Please help!

[whatanightmare]

Hi,
I'm new to the BPD world which is strange to say as I've just come out of a nine year relationship with my BPD girlfriend / mother of our two young children.  Yes, I'm new to understanding BPD but always knew something wasn't right.  I didn't understand, I didn't know the signs and didn't see the red flags until it was too late.

Our last day together she attacked me and split on July 2nd of this year.  When I say split you know what I mean.  Almost four months ago.  As we are unmarried I told her I would be filing for custody of our two children as in the State of MN an unmarried father does not have custody of his kids.  Before I knew it she hit me up with an emergency OFP for her and the kids against me.  It was approved.  I fought her in court and had a lot of evidence.  Text messages for our last seven years, emails, recorded phone conversations, many police reports and unknowing to me she was recording a lot of our arguments.  During the trial I was able to use her recordings to prove, or at least what I thought prove my innocence.

Just yesterday after an almost four month battle I received the order from the courts.  The official OFP was granted.  I was found guilty of physically, emotionally and verbally abusing her for the duration of our nine year relationship.  I could not believe it.  After everything I learned about BPD and every lie I exposed in court with hard evidence, police reports, phone recordings, text message I thought I had an open and shut case.  Nope.  The court even said every piece of evidence that I provided, ie, police reports from law enforcement, proved her testimony truthful and mine the opposite.  What?  I feel like I fell asleep four months ago and am living a nightmare and cannot wake up!

I started a webpage to blog everything that is going on.  I just started it and have a lot to add.  I am looking for help from the BPD community as it seems the courts in my area are clueless.  Please, if you can, subscribe to my blog and help me fight for my kids.  They are 4 and 3 years old and she has done nothing but emotionally abuse these kids during this process and the courts are clueless.

The last time I saw my 4yo son she followed me to a restaurant and held him in front of me.  While she called the police to report and OFP violation.  How can someone do that to another person?  Then, guess what, I had to plead with law enforcement not to get arrested.  What????  My 4yo son doesn't understand an OFP or an OFP violation.  He witnessed his dad which he hadn't seen in months just stand there and not come to him.  He witnessed me abandon him as my only other option was to come pick him up, give him a hug and then go to jail.  I knew at the time that wouldn't help as I was still dealing with the court.  At this point, with how it ended I should have just picked him up, hugged him and got arrested.  It would have been worth it.  FML

I don't care if anyone knows who I am.  I am fighting for my life right now and the lives of my two young children.  Nothing else matters.  Thank you.

[CravingPeace]

I am so sorry for what you are going through. It is dreadful.

 I have suffered at the hands of a TPO based on lies, mine was not made permanant but I understand a little of what you are going through. But as I was married at least I got granted minimum custody even though she tried to have my custody completely taken which the judge refused.

The protection order system in the US is a complete racket and is heavily abused. Unfortunately proving purgery is next to impossible as they can just say they were mistaken or confused not that they lied.

I know you are angry. It is right you should be. My only advice in my opinion is to consider not questioning the court on your blog so clearly in public, saying they are clueless etc. This could hurt you as a judge will seek to defend the intrenched position. Also discussing labels like BPD wont help. Focus on her behaviour. Judges get that not labels.

Also my understanding on splitting is different to yours. You say she split and now is not the real Amy. But this is the real Amy.  The mask has slipped that is all. Now she "feels" like you are an abuser. Whether that is true or not. In her mind she will rewrite history and she probably actual believes you are an abuser whether true or not. That is where the phycosis of this disorder kicks in and why I feel it is so dangerous. She will be able to recruit well meaning people as negative advocates as people want to help victims.

My only confusion is what was in this police reports surely if there was nothing negative to you they would have been ignored if however they record you verbally or emotionally abused her woth recorded evidence, even if she did too. It still means you did do it so the commissioner could thus support her claims as she is the one that filed the protective order?

[whatanightmare]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my message and I am sorry for what you have gone through as well.

