Spark of hope which makes me worried

[LovingDad]

Hi Everyone,

Around three weeks ago we started parenting mediation. The first appointment was sepreate from each other. My appointment went pretty good. Last week we should have our second appointment which would also be seperate. I think my stbEx appointment did happen, but mine was canceled because one of our supervisors had to go to a cremation. Tommoriw my second appointment is scheduled.

So we are into this for three weeks now and there are things that seem to change. Me and my stbEx haven't had a verbal fight, with our son present, for about two months now. According to my T is that something I have achieved on my own. We still had verbal fights over the app, at least once a week. But in the last three weeks we only had one verbal fight over the app. It was about the borthday of our son. Luckily he didn't notice the fight. He was in my presence when it happend. He was enjoying himself in the zoo. Furthermore we even had some normal conversations face-to-face about money, pictures of our son and some simple subjects.

So there is some relative peace between us. Which also makes me a bit scared. What is really going on. Is this a strategic move of her, because I raised the stacks in our devorce? Have our supervisers reached her on some level, that she strats to behave I bit normal? How long will this 'peace' be there?

In the last 18 months she was so hostile., with no respect and really obese. In the last 10 days I was starting to realise that lately, bit by bit, this behavoir was less visible. No more accusations about child abuse, psychic abuse. It becomes a bit more fact driven. She makes weird assumptions on the facts, bu it feels like a step forward.

Still it makes me insecure. It is like I don't believe in progress on that part anymore. I have become cynical and I hate that. I was always someone who was positive and lately I see less and less the positive in people. It feels like I'm really changing. Maybe I become more realistic, but it also frightens me.

Thanks for reading.

Greetings,

LovingDad

[Panda39]

I would appreciate the lowered conflict and I would plan for more conflict.

In other words hope for the best and expect the worst.

You know her past behavior and without serious work in therapy those behaviors are likely to re-surface.  Without real work on her part her past behavior is likely a good indicator of future behavior.

Panda39

[david]

Over a period of years my ex lessened her anger towards me. I also learned to not react which helped a lot. I still get nasty emails from time to time but nowhere near the amount before. I believe my boundaries helped a lot.

[ForeverDad]

Watch the 1944 movie Gaslight.  Seemingly good (less bad) behavior does not mean all is okay.  She's got you doubting things, questioning yourself.  Don't!

[LovingDad]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the advice.

It still goes better than expected, but I'm already seeing some furstrations with my stbEx. The video-chat of last wednesday with my son was to long for my stbEx. She texted me that she have to put boundaries on that. My son didn't mind the length of it at all. Yesterday I was with my son in the swimming pool. My stbEx knew that and send us on Saterday night a spoken message to have fun there. My son heard the message on Sunday morning. He didn't want to sent a spoken message back. We agreed upon to do this in the evening. Put than he was to tired and already fell asleep before the message could be recorded. So I sent my stbEx a video I made when we were in the pool, with the message that a spoken message wasn't possible because our son was asleep. For her this was a very lame excuse, for keeping him away of contact with his mother. It stayed with that.

For us this is still pretty good. On accasion she sent a message of frustration. I read it and don't reply, because it is not worth it.

But it still shows to me that she looks at me as having negative intentions. It is a pity, but for now that won't change.

Greetings,

LovingDad

[Panda39]

So I sent my stbEx a video I made when we were in the pool, with the message that a spoken message wasn't possible because our son was asleep. For her this was a very lame excuse, for keeping him away of contact with his mother.

This is a crack in the facade, her usual behaviors bubbling back up.

For us this is still pretty good. On accasion she sent a message of frustration. I read it and don't reply, because it is not worth it.

Yep, no reply here is perfect.   Don't engage in the drama.

But it still shows to me that she looks at me as having negative intentions. It is a pity, but for now that won't change.

Yes, unfortunately for her nothing has really changed.

On the up side it sounds like you had a great day with your son!    Wishing you many more of those kinds of days.

Panda39

[LovingDad]

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday was our first appointment together with our two emergency workers. We had a couple of minor subjects to discuss. In the beginning it went quit good. We have made some decissions about how we both participate in the schoolactivities of our 5 year old son. This took about 45 minutes, at the end of these minutes I noticed a change in non-verbale communciation with here. Her face expression became frustrated en a bit mad.

Then the holidays came up. We had an argument about this about two months ago. We didn't have much time left so we made the appointment that we would try to come to a agreement over de e-mail. In our e-mail conversaties we have to include our emergency workers, so they can get us back on track when it is going to escalate.

