4th legal separation/divorce in 16 year, wife splitting again, I am target...

[Aaron777]

  4th legal separation/divorce in 16 year, wife splitting again, I am target... .She has made false allegations in court, and perjured herself in court, which the court ignores. She has statements from my family including my Mother and Sisters saying I am violent, physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive. We have 2 daughters whom I am desperately trying to get back home into a stable environment, get her DBT, and Anger Management therapy. Instead I am spending almost my entire salary on 6 hours a week of supervised visitation. She has a restraining order on me even though I was party seeking help for my family. Everything she has accused me of audio video and photographic evidence of her assaulting me, causing physical harm, and using our daughters as proxies to abuse me.

I have audio recording of her threatening to take my kids away which she did, and she committed parental custodial interference. She previously committed international child abduction to a non Hague convention country.

She uses our daughters to manipulate and control me now she is attempting to legally take them to another state and not let me see them again.

My attorneys claim I am an abuser because the abusers make claims of domestic violence themselves, to further abuse their victims.

she has changed her story countless times during the hearing but the judge doesn't care because you have statements from my family members.

The first time this happened I spent a lot of money going to psychologists, and psychiatrists after she accused me of being crazy in court.

The outcome of that was my mother and sister are bipolar, and they fulfill in emotional need and her and she receives emotional validation. Essentially multiple psychologists counselled us together and separately to get away from my mother. A friend of hers who happened to be a psychologist, suggested we get as far away from my mother as possible, or our marriage would not survive, and then he canceled our sessions due to conflict of interest with his friendship.

I am currently without an attorney I had to let my attorney go due to the outcome of our first hearing, and her inability to present the case as it is for the sake of my children.

I'm looking for a good attorney to represent me King County area of Washington State. Any suggestions will be appreciated!

Thanks

[ForeverDad]

Courts generally don't bother ordering therapy for the misbehaving parent.  It appears they don't try to fix any adult, they treat the parents as they are.  So your desire for your ex to get DBT is unrealistic and the time and money would be better spent elsewhere.

Essentially multiple psychologists counselled us together and separately to get away from my mother. A friend of hers who happened to be a psychologist, suggested we get as far away from my mother as possible, or our marriage would not survive... .

Have you distanced yourself from your sabotaging family members?  Do you have any family members who can counter the unsubstantiated claims made against you?

Needless to say, you need to live an angelic life, no outbursts, no screaming back in arguments, nothing that can be reinterpreted and held against you, etc.

This is her 4th divorce action?  Any common sense professional should question why she would return to a claimed bad relationship so many times.  One or two are understandable, but four?  Is it really "over" this time or will she return yet again?  I smell a pattern here.  Punish (blame) you and then take you back, rinse, repeat... .

[ForeverDad]

Just ruminating here... .

Are you sure your sabotaging family members are "Bipolar"?  Could they too be among the Cluster B family of PDs, such as Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic?

Why do I ask?  In years past when Borderline was viewed as untreatable and therefore not covered long term by insurance, lots of therapists would diagnose pwBPD under the Bipolar umbrella which was covered by insurance.  They're somewhat similar in behaviors.  The difference is how they're addressed.  Bipolar is an imbalance of chemicals which medications can address to a great extent.  However, Borderline is a world-view and behavioral disorder, meds may moderate the behaviors to some extent but the real solution is intensive therapy such as DBT or CBT.  If the patient doesn't apply the counsel in life, thinking and perceptions then there isn't much if any improvement.

[Aaron777]

Mother was diagnosed Bipolar, and psychiatrist suspected it might be also BPD. She did not have a traumatic childhood involving any form of abuse. My Sister yes psychiatrist suspected both her and my Mother to be BPD but wouldn't go further than that. I completely separated from my Mother and Sisters for 12 or 13 years, but made amends when Dad died. My mother swore to me and others she would never get involved again. Both her and my Sister are triggers for my wife's splitting episodes that make me her target. And now wife is living with mother and attempting to relocate with my sister in Florida

[Aaron777]

Courts generally don't bother ordering therapy for the misbehaving parent.  It appears they don't try to fix any adult, they treat the parents as they are.  So your desire for your ex to get DBT is unrealistic and the time and money would be better spent elsewhere.

