Difficult co-parent

[Nbp tim]

Good resources for dealing with a difficult co-parent?  My daughter is 7.  We split custody 50/50.  Every other personal or work relationship that she tanked in the past, she has been able to place blame on the other person and completely cut ties thereafter.  But obviously I'm still around because we have a child together.

The difference between my situation and what I read about in BPD books is that she's not attacking me, however she dismisses and ignores me.  She doesn't treat me as an equal parent.  When it's my weekend with my daughter, we went to her classmate's birthday party and she showed up to be there too (not a family friend, just a classmate).  Paperwork from school went home about the gifted program my daughter was being tested for.  She filled out the home survey without even telling me there was one.  The school called her with the results.  She didn't tell me for a month, and I didn't actually get the results for another month when she kept "forgetting".  She remembered once I told her I would just get them from the school. 

When I bring up issues, she deflects, or tries to pivot them to something else.  And when I try to bring it back to the actual issue to discuss, she blows me off.  As in, just stops all communication about it.  The court assigned us a parenting coordinator.  Every time the coordinator would meet with us, she would end up taking my "side", which made mom mad and she stopped agreeing to meet with her.  The court said we needed more counseling so we met with a different coordinator.  Same story, he sided with me, so now she refuses to go back to him. 

Last year I told her I wanted to check my daughter out of school mid-week because we were going to go away for a long weekend.  Not a big deal as she NEVER misses school and is an excellent student.  I got a multiple paragraph response explaining how it's my responsibility to clear it with her first, then she can decide if it's appropriate, and talking about court orders and judgments and contempt charges, etc.  Then 2 weeks ago she said she's taking her out of school early in Thursday to go to Florida with her family.  I reminded her of how she responded to my early identical request a year ago and how she would feel if I responded similarly.  And she went off on a tangent about how I should approve because it's a fun trip, and how I did the same thing so I shouldn't give her a hard time about it. 

All I'm asking is for her to step back and assess how she treated me a year ago and explain why every single topic that comes up has to turn into a battle or why she feels the need to exert her control over me, or try to show herself as the "primary" parent. 

It's impacting our ability to co-parent because everything is a competition with her all the time.  Is there any effective ways to get her to step back and see this kind of behavior?  Anyone else who sees this just shakes their head, but she seems to have no self-awareness and thinks her actions are 100% correct and justified. 

[livednlearned]

Hi Nbp tim,

Coparenting with a disordered ex is tough. With my ex, I instructed the school to send duplicate communication to both parents, no exceptions. It took a while to train them, but it was worth it because it eliminated cooperative expectations.

Is your PC court-mandated? Are you planning to get another one since your ex refuses to go back? In my case, the PC ended up testifying that my ex was unable to cooperate and I was eventually awarded sole legal custody. Sometimes the long game looks a whole lot better than the short game.

A lot of people on these boards end up doing what is known as parallel parenting, for the reasons you mention. You won't get apologies or cooperation from your ex, you will instead learn to deal directly with teachers and professionals, and when it comes to permission, you can make an attempt, or phrase things in ways that explain what you are doing using BIFF statements (brief, informative, friendly, firm).

For example, if you wanted to take your daughter out of school mid-week and it was during your custodial time, then you inform the mom what you are doing and give her any information necessary. "Thanks for taking D7 to her event last week, she really enjoyed it. Next Wed through Sun is my custodial time. I will be taking D7 to city/state for 4 days. We are staying at ______. She will miss 2 days of school. I've spoken to the teachers and as you know, D7 is an excellent student. She is already caught up and will have her assignments done before school on Monday."

In my case, I learned to never deviate from the custody order because it created conflict, without exception. It was unfortunate and annoying and sometimes very inconvenient but it also eliminated the expectation that things could be different. I learned to use my ex's difficult behavior to create hard and fast boundaries and treated those boundaries like they were made of stone.

Given her BPD traits (with what sounds like no small amount of narcissism) you are not likely to get self-awareness from your ex, or anything less than a constant need to feel superior and righteous. You might find that communicating with her narcissistic need for supply can make things a little less difficult, but my ex was similarly narcissistic and while it dialed down the hatefulness, it did not seem to make him any less obstinate and conflict-driven.

[Nbp tim]

Thanks, I agree about the school but some things we need to be on the same page about and would help if there was at least common courtesy as we "parallel parent" together.  In the books I've read there seems to be suggestions how to diffuse a borderline partner when they attack you.  Ways to phrase things, how to approach situations, key words that can either trigger a positive or negative response.  Are there similar strategies for how to get an unresponsive borderline to engage you in an effective and productive discussion?  My fear is also that if we do get into a discussion, it won't be a discussion rather a line of excuses and finger pointing as to why she's not wrong.  Or even when all the evidence backs her completely into a corner where no logical person could disagree, she will just shut down and refuse to talk any further, or change the subject.  So suggestions on that as well?

She has done that to me before, just ignoring and basically sticking her fingers in her ears and singing LALALALALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU   Which is why our parenting coordinator meetings were so much better because they would bring her back to the topic at hand and make her keep on task.  But when it's just her and I, she does whatever she wants.