Starting a Custody Evaluation: What were the big lessons you learned?

[Aiming4Kindness]

Hi all,

I was successful in getting the judge to order a custody eval before commencing with a trial.  The evaluation begins this week with a joint interview with me and my ex (pwBPD).  The evaluator is an MD and is private.  The evaluation will likely last six to eight weeks.

Any guidance on:
- Completing the questionnaire
- Assembling documents to provide to the evaluator
- One-on-one interviews with the evaluator
- Child observations

With gratitude for your wisdom,
Aiming4Kindness

[ForeverDad]

I would have said the first priority was to get a solid, experienced, perceptive Custody Evaluator with a trusted reputation in court.  You're past that one.

Don't present yourself as a mean or vindictive parent.  Don't complain about the money, such as with child support.  Sometimes fathers get a reputation for seeking more parenting just to reduce child support, so don't give that impression.  Present the issues and also what practical strategies and solutions you propose to remedy the custody and parenting issues.  Admit to the CE that you'd appreciate his input as well in doing the best for your children's interests.  Possibly your spouse, if uninformed, will say "I need the children."  Instead you turn it around, "My children need me in their lives."  A good evaluator will know that it's all about the kids, not the parents.

My CE had forewarned me that parenting history was half his evaluation.  Sounded bad, my spouse had quit work when our then-preschooler was born.  Felt just like the temp order, the magistrate had ignored stbEx's pending case in court where she was facing a Threat of DV charge and had instead asked one question, "What are your work schedules?"  What a relief when the initial report shared with the main judge summarized, "Mother cannot share 'her' child but Father can... .Mother should lose her temporary custody immediately... .If Shared Parenting is attempted and fails then Father should have custody... ."

There was a section where he commented on the differences of our parenting behaviors when we had our child in for observation of our interactions.  I couldn't quite figure out what he was looking for but clearly my interactions were normal and she wasn't.  All I can say is be a normal dad, don't try to put on a show and have a relaxing interaction with your children during the session.

My CE's sole somewhat negative remark about me was that I was too focused on proving all the poor behaviors of my stbEx.  I had just obtained 200 pages of counseling records (took three tries during an entire year and culminated in a court order) of her taking our preschooler to child counseling and I had stickied yellow notes throughout listing all her lies and untruths.  So that lesson was... .don't get mired in all the details, give attention to the overview as well.

Your child is about 2 years old, moving into the preschool years soon.  Very quickly elementary school decisions will loom.  You need some clarity on who will be recommended to the court as primary parent.  Especially if you two may live in different school districts.  You have a valid concern that she may try to move away to obstruct your parenting (has she tried that yet?) and then you'd be forced to follow and find a new career, job, residence near there.  What if she moves repeatedly?  While there are always valid reasons to move, if the CE can discern who the more stable and cooperative parent is, that should impact the CE's recommendation.

[Speck]

Hello, Aiming4Kindness:

It sounds like you are having a hard time. I'm glad that you successfully secured a custody evaluation before trial. Good luck with that this week! Of course, luck has nothing to do with it, and in any event, it seems as though ForeverDad has offered up some really sound advice.

You will find a lot of people here to talk to, who will provide you with support and some good advice. Keep posting - it is very therapeutic, and you will be greeted by so many people with circumstances similar to your own. You will be amazed. Take care of yourself.

Keep writing, keep processing, keep learning!


-Speck

[Panda39]

One thing my SO learned was to keep anger at his ex under wraps.  (And believe me he had a lot of reasons to be angry) It came back to bite him later.  He was accused of having anger issues by his ex and ended up in therapy.  The therapist didn't see it and the therapy was beneficial for my SO in other ways so it actually turned out well.

In terms of documentation, try to document patterns of behavior.

Be yourself with your son 

Panda39

[livednlearned]

How is the CE going so far?

You may want to look at Craig Childress's jujitsu parenting for guidance on how to talk about a disordered parent to a custody evaluator.

It can be really tough to explain your concerns without sounding like a vindictive parent. I found that fine line almost impossible to walk.

Will there be any forensic psychiatric evaluations for both of you, like the MMPI-2?

[Aiming4Kindness]

Your child is about 2 years old, moving into the preschool years soon.  Very quickly elementary school decisions will loom.  You need some clarity on who will be recommended to the court as primary parent.  Especially if you two may live in different school districts.  You have a valid concern that she may try to move away to obstruct your parenting (has she tried that yet?) and then you'd be forced to follow and find a new career, job, residence near there.  What if she moves repeatedly?  While there are always valid reasons to move, if the CE can discern who the more stable and cooperative parent is, that should impact the CE's recommendation.

Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom.  I read your piece twice before walking into my first two hour interview with the evaluator.  You really got my head in the right space.

Regarding these questions, a year ago, the judge ordered that my ex's passport be held by my attorney so that she couldn't go to her home country and take our kiddo.  I don't think she'll be trying to move locally soon as she just opened up a new office close by.

The first interview seemed to go well.  At one point, the CE said something to the effect of, "It would be impossible for a judge to really understand all of the nuances here."  We'll see what happens during the coming weeks.  Thanks again, so much.

[Aiming4Kindness]

Thanks to everybody who responded.  It feels so good to have your support and wisdom on my daughter's side.

Will there be any forensic psychiatric evaluations for both of you, like the MMPI-2?

Yep.  I asked my own thereapist if he thinks I have anything to worry about the tests.  He said no (I hope he's right!) and also said that the tests should scream out issues on my ex.  We'll see what happens.

[kells76]

Hi Aiming4Kindness;

I think I remember another member on these boards (maybe Matt from a while ago) commenting about this issue:

I asked my own thereapist if he thinks I have anything to worry about the tests.  He said no

He had something come up on (I think) his MMPI-II about depression or anxiety (or maybe propensity for substance abuse?). His strategy was jiu-jitsu. Basically completely owning the results, and being a practical problem-solver about them. Something like "Your honor, once I found out that I could be prone to substance abuse issues, I worked with a counselor to build skills to stay on track. I do A, B, and C, and stay accountable with my counselor, so that I can be the best dad I can be to my kids. I make sure to check in with their counselor about how to parent them effectively and lovingly in this situation."

So, you don't have to worry about answering the questions "correctly" in order to not get a "bad" result. You have the opportunity to do the one thing your kid's mom probably won't be able to do: embrace the reality of the results and come up with a practical plan for working with those results for your kid's best interests.

Hope this is some helpful food for thought;

kells76

[Newyoungfather]

We both had to go through a evaluation during my custody trial.  Arrive early, wear casual clean clothes.  I found it very beneficially to focus on items that you have evidence on.  For instance I had numerous text messages from my exBPD apologizing for domestic violence. She of course denied it and when the evaluator question if I had any evidence I provided him with certified copies. We will just say the eval went in my favor especially given the fact my son was only 10 months old I got nearly 5 overnights on a 14 day schedule.  One member on this board, David77, I believe, stated evidence goes a long way before verbal testimonies.  Instead of he said she said, bring everything you have evidence on first.

[Aiming4Kindness]

Hi all,

My ex (pwBPD) submitted additional docs to the custody evaluator: journals of mine from years before we even knew each other.  She must have taken them when she moved her belongings from my home several months ago.  I just realized that the journals are missing.

The entries she shared involved me processing sadness/anger at the end of a long relationship (again, before I even knew the ex).

She's arguing that the journal articles show that I'm mentally unstable and full of rage.

Lawyer has sent a demand letter to the other side that the journals be returned by noon tomorrow, and copied the custody evaluator, requesting that the exhibits be thrown out.

Have any of you experienced something like this?  What did you do in response?

[livednlearned]

Wow. That is under handed 

There is a bit of theater when it comes to family law court.

I would continue to pursue things legally, where the journal is not entered as an exhibit.

And then have a strategy to neutralize the journals in case your ex's L is a strong litigator. Not all Ls are good at litigating in court.

If you feel the content casts you in a bad light, then one strategy is to embrace those qualities and talk about the measures you went to in order to become a better person, whether it be through therapy or support groups or self-help books or JOURNALING  . I found that family law court is desperately looking for responsible, mature, problem-solving parents, and there is a surprising deficit of those same qualities in court. So taking responsibility for essentially being human can go a long way. Who doesn't feel sad and angry after a bad break-up? And good for you that you worked through those feelings in a journal.

Then move on, because it's not relevant to the well-being of your child. I would imagine an L can handle both the legal, technical bits (your honor, this is my client's personal, non-marital belonging, so it can't entered. It's also from another relationship a bazillion years ago, and does not involve the minor child, which is my client's number one concern."

If your ex is using those journals to prove that you have anger management issues, and if the journal does indeed suggest you are angry, you may need a more assertive strategy from your L.

What is your L saying about them, beyond the demand letter?

[david]

LNl makes a good point about the journal. Show how time helped you grow into the person you are and also the steps you took to do that.

A good evaluator is the key.
 
I went through one eval and the person had more issues than my ex.  That was a total waste of time and money. I had to wait two years for a change in circumstances to revisit custody in court. I gathered evidence during that time. Ex had majority of time during the school year but did not help the kids with their school work. I was able to show that our boys did around 95% of their school work when with me.

