SS Got Himself in a Bad Situation with His uBPD Mom

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Long story short, SS13 got mad at DH and called and text his uBPD Mom telling her he was thinking about possibly wanting to go live with her. (She lives out of state and has limited visitation.) She, of course, took what he actually said and turned it into what she wanted to hear, which is that he wanted to live with her and it was practically a done deal.

Needless to say, SS calmed down, realized how monumentally he screwed up, and he sat down with DH and his T to iron out what happened and what needs to happen next. Unfortunately, what needs to happen next is that, he has a meeting tonight with his T and his mom (by phone, on speaker) so the T can mediate as he explains to his mom that he doesn't want to move and he was just momentarily mad at his dad. This is likely going to go badly. I also strongly suspect she will continue to badger SS long after the conversation tonight is over.

I wonder if it would be worth it for DH to send her an email letting her know that regardless of where SS ever says he wants to live, it is in his best interests to continue to live with DH until such a time as a court order says otherwise and that custody is an issue between the parents. The goal would be to take some of the heat off of SS.

DH decides how much summer visitation BM gets and she's constantly arguing that the children want more time with her and he needs to listen to them about what they want. She doesn't know that both kids have told him and their Ts the truth about what they want and that's part of why she gets so little time. It's a constant fight to keep them out of the middle.

[Nope]

Long story short, SS13 got mad at DH and called and text his uBPD Mom telling her he was thinking about possibly wanting to go live with her. (She lives out of state and has limited visitation.) She, of course, took what he actually said and turned it into what she wanted to hear, which is that he wanted to live with her and it was practically a done deal.

Needless to say, SS calmed down, realized how monumentally he screwed up, and he sat down with DH and his T to iron out what happened and what needs to happen next. Unfortunately, what needs to happen next is that, he has a meeting tonight with his T and his mom (by phone, on speaker) so the T can mediate as he explains to his mom that he doesn't want to move and he was just momentarily mad at his dad. This is likely going to go badly. I also strongly suspect she will continue to badger SS long after the conversation tonight is over.

I wonder if it would be worth it for DH to send her an email letting her know that regardless of where SS ever says he wants to live, it is in his best interests to continue to live with DH until such a time as a court order says otherwise and that custody is an issue between the parents. The goal would be to take some of the heat off of SS.

DH decides how much summer visitation BM gets and she's constantly arguing that the children want more time with her and he needs to listen to them about what they want. She doesn't know that both kids have told him and their Ts the truth about what they want and that's part of why she gets so little time. It's a constant fight to keep them out of the middle.

[kells76]

Yowch. Tough position -- how do you keep the kids out of the middle of an adult topic when it seems like a kid is necessarily "in the middle" of it.

It's good to hear that your SS13 recognizes why he said what he said -- that he was mad at Dad. And it's good that he has support from T in taking next steps.

Where's SS13 at on SET skills?

And will Dad be around in the background for this phone call? I'm thinking of one scenario: SS13 takes ownership for what he's responsible for (he said something he didn't mean because he didn't manage his feelings well). But he doesn't take responsibility for what he's not responsible for (custody/PT arrangements). Maybe there's a boundary where it's made clear that if Mom has any issue with custody/PT in this conversation, SS13 &/or T will put Dad on the phone. "I know how important this is to you, Mom, which is why Dad is right here to talk with you about it" or something.

Sending a pre-email (I'm assuming it's beforehand?) is an interesting question. How do you think Mom would do with vs without advance notice of this conversation?

[Nope]

Kells,
You've raised some really good questions. DH won't be in the background for the phone call because DH's very existence seems to trigger his ex wife. Plus, she's less likely to hear what SS is saying as coming from him if his dad is in the room. SS has poor communication skills on the best of days and is nowhere on skills to use for dealing with his mom besides lying, avoidance, and redirection.

The BPD mom is undiagnosed and the T isn't just going to take our word for it that she is disordered. She never communicated at all with his T until a couple of days ago when she called to tell the T that SS wants to live with her, which was news to the T and he said as much to her. Fortunately, I trust this T to shut her down if she starts trying to FOG SS during the conversation. He's already told us he'll hang up on her if she starts screaming or becoming abusive.

Upon more reflection, I think it would be better to wait until she contacts DH after the appointment with the T to draw the line in the sand and maybe mention to the T ahead of time that it might help SS to remind her that the adults make the decisions and not the children.

[ForeverDad]

This is a learning experience for SS... .that a moment of frustration, anger or "mad" at Dad can become something that can't be unsaid, at least in mother's worldview.

Is there a jingo to help him remember it?  "Loose lips sink ships" is one I can think of, it was a wartime motto that the enemy might hear sensitive information that should have been kept confidential.  It may not apply directly to this instance, but perhaps the general concept will help.