Have you distanced yourself from your sabotaging family members?  Do you have any family members who can counter the unsubstantiated claims made against you?

Needless to say, you need to live an angelic life, no outbursts, no screaming back in arguments, nothing that can be reinterpreted and held against you, etc.

This is her 4th divorce action?  Any common sense professional should question why she would return to a claimed bad relationship so many times.  One or two are understandable, but four?  Is it really "over" this time or will she return yet again?  I smell a pattern here.  Punish (blame) you and then take you back, rinse, repeat... .

Wife wouldnt even enter into splitting episode targetting me without my family. If she was faced with situation where she was losing custody of children even temporarily, she would recognize her mistake, and get help. I made very clear in court my expectations when she committed Parental Custodial interference. Things were going along well until she made abuse allegations to justify taking kids out of state, like on previous occasions.

I thought maybe she will finally get the help she needs for the sake of herself, my daughters and I. Instead, she is more stable in being insecure, and unstable, taking our children out of school, enrolling them in another state. Getting all of her demands met.

[Aaron777]

I feel dirty sharing this.

[worriedStepmom]

Wife wouldnt even enter into splitting episode targetting me without my family. If she was faced with situation where she was losing custody of children even temporarily, she would recognize her mistake, and get help. I made very clear in court my expectations when she committed Parental Custodial interference. Things were going along well until she made abuse allegations to justify taking kids out of state, like on previous occasions.

I thought maybe she will finally get the help she needs for the sake of herself, my daughters and I. Instead, she is more stable in being insecure, and unstable, taking our children out of school, enrolling them in another state. Getting all of her demands met.

I think you are giving in to wishful thinking here.

To get the kind of help that might make a difference in her thinking and behavior, your wife will have to acknowledge that there is something wrong with her choices... .rather than blame her choices on other people.  Even YOU are blaming her choices on other people (your mom/sister), so how can you expect your wife to choose differently?

My H went back to court this summer and got primary custody of SD11.  We hoped that this change - losing so much time with her only child - would convince her to get help.  Instead, there's been a slew of abuse over the last 6 months because she is absolutely convinced that we are brainwashing her child and have some plot with SD's therapist to take her daughter away forever.   The uBPDmom in our life cannot/will not recognize that her behavior has contributed to this situation at all.   She started seeing a therapist, but her purpose in that is to figure out how to convince SD to see uBPDmom's point of view.  If only SD would understand why uBPDmom makes the choices that she does, then surely SD wouldn't blame her for them, right?  Meanwhile we have a child who cries because she knows her mom is broken and we can't fix her.  It's really a sad situation.

BPD and other personality disorders are unlike most mental health conditions because the person afflicted believes they are making the right choices and everyone else is wrong.    They call this egosyntonic - her behaviors and feelings match her values and perception of her identity.  A person with BPD cannot take responsibility for her behavior because acknowledging wrongdoing will break her perception of herself.  It's too painful.

You are going to need to reset your expectations of this process.  Working with a therapist can help you.

[ForeverDad]

If she was faced with situation where she was losing custody of children even temporarily, she would recognize her mistake, and get help.

This would be magical thinking?

First, if she did make positive changes, they would more likely be based on the circumstances.  Once the scrutiny or pressure let up she'd probably revert back to prior perceptions and behaviors.

Second, expanding on the first point, her response would be similar to the "crocodile tears" analogy... .she would be contrite that she was held to account, not that she really regretted her prior behaviors.

If she does get therapy, great, there's hope it will help.  But... .you can't count on it.  There's so much Denial and Blame Shifting to be addressed.  Many of our cases are fairly extreme and with these extreme cases there's little improvement with the ex-partner.  Typically we need court to enforce some basic (even minimal) boundaries and then we set additional boundaries on how we address remaining issues.