Our second eval was done by a person my attorney picked.  He picked three and let ex pick the one from that group. He said all three were excellent. The first meeting went okay. He listened and asked questions. It was one on one. He also had a meeting with ex the same way. He then talked to both of us together. I was very calm and ex picked up on that and tried to rattle me. I let it go unless the evaluator asked me about something. I answered his questions as best I could. Ex made a lot of false allegations. I pointed out many that were false and said I could prove some and others I had no proof except to say it was not true. I made no false allegations against my ex and simply focused on what I thought best for our boys. I also talked about how it was difficult to communicate with ex about the boys because things never got resolved or agreed to. I found no way to compromise except by totally giving in to whatever ex said. I was able to show how I was willing to compromise on specific things. At that time, ex and I only communicated through email.
Ex then shifted her strategy by saying if we split time 50/50 our boys would be kicked out of their school since neither parent had majority time. She insisted she talked to the school and blamed the school. When asked , I pointed out that if that were true then the state of pa would have kicked out a large majority of kids from various schools and that didn't make sense to me. I surmised that ex may have misunderstood what she was told by the
 school. She refused to budge and insisted that is what the school said. She refused to acknowledge that what I said even made sense when the evaluator asked her and stuck to that is what the school told her. That made my point of her inability to compromise or see another point of view. I truly believe she couldn't see what she was saying/doing at that point.
The evaluator then talked to each boy individually. He then spoke to us again. I sat there and listened for that hour since all the issues he was concerned about dealt with things at exs' residence. Ex realized she was "not winning" and threatened to have the evaluator jailed. The evaluator triggered her since he was only talking to her and she was no longer MOTY. I don't think he did that to trigger her but she obviously got triggered by the line of questioning. If he did it on purpose, I think he already had an idea and wanted to confirm his suspicions. I never asked because I really didn't need to know and I don't think that was something I should have asked anyway.
The evaluator asked why I wanted the schedule I was proposing and I explained my thinking. It was different than the normal 50/50 schedule. I wanted every Monday and Thursday during the school year and every other weekend. I thought Monday was the day to set the tone for the week and Thursday was to cover whatever needed to be done before the end of the week. He questioned the extra back and forth. I said I could see his reasoning but I was more concerned with their school work and this was the only way to handle that. I also said if he had a solution that addressed my concerns I was more then willing to listen and think about it. He made no suggestion. He recommended the exact schedule I proposed. In court, the judge questioned it too. I pretty much gave him the same answers. It was easy because that is what I believed. The evaluator may have written to him about it or not. The judge went along with my proposal. 

[Aiming4Kindness]

Thanks tons to both of you who replied re the stolen journals.

Quick update:

1) We accused my ex of theft and her attorney of violating bar rules in a letter.

2) Her L replied accusing us of harassing her, and said that my ex accidentally packed them over a year ago when moving out and didn't think I wanted them since I didn't notice they were missing and didn't mention anything to her.  After all of that BS, the lawyer committed to having my journals returned.

3) I got the journals 2 days later.  She took THREE of them.

4) The custody evaluator told me that she's ignoring the journal entries that were submitted, but she WILL be reading the journal I submitted that covers the rage and domestic violence events of my ex during the last year of our relationship.

5) My L sent another letter to my opposing counsel demanding that my ex permanently deletes all reproductions of my journal, names the individuals she shared the journals with, shares which other physical or electronic items she took without my consent, return them immediately and permanently delete/shred any reproductions, and submit a letter under penalty of perjury that she did all of the aforementioned actions.  No reply on that yet.

I'm so glad the evaluator seems to have wised up to at least some of my ex's games.  I explained to the evaluator that her sharing my journals was her traditional tit-for-tat ways, and isn't surprising given that I had just shared my huge journal of her rage and DV episodes.

- - -

In a new twist, my ex submitted pictures of our 2 year old that supposedly came from after my custodial time: the pictures are horrible -- our kiddo looks exhausted, swollen, etc.  Since the evaluation was ordered, my ex has been video recording me walking our kiddo to her during custody transitions, so I asked my L to send an e-mail to the ex's L (and copying the evaluator), demanding that ALL of the videos my ex has taken be shared to show that the submitted pictures have nothing to do with my care of our kiddo.  No reply yet.  There isn't a good move for them: they can share and show that there's no issue or they can lie and say there's no video, preventing them from sharing anything in the future.  The day we made the demand, my ex didn't record the drop-off.  Not a coincidence.

Thanks again.