I understand your statements regarding my public statements about the court.  My reason for going strong now is I gave the courts the benefit of the doubt already and this specific court made their decision already.  I am appealing this courts decision but my feeling is now is the time to get help from the public and the best way to do that is to come off strong and loud.  Show the injustice victims of mental health disorders struggle with by just defending their right to defend themselves.  I truly don't feel like I have anything left to lose regarding this case.  Since I already lost.

Also, because of everything I have read, I did not use the term BPD during this trial process.  I did as so many recommended and focused on the behavior.  This behavior was not only described by my testimony but proved by, police reports, witness testimony, phone recordings and audio recordings.  Focusing on the behavior obviously did nothing to persuade this court.  In fact, all evidence was stated to collaborate the petitioners statements and refute my, the respondents statements.  So, when it comes down to it, it was a he said, she said with no hard facts taken into account.  As I'm sure most on this forum will realize is not good when you're dealing with a person with a mental health disorder.  Of course she come off as truthful as she believes it!!!  Ugh.  Looking back at our relationship a red flag jumps out as I used to always tell her, "just because you say something doesn't make it true".  I had no idea what she was going through.

That brings me to your comments about splitting.  I 100% agree with you but my post is for the public.  I know due to living with this for so long is that the public, including my family and friends don't understand splitting in the clinical way.  Maybe they will if they take some time to understand the disorder.  But to make a quick, easy, understandable statement, I thought it best to keep it generic.  As everyone that I know, who has spoken to my ex doesn't see her as the person they have gotten to know for almost a decade.  The person that was so loving, the person that wanted me to marry her, the person that cared for me for so long.  You know the deal.

I'll get the police reports uploaded to my site soon so hopefully that will help.  All I can say is there are four reports.  They either state her accusations were false/unfounded, her statements of injuries were refuted by law enforcement not to be the case.  Such as, she would show injuries, even the next day and the officers reported not being able to see anything.  Or her statements of being dragged around by her hair.  Hair being ripped out and then beaten.  With law enforcement statements of "a few broken nails".  Yep, she did have a few broken nails.  Probably because she jumped on me from behind like a spider monkey.  All the while ripping my belonging out of my pockets so I wouldn't leave.  When minutes before she was screaming at me to leave.  Forever.

There is a audio recording that I had no idea she set me up with.  I used it for my defense as well but that didn't help.  You can hear her setting it up but the funny thing is it's a video recording from her phone with no video.  You can hear her attacking me and me laughing at her.  Saying wtf, so you're the kind of person that hits me, pushes me to try and get me to attack you?  What are you doing?  You can continue to hear her coming at me.  Attacking me, talking PLEASE READ to me, trying to get me to react.  I did react.  I yelled at her, I swore at her, but I didn't ever hit her.  Even after everything she was doing to me.  I had no idea what was going on.  Remember, I had no idea she was recording this.  She did.  By the end of the recording you can hear it escalate as I was trying to put my boots on at the door and she is still attacking me.  There are three comments she makes during the recording that I thought were great for me.  Up until I leave she is telling me.  Don't you PLEASE READing hit me.  If you hit me they'll be here in five PLEASE READing seconds, etc.  I thought great.  This audio proves she was attacking me, she was pushing me to attack her and obviously the audio proves I didn't.  I did the right thing.  I left.  Nope, didn't help me at all.  The best part is once I'm gone she comes to the phone in a state of, acting like she's upset.  She speaks into the phone saying "I need help".  That was five years ago and I heard it for the first time a couple of months ago during discovery.  Five years ago.  I think a day later after that incident we were back together.  I was like wtf, but took her back.  We had two kids since then, she continually asked to get married, etc.  If she needed help from me why didn't she leave?  Obviously I was the one that was clueless...  I'll get all of this evidence uploaded as well.