Also, perhaps explain to the kids how Dad always takes time to ponder before responding to their mother's claims or requests.  That lets him get past the "emotions of the moment" and give himself an opportunity to see objective solutions that may not have been apparent at first.

[kells76]

That seems reasonable to wait for Mom to contact Dad after the phone call. I get the sense from your description that Mom won't do any better with this call with SS when given a heads-up versus going into it cold.

OK, so SS's skills for dealing with Mom right now are: lying, avoidance, and redirection. Lying isn't a good option, but I wonder (and I know there might not be a lot of time to make this happen) if SS would do OK with a "script" to fall back on during this call, that uses the skills he has. If all he's able to do is not talk about Issue X, or redirect to Topic Y, maybe he could have a few phrases written down to fall back on. I think I remember LnL mentioning that her son would use "That sounds like something between you and Mom" with his dad.

I'm not sure if there's a good Topic Y to redirect to in this case (if the whole point of the call is to clarify that SS isn't actually going to live with Mom). But maybe there is?

Good to hear that you trust T to end the call if needed.

I think I'm getting the sense that while the phone call is the immediate issue, the bigger issue is you anticipating that SS is going to get worn down and hassled by Mom, no matter how the call goes. So there's the short-term acute issue of making it through the call, and the long-term chronic issue of how much of Mom's erosion can SS take? You sound pretty concerned about that, which is understandable.

[Nope]

FD - I'm not at all worried he'd do this again. He hasn't done this before in four years of living here. His T sees it as his attempt to just run away from his problems with DH because he feels like fixing his own behaviors is just too hard. But I know he's been upset with his mom because she spends significantly more time on the phone with SD15 than she does with him when they call. I think he wanted her attention. Now that he has it he's feeling more the phrase "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it". SD15 was completely shocked he was "stupid enough" to tell her he wanted to live with her because her eyes are wide open.

Kells - SS has been talking about giving his mom more summer visitation, once she calms down, to make up for doing this to her. You know, maybe both SS and uBPD need a Come To Jesus about who is actually in charge of what she gets for visitation/custody. Up until now DH has been putting her limited summer visitation on the T's recommendations because he doesn't have any provable reason to deny her more time and doesn't want a court granting it to her out of hand because she paints him as vengeful and unfair.

I do worry that eventually he won't be able to take any more FOG from her and he'll give in. But not because it directly effects custody in any way. More because his T has described him as Oppositional Defiant towards his dad. Particularly when he's having issues with his mom and I just don't want the ongoing battle the she fuels in our home.

*Edit to add*
His T already assigned him the task of working on talking points. But I will definitely talk to him about "that sounds like something that's between you and dad" as an item on his list.

[Nope]

Update.

SS13's mom was unable to make the telephone conference appointment. So the T and SS spent the time going over what he was going to say to her on the phone when he did speak to her. I have no idea how much of what he and his T discussed was useful. Or what he and I discussed. What I do know is that the conversation when it did happen later in the evening went predictably badly. From what SS told us she was throwing a whole lot of guilt his way and kept saying that he was being influenced by DH. SS was very upset by the end of the conversation.

The uBPD ex made no attempt to contact DH after the call. He sent the email anyway in the hopes that it might be less attractive to her to keep on SS if it was clear to her she'd still have a lengthy court battle to get him no matter what he says.

Apparently, the T spoke to her this morning. The T's conversation with her was lengthy and she was very accusatory, combative, rude, complained she was the victim, took zero responsibility, and attempted to blatently lie and twist what the T himself was saying to her. The T pointed out to her that he'd been treating SS for over a year and this situation was the first time he has heard from her and she tried to claim they had spoken before.  He told me he strongly suspects she has BPD. He did tell her that if she would like to try a telephone conference again at some point with him and SS he would work with her to arrange that. But he let me know that from now on he will only communicate with her through email because he is concerned about being heavily misquoted by her.

As for SS, he's barely heard a peep out of her since. I would imagine she will lay low for a bit and then act like nothing happened and nothing was said and her expectation is that everyone else will do the same to avoid retriggering her. Long term I don't know how SS will handle things. He's had his head burried in video games and we're letting him decompress. I don't think anything in the house between DH and SS will change for the better because of all this but it also doesn't seem to have made anything worse.

[ForeverDad]

I was in court last a little over 4 years ago.  Part of the ruling was that my Ex could continue to have equal time in the summers "... .provided she participates in son's counseling (to the extent requested by his counselor)... ."  The counselor read the order and said No participation.

Your SS's counselor is smart, limit contact and keep it in a format that can be documented.