the harder they will work to do exactly that. The less she cares, the more they want to see her, and the more difficult they become for us.

[catclaw]

Hey nope, thanks for your answer.

Well, that was more or less what I was expecting when BPDm became pregnant again, for her to focus on the new baby and thus stopping to get in touch. The truth is, despite not being able to manage the most basic stuff in life, she manages to keep her bf busy taking care of the baby, ss and herself to keep being annoying towards dh. Ss spent 1 week at her house lately and apparently he spent 99% of the time with the bf and the baby with no idea what his mother was doing (she played a round of memory with ss and then went back to incognito mode). And it's always false allegations and claims that have to do with how we do things and how these things cause irreparable damage to ss.
My thought was, if she's out of the decision making, she loses her right to discuss these things. But I'm afriad that she will find other ways to make life difficult, especially for ss. I fear that when she loses dh as the one to conplain to, she will instead use ss.

[livednlearned]

if she's out of the decision making, she loses her right to discuss these things.

I found it didn't stop the cage rattling, it just made it much easier to ignore. I didn't have to exert a bunch of energy trying to figure out how to respond, and could do amazing things like sign S15 on with a new therapist without pulling a boat anchor behind me.

But I'm afriad that she will find other ways to make life difficult, especially for ss. I fear that when she loses dh as the one to conplain to, she will instead use ss.

She's probably going to make life difficult no matter what you do    More than likely, it's SS becoming his own little self independent of her that will make things worse.

Although yes, legal stuff does tend to make things rocky because it's stressful to have strangers all up in your business, judging and scrutinizing, BPD or not.

But you're going for medical decision making anyway, does that get you pretty close to full custody? How does your state define full? Do you want to change visitation too?

[catclaw]

Hey lnl!

Thank you for for reply.

Yes, that's what I meant - being able to dismiss the discussion on how we do / not do things. Where we live, you HAVE to get along. If parents don't, they will - on the long run - most likely both be labeled unfit to raise a child. The dynamics between Dh and BPDx just don't allow this level of "getting along", which makes it very hard.

Where we live, custody consists of different parts that are all seen as equally important. It's medical decision-making, decision-making in education, being allowed to sign official stuff for the kid, fincancial administration for the kid, decision-making on the religious education of a kid and decision-making on where the kid is (living, staying etc.).

If we take the facts from the past years, BPDx did not do anything of these in a matter that benefitted SS, if not herself. With the medical decision making and the right to decide where SS lives, we would have solved 2 problems. Then there's the rest - I suppose she will use them no matter what, just because. E.g. it's illegal for a single parent with shared custody to move to another town without informing the other parent. She pulled off moving with SS 8 (!) times without any legal consequences, including illegally transmitting SS to a foster family. These things go unnoticed, because no official place will ask for proof of her having full custody. She might get asked "do you have custody?" and she will say "yes" (the lying again... if she ever tells the truth, it's never the whole story, just the part that beneftis her, so she might stick to the parts of custody she still has). If she loses custody completely, it's more likely her cover will blow. It's hard to explain.

We would actually like the visitation to be supervised, but this seems to be utopian. PAS is happening, but we have no way to prove it (just hearsay).

[livednlearned]

I would do what you think is right for SS.

It sounds like you feel full custody is right for SS.

And then have eyes wide open.

You're already paying your lawyer to appear in court.

You may not get it this round. If something happens, you can always go back and say, Look here, we asked for this before and now this other thing happened. You really need to hear what we're saying.

And while you know how devastating it is for the kids when a BPD parent dysregulates, she already does that with or without the things you do. Things unrelated to you dysregulate her, and it affects SS. Things happen inside her head that cause her to dysregulate, and it affects SS.

Going for full custody may cause an escalation. It may trigger disassociation, psychosis, who knows what else.

And that might get some attention from people who can shine light on her instability.

I would never do something on purpose to make that happen, but I also wouldn't avoid doing the right thing for my kid in fear it might happen.

[Nope]

L&L is right on target. Everything you worry about happening is going to happen anyway. So you might as well do the very best you can for SS. It took me about a year of showing my DH that no matter how much he tip toed around his BPDex that she was still going to do and act exactly the same way as if he was going out of his way to make her angry. It literally did him and the kids no good to try to appease her.

As a matter of fact, in the midst of the worst of the court conflict she started showing the kids their wedding album, saying nice things about him, and actively tried to talk to him about getting back together after having been divorced for six years. Why? Because somehow that made sense in her head at that time. After previously not having let him see or speak to the kids in more than a year, having another child with a boyfriend, and telling him that she still loves him but no he could not have the kids two extra days so he could have them for Father's day. (So she wanted to get back together, but she wasn't going to try to work with him or give him any reason to find her likeable.)  Moral of the story; just do what you gotta do.

[scraps66]

From my experience in relative terms ex gave in to shared parenting quite easily.  However what I now see is that her approach was that she would give in, but do as she pleased when she pleased from that point on.  She essentially "assumes" she has full custody, discussing topics with the kids without touching base with me, scheduling events without talking to me, and then informing me of what the kids want to do - after she's already discussed with them.  I'm always the last to know, her boyfriend gets more consideration then me.

I have spent A LOT of time countering what she does and a lot lf it results from the fact that decisions are meant to be made jointly with joint legal custody.  In many cases, just like therapy for our S12, she makes bad decisions and is constantly trying to do the opposite of what I suggest.  In many cases, like child counseling, she obstructs these things that would be beneficial for the child.

Getting full decision making authority would go along way to reducing conflict.  I'm talking about having something written in an Order that states, ":)H will have full and complete decision making authority for this child."  Ex could do whatever she wants, having this written in an order would give him that ability to show this to a doctor, teacher, etc. if there was disagreement between parents. 

[ForeverDad]

My ex did not get her 'entitlement balloon' popped until 6 years after the divorce when I successfully sought majority time.  Me getting full custody a few years before while she kept equal time didn't phase her.

For most it's hard to get full custody, courts seem reluctant to order that since it might make the disadvantaged parent drift away.  Usually it is ordered if the other parent is really acting out and impacting the child in some way.  That is, "actionable" poor behaviors.

It's okay to seek full custody but don't neglect to have alternate strategies.  As mentioned above, many courts are more willing to grant Decision Making or Tie Breaker status.  If your husband can get either one then it's effectively like full custody, just not in name.  He asks (TB) or announces (DM) and then proceeds with his decision.  It's up to the Ex to contest it in court but meanwhile his decisions aren't delayed.

Also, I think court likes DM/TB, if it comes to that, because the other parent can still save face by saying it is joint custody.