At the end of the appointment my stbEx lost het calm. She said to me: "I know you and our son D has slept by your parents. D told me. Don't deny it and don't say that our son is lying." At this point the appointment was ended. It didn't scare my, I was prepared for something like that. Again she accuses me of something I didn't do. We haven't slept by my parents and if we did, so what? It is allowed. Not something I should say, but it is something I can think.

I'm not sure how it wil follow. But this afternoon I have sent my proposal for the Chirstmas holiday. I have to see how the story continues... .

Greetings,

LovingDad

[kells76]

Hi LovingDad,

Glad that the start of your first appointment went well. It can be a surprise when things go smoothly! Good that you had an experience of you and Mom agreeing on some decisions. Are the agreements recorded anywhere (email, paper trail you can reference... .)?

You did great not replying to Mom's argumentative baiting about your parents. You probably could predict how things would go if you replied by JADE-ing (Justifying, Arguing (back), Defending, and/or Explaining yourself/your actions/your decisions). Good job just proceeding to working out the Christmas schedule. Keep that focus on kid logistics and let her be the one to flip out about irrelevant stuff.

We have a somewhat similar situation where DH is choosing to not engage with Mom -- there's a family event coming up (DH's family) out of state on a Mom weekend. Normally we'd try a trade, but there will be a family member at the event that DH doesn't want the kids around (even though, in classic BPD style, Mom loves this family member and thinks they're totally great).

DH isn't even going to tell Mom that "he thought about asking for a trade but the kids would have to miss a day of school, so it just won't work this time". If she hears about the event from the kids, then it's on her to engage with DH about it. He isn't going to volunteer info to her about "trying to make it so the kids could go, but they can't", just for her to be reactive and "make it work" for the kids to go (and be around this unhealthy family member that Mom loves).

So, yes, the power of not even bringing stuff up.

[LovingDad]

Hi Everyone,

All hope or an out of court solution is gone. Last friday my stbEx has decided that she is nog giving out son to me anymore. She says she does this because I have not hold my end on appointments she made up. The strange thing is that, we didn't make the appointment she says but I even didn't break this appointment.

Her second reason for not gving me my son was that according to her the circumstances in my caravan (my tempory living envirement) would not be good for our son. I would not have been able to get the right temperature in my carvan. I have told her already two times that this is not the case.

I have tried to de-ecalate the situation but it only became worse. Acccording to her lawyer my stbEx has informed vice squad that my father would have sexual abused my son. Which of course is not true. We haven't heard anything from the police so far, so we don't know precisely what happend. But I'm pissed off.

The last thing she did was waiting until it was one hour to go before I should have picked up my son from school to tell me this. On this moment I couldn't do much legally anymore and our escorts from parenting mediation couldn't do anything too. On friday they have there day off and now they have a vacation of two weeks.

This is al very frustrating, but next friday we have summary proceeding. Hopefully after that I will have contact with my son again. But it is gonna be dependent of what she has done by the vice squad.

I'll keep hoping and praying for the best.

Greetings,

LovingDad

[ForeverDad]

It's possible she saw things not going her way and overreacted to obstruct you.  That claim "dad's father might abuse the child" is very weak on its own, court doesn't deal with conjecture and maybes, there would have to be some substantive concerning history for there to be credible risk.

It's almost predictable, weekend coming up, big holidays looming, professionals won't be able to intervene promptly... .those are hallmark trigger and obstruction strategies.  Blocking assigned holiday time is generally a huge no-no for courts.  On the other hand, she's counting on her claims she's protecting her child to counter consequences.

If you have any sort of order outlining what the exchanges are to be, then document her failure to abide, generally having the police try to help the exchange happen and then getting the failure report is good documentation that can be used in court.

[david]

My ex once tried to claim our younger son was too ill for me to pick him up. She wouldn't let me talk to him so I figured she was not being honest. I drove to her place , and following our order, called her phone. I hung up as soon as her voicemail turned on per court order. Nothing. Tried again after waiting 15 minutes. Nothing. I called the police. They told me to stay in my car and someone would be out shortly. An officer arrived and told me that this was a civil matter and I needed to call my attorney. I told the officer this was unusual and asked for a wellness check. They are required to follow through on that. As soon as his foot touched her property the door opened and out came our healthy son.
Son got in the car and asked why the police were there. I explained how I was concerned since he didn't come out right away. He informed me that mom kept looking out her front window, imagine that, and gave him his phone right before he went out the door.
This happened around 2014. Ex ran away in 2007 and we finally got divorced in 2012. I don't expect things to ever really change completely. Things have gotten better by having less situations like this but they still happen.
It's Dec 24 right now and ex still hasn't sent an email with our holiday schedule. I sent it a week ago to get things started. Her proposal was so far off the court order I simply replied stating the order. There are three days that need to be addressed. Everything else is locked in. I will make a decision and send an email letting her know what the schedule is. I will then call our son to let him know when I will be picking him up.
I gave up trying to understand/reason/compromise/etc.