Boundaries are a strange animal.  At first we think boundaries are for the ex.  True, but we already know the ex will resist boundaries.  So what we do is set boundaries for ourselves.  How so?

Here's a typical boundary:
"If you do or don't ___ then I will or will not do ___."

Here's an example:
"If you rant or rage... .then I will leave with the kids (to the park, restaurant, etc) until you have calmed down."

Yes, I know, even with that you won't get willing cooperation, especially not at first, but ponder how such confrontation-reducing approaches can help.

[ForeverDad]

I hope I didn't get you off track with all my comments.  I would think your current #1 issue is: the supervised contact and your stbEx planning to move away while you're under restrictions.

Let me discuss supervised contact... .typically this can be ordered in a temporary order while the professionals try to figure out whether the accused parent really is abusive or not.  On the good side, if it is determined the allegations are "unsubstantiated" (a passive term, "unfounded" would be better but we seldom get that) then the supervised restrictions end.  On the bad side, the accuser isn't held to account for their unsubstantiated (false) allegations.  Probably it is similar to 'whistleblower' principle where society doesn't was the accuser hindered from making later reports.

So if you're facing supervision in a temp order then it ought to be resolved within weeks, either with CPS, Children's Services or a court assigned evaluator.  Back when we separated in 2005 my now-ex made allegations to get an ex parte temp order (based on ex's claims only, I wasn't there) blocking my parental contact.  Then CPS called me, we talked and I presume he also spoke with her and and my then-preschooler (to this day I'm not sure).  But a couple weeks later we both attended the follow-up hearing and the CPS representative stood and stated, "We have No Concerns."  That was that.  While the temp protection order continued for a few more months between us parents, the magistrate made a parenting schedule and my parenting was no longer blocked.

How long have you been living under this supervised order?  Anything longer than a few weeks indicates the authorities (1) are surprisingly slow or (2) have some remaining 'concerns' about you that haven't been resolved or ruled on yet.  I'm thinking your stbEx getting a couple of your family to join her in allegations carried more weight than the facts/reality?

That sounds like we need to concentrate on helping you to resolve this supervised mess?

[ForeverDad]

I'm assuming you're living with a temp order, right?  When is the next hearing?

You need a strategy - or strategies - when you enter the hearing.  We can help with that, we've "been there done that", but understand that we're not lawyers nor your legal defense.  Some possible points to make with the court:

• This is the 4th separation or divorce action.  It is a repeating pattern with your spouse, she breaks up then makes up and expects you to accept her repeating off again, on again swings.  Meanwhile, you, the children and the finances keep getting wrung out and hung out to dry.  (The point is that she very well may retract her allegations in a few months or when the case starts falling apart.)
• You need to get stable witnesses to testify on your behalf to counter her so-called witnesses.  Your case seems to have amounted to 3 against 1 and you standing alone lost.  Do you have close family or friends who will stand up for you and your character?  If they know your sister or mother and can state they've seen bizarre behaviors from them, that may help weaken what they claim.
• Have the children been interviewed?  No, not with a parent there.  It has to be separately.  However, since she has the children almost exclusively, you may ask that the children get interviewed twice, with the second time right after your visitation period, so mother's influence won't be as strong.
  (In my case my son was in kindergarten and the CPS investigators met him at school - what they considered to be a neutral site - without advance notice to mother.)
• Were all claims made about your child care?  Courts ought to ignore any allegations of whatever claimed friction exists between you and other adults.
   Adult conflict has nothing to do with child contact.
• Courts will often disregard vague allegations.  So "he always... ." or "she always... ." without specific incidents will usually be deemed hearsay and ignored.
• Typically courts will ignore alleged incidents between adults that are older than 6 months before the case started, considering them legally weakened or  "stale".   Don't throw those proofs out, they can still be used to establish a long-term historical pattern of behaviors.  Substantive child abuse, neglect or endangerment on the other hand may not have that time restriction.