BTW, the above audio of me yelling, swearing at her, saying nasty things to her proves the emotional and verbal abuse she received by me.  WTF.  Okay, just an FYI for anyone that's a victim of these people.  I guess your only recourse is to sit there and take it.  Do not stick up for yourself.  Allow the abuse to happen.  Because if you stick up for yourself, your at fault.  Also, when you try to help the person you love after an event you will be accused of gaslighting them.  Yep, all the times I told her I loved her and wanted to make us work I was gaslighting her.  Wow.  Okay now you can't try to help anyone.  Lots of sarcasm as I don't agree with any of this.  So much BS.  This needs to change.  You need to stick up for yourself.  Just know what you're getting into and never give the person what they're looking for.  Never make them the victim.  If you do it's an uphill battle.  It was easy for me not to fight back because that's just not in my nature and I loved her.  I could see something was wrong, I just didn't understand it.  But again, if I fought back, it would have made this so much harder.  Not that you don't already know this, I'm just on a rant.  Not for you but for anyone else trying to understand this for the first time.

Again, thank you for your comments.  They are much appreciated.  I'm hoping I can help others see the red flags before they get to the point I'm at.

[EyesUp]

@OP, it hurts to read your story - I can't imagine what you're going through.

If it's an option, I would encourage you get a pitbull of an attorney that comes with solid references for litigation - not negotiation.

That may be the best way to try to turn this thing around, if you can swing it.

If that's not an option, then plan b would be to study the pitbull attys to have a shot of doing this pro se.  Perhaps in your district/county, you can sit in and observe similar proceedings?

Take care.

[ForeverDad]

I am appealing this courts decision...

Take advantage of whatever legal option is open to you.  In my area the original option was filing for a reconsideration, then if that failed file an appeal.  Most of us aren't in your state so the process and steps will vary.  Find an experienced attorney who is qualified to handle appeal cases.  They're like a specialty within the family law attorney field.  Sadly, you need someone familiar with how courts work - and especially appeals court work - an appeals specialist will know which issues to pursue and which to Let Go.  If you turn to public or social sites now, you could be burning bridges unwittingly.

Be aware that there is only a certain amount of time to properly object to the court's filing.  One member here waited to file on the last day then was shunted from one place to another until they closed at the end of the day.  So don't cut it that close.

My county defaulted to preference for women/mothers.  My then-spouse was arrested and faced a Threat of DV charge in one county court yet she went to family court and filed for herself and our preschooler seeking a protection order.  It failed when the Child Protective Services (CPS) investigator stood up and stated they had "no concerns" about me.  Our child was removed from her filing and eventually it was withdrawn.

Even so, the court assigned her temp custody and temp majority time.  How long was "temporary"?  Until the final decree over two years later.  Our sort of cases take longer than most to be resolved.

Are you allowed to have any contact with your children?  Temporary supervised visitation (with a professional agency or professionals) may be a way to maintain contact with the children while everything is unsettled.  Again, this authorization has to occur through the lawyers or other professionals.  You know now you can never be in a private scenario ever again with your ex.

[ForeverDad]

Strategy is very important.  What did one Bible person write? "Therefore, the way I am running is not aimlessly; the way I am aiming my blows is so as not to be striking the air."

Strategy is what your appeals lawyer would ponder.  How can the decision be set aside, or more likely, portions of the decision voided and sent back to the lower court?  The lawyer would not claim general unfairness, as your public outcry might be perceived, but likely focus on specific missteps of the lower court.

One thing is to emphasize the distinction between the adult relationship versus the parenting relationship.  Wasn't most - if not all - of her "proof" about the conflict between you and her, right?  Well, that's okay, you can't ever get back with her as partners, right?  So the adult relationship is Over.

By contrast, it would be extremely rare for a court to rule that you're not a father, usually that step only happens after years of child abuse or abject neglect.  So, ponder this, shouldn't your parenting be your real goal?

Be aware that once she realizes you've switched to parenting (and essentially ignore her and her past relationship conflict) she will then start making false allegations of child abuse, neglect or endangerment.  (That's what my ex did.)  Strategize with your lawyer how to minimize and counter that predictable risk.