[Turkish]

Based upon my experience in my jurisdiction (city of 1M people) if sexual abuse is reported to the police then they will act that same day.  The caveat in my story is that she had custody of our children that day and the SA was in her family. Hard to say if she is bluffing. 

[momtara]

Baby steps. Unfortunately things won't change overnight, and it's frustrating to deal with so much dysfunction. Little by little though, keep at it. Don't beat yourself up over not being able to change everything.

[david]

I became amazed at how my ex was able to shoot herself in the foot so many times once I stopped giving her ammo to shoot me. I disengaged and only communicated through email. This took her advantage, my voice and expressions, away and she couldn't read me the same through email. I also was able to keep myself in check much easier. This led her imagination to go unchecked and the allegations/accusations/etc became more unhinged. That eventually let the courts see what was going on.

[LovingDad]

Dear everyone,

Thanks for all the replies.

Things keep escalating in my situation. Two days after Christmas it became clear that my stbEx has made accusations of sexual abuse against both my parents and my brother. In the emergancy hearing of 28th December the judge couldn't ignore the accusations. So there came a new settlement agreement so I could have contact with my son again. I had to sign that I will not go to parents and brother with my son until the accusations are investigated. This will be investigated by the organisation Safe Home. This and some other new appointsments are made. Two of those appointments are already voilated by my stbEx, but these are minor violations so I can't do much about that.

Two days after the hearing she started pointing her arrows on me. Sending me spoken message by my son where he says that he doesn't want to be with me. And other spoken messages of him where he has to say things that aren't true.

Since the 28th he has been with me two times. One time 2 days and one time 3 days. The first time was 'catching up' time for the time I didn't have him. In those days my son said all kinds of things that worry me. Like his mother is saying that I'm liar. Or she teaching him that people that eat meat are bad people and your father is eating meat. Last Sunday he said 'Dad I can't sleep here, because Satan angels are screaming to me when I sleep.' He had already slept two nights fine in a row. Also this is not something a five year old boy comes up on his own.

Last thursday my stbEx called me and said that our son told here that we have been visiting my parents. I told here that that is not true. So she tried to get me to say that our son is lying. I told here that I'm telling the truth and that I keep my son out of this. I had to tell here this three times before our conversation ended.

Now it is waiting for the next accusation that I have visited my parents with my son.

To be ahead of this, I have made my own care message with Safe Home of indoctrination.

Next Friday I will have my first face-to-face appointment with the employee of Safe Home.

I hope and pray for better times.

Greetings,

LovingDad

[ForeverDad]

My separation and divorce started off rough.  Though she had been arrested for Threat of DV against me, she thereafter rushed to domestic court to seek a counter protection order and there was able to include our preschooler.  (It was ex parte and I wasn't informed until afterward.)  Her allegation?  I had let our son topple his bike at a local park and chipped his elbow months before.  Not even a scratch, just happened to need medical attention.  Well, a couple weeks later when I and the CPS representative were in court, the CPS rep stated CPS had "no concerns" and son was removed from her allegation.

That was the first but sadly not the last.  Each subsequent allegation was increasingly serious, when one failed the next was more extreme.  Each one resulted with a passive "unsubstantiated", a typical outcome because "unfounded" is rather rare.  I've concluded that failed allegations are treated like whistleblower status, with the person allowed to make additional reports despite prior failed complaints.  Eventually — in my case it took a few years — the person may be viewed as "less credible".  Until then, yes, it's devastating to have each new false allegation taken as though it were valid until disproved or, more likely, discounted.

One member here had a judge address the continuing allegations by issuing a gatekeeping order where the ex had to get a judge to approve a motion before it could proceed.

[Panda39]

I know you can't prove where you are every minute of every day, but if you and your son go to the grocery store, out to lunch, to the movies or anywhere you can get a receipt, get them and keep them they can help document where you are and when.  They could come in handy when the ex starts saying you were at your parents house.

Panda39