One thing that may have helped me - I'll never know for sure - was that when my then-spouse filed against me for protection, I filed against her too.  So it wasn't one sided with her the victim accuser and me the aggressive perp... each of us were both plaintiff and defendant.  Her petition was withdrawn and mine was dismissed.  I really think court didn't want to join in the Blaming and Blame Shifting.  So the case moved onto unwinding the marital relationship (divorce) and what was left was the parenting... legal custody and parenting schedule details.

As I mentioned in my prior response, my ex was initially facing a charge of threat of DV yet got temp orders lasting over two years awarding her temp custody and majority parenting time.  It's almost as though the court viewed her pending charge as her in an adult relationship and that it didn't impact her parenting.  I mean, as though she were two separate people!  It doesn't make everyday common sense, but that seems to be a legal result of decades of prior judicial decisions and policies.

We can't give you legal advice nor professional therapy, this is peer support, but we can share from our collective wisdom accumulated over the years, we often have a sense of what typically works and what typically doesn't work.

[whatanightmare]

Thank you all for taking the time to send me replies.

I filed a child custody case, which caused her to file for the emergency OFP, right?  So the courts are waiting for the child custody case in order to determine custody / visitation with my children.  In MN an unmarried father has zero custody of his children until it is established in a court custody case.  An unmarried mother, married (mother / father) automatically have custody of their children.  I would love to change this even if it's too late for me.

So now I have to wait for a custody case to end that hasn't even started yet after four months just to see my kids.  All the while knowing she's emotionally abusing them.  As in telling them the reason I'm not around is because I hit/hurt them.  The reason I know this is there were videos and witness testimonies in the OFP case that were brought out in court.  One video was so bad the judge threw it out and lectured my ex's attorney about trying to enter it into evidence as there was so much coaching of a 4 yo and 3 yo.  Might I add, the judge still approved the OFP for her.

I understand she will will continue and up her game with the child abuse now.  The only good thing is she did originally include child abuse on the emergency OFP and the courts have said, no go and did not include them on the final order.  Their reason, my adult children's testimony that I have never abused or even spanked them.  My oldest in her senior year of pre-med especially.   I was very lucky to have adult children that could speak on my behalf.  Or should I say, speak on the behalf of their young siblings that cannot speak for themselves.  So now moving forward if she isn't forced to get help or chose to get it on her own, I am confident we will have the common back and forth battle over the children which is what I'm trying to avoid.  As I know it'll only damage them.  Hopefully I can get the OFP reversed, appealed, or even the custody court to see things differently.  The guardian ad litem for the custody case has already shown concerns for my ex's behavior which is recorded in police reports.  She has stated it appears she has a history of her bad behavior which I'm hoping helps us.

I can only hope someone will see what is going on and if not, keep fighting until they do.

I entered a new blog post today on the fact that I lost my second amendment right this past week due to these false allegations being ruled and ordered in her favor.  Beyond losing your kids, losing hunting privileges can affect a lot of Americans.  Again, thank you.

[ForeverDad]

the judge still approved the OFP for her.

So though the kids aren't included in her OFP anymore, you can't see your kids until a custody case occurs.  Tough, I was blocked from my preschooler for three months when we were between orders.  (Police refused to assist me without a court order in hand.)  As I explained my practical perspective, the adult relationship is ended.  Once you get parenting time and if the OFP still exists then the court will order how you do child exchanges and necessary parental contact about the children.  Nothing more or she'll sabotage you.

Our general experience has been that the courts deal with parents as they are, not as we wish them to be.  Just as we can't fix our ex-partners, the courts don't try to fix them either.  Frankly, we do well to follow that example.  If this were a perfect world... but it's not.  Sure, they can go so far as to order Anger Management classes, but don't count on it.  It's likely they may order you both to attend the standard initial Parenting classes that divorcing parents get, but that's unlikely to improve her behavior by very much if at all.

In the grand scheme of things, parenting is your priority.  You will always be a father.