Divorce headed towards default

[Toad17]

Hi,

I filed for divorce a month ago and my uBPD wife was served few weeks ago. Lot of extreme roller coaster emotions happened in the beginning. We have a 6 year old child. My wife absolutely doesn't want to end the marriage. I have been taking therapy sessions for more than 3 years. I took her to DBT couple session one year ago and few other sessions as well. Nothing helped. Now I want to get out. She is completely ignoring the Divorce papers. Instead, she has been dragging me to more couple counseling to make marriage work. I have clearly mentioned in therapy sessions that I'm there to discuss parenting plans and separation. But she is not in a state to accept it.

I have asked 50-50. Should I change it to 80-20? I was hoping to stay in good terms and use couple therapy to build a different connection, so that we can minimize conflict while parenting. But it looks like I need to go through the "no contact" path and parallel parenting. This will put lot of stress on my child. It looks like she is combination of low functioning and high functioning. We are living in the same house but we have stopped talking about divorce and it's minimal communication for the sake of our child. My lawyer doesn't want me to leave the primary home until parenting plan is finalized. In couple counseling, therapist and I persuaded her to take action and respond to Divorce but she is adamant to not participate. Please let me know if you have experience on how to navigate Divorce when it goes to default.

Thanks so much!

[worriedStepmom]

My H's uBPDex cannot handle the anxiety around court.  It completely overwhelms her.
She is also unwilling to negotiate a settlement with H outside of court.  It's still a legal matter, and so she prefers to stick her head in the sand and pretend it won't be happening. (She also has meltdowns and acts up to try to persuade H to drop the idea.)

That means it is really up to my H to determine what is best for SD12.  uBPDex did not show up to the hearing for the first custody modification, so the judge awarded H everything he asked for.  The second modification, uBPDex agreed to sign the papers our L wrote up before we even got to a judge. H handed her the papers and told her calmly, "If you are willing to follow this, you can sign the papers.  If you do not like these terms, you can suggest something different or we can go to court and let a judge decide."  She signed.

If you think this is how your wife is going to react, then it is important that you consider what is best for your D6.

H and his ex started with 50/50 custody, when SD was 4-10.  Then it moved to 65/35 for a year.  Now it's 85/15 with no overnights for mom.

Is your wife an involved parent?
Can she remain emotionally stable around your D?
Does she manipulate D emotionally?  Is she ever verbally abusive to D (including by making negative comments about you)?
Does she melt down if you ask questions about D?
When your wife is upset, does she turn to D to help soothe her (totally backwards)?
Does she make reasonable parenting decisions?  (H's ex sees nothing wrong with waking their D up in the middle of the night to talk to her.)
Does she ask D to carry messages to you?
Does she talk to D about adult stuff (details of the divorce, etc)?

[Toad17]

Thanks so much worriedStepmom for sharing your thoughts. How did your H managed to enforce the separation during his parenting time when his ex was completely uncooperative? My wife has extreme separation anxiety and in the beginning she even threatened that she will kill anybody who is going to separate her and D. Now she has calmed down (probably the anti anxiety pills and my strict rule to not make such threats) but she absolutely doesn't want to leave control of our daughter. I'm planning to adjust my custody plan to 80-20 but not sure how I can enforce it when she has buried her head in the sand and I'm not sure how she will react when it gets enforced. I'm hoping to use couple therapy to slowly make her realize and accept the parenting plan. I'm OK to give her access to my D during evening times (when it's my turn), if that helps her separation anxiety. But not sure if these things are going to back fire.

Is your wife an involved parent? Yes
Can she remain emotionally stable around your D? Not always
Does she manipulate D emotionally?  Is she ever verbally abusive to D (including by making negative comments about you)? Not so far
Does she melt down if you ask questions about D? Yes
When your wife is upset, does she turn to D to help soothe her (totally backwards)? Sometimes
Does she make reasonable parenting decisions?  (H's ex sees nothing wrong with waking their D up in the middle of the night to talk to her.) Not always
Does she ask D to carry messages to you? Not so far
Does she talk to D about adult stuff (details of the divorce, etc)? No

[worriedStepmom]

H's ex moved out when he asked for a divorce.  How long does divorce take in your jurisdiction?  How long until there can be temporary orders saying which one of you has to leave the family home?

in the beginning she even threatened that she will kill anybody who is going to separate her and D.

How long ago did she threaten to kill someone over D?  Does your L know about that?  That is a VERY scary threat.  I would be very leery of leaving her alone with D at all after that and would be trying to get temporary orders immediately.  But, without any legal orders, you'll have to have your L tell you what your legal rights are for enforcing anything.

I'm hoping to use couple therapy to slowly make her realize and accept the parenting plan. I'm OK to give her access to my D during evening times (when it's my turn), if that helps her separation anxiety.

Your D is not your wife's emotional support pet.  Your D's presence should never be used to soothe mom.  It's training D to cater to mom's needs over her own. 

H put hard boundaries around what he would tolerate from ex this summer, including banning her from texting SD and limiting ex's phone calls to twice/week.  The separation anxiety was so bad that ex fell completely apart.  She was sent to inpatient psychiatric care twice in 2019.  It's heartbreaking when that happens, but it was really the best possible thing for everyone.  We proved to SD that she is safe in our house - we WILL protect her from her mom's emotional abuse.  And ex got help that she desperately needed.

What does your T think about using couples therapy to help your ex accept the parenting plan?  Does she think that will work in any reasonable timeframe?

[ForeverDad]

Now she has calmed down (probably the anti anxiety pills and my strict rule to not make such threats) but she absolutely doesn't want to leave control of our daughter. I'm planning to adjust my custody plan to 80-20 but not sure how I can enforce it when she has buried her head in the sand and I'm not sure how she will react when it gets enforced.

Success  depends upon a variety of factors which can vary from person to person but a major one is strong boundaries.  Of course, expecting an ex to comply with our boundaries seldom works.  Boundaries are for us, as in, "If you do or don't do ___ then I will do or not do ___."  Generally, they refuse to do whatever we ask, but if we make the consequences clear then you'll get better results.

My divorce case was approaching the two year mark, she had delayed it as much as possible because the court defaulted the temp order in her favor.  She had temp custody and majority time.  We arrived at court on Trial Day knowing the custody evaluator had already recommended Shared Parenting and equal time.  We had the entire day scheduled for the trial.  Surprise, after all that time she was ready to settle.  However, I knew everyone would default us to her being "the residential parent for school purposes" as defined in our state.  I had one condition to settle.  I said, "I will be residential parent or we proceed to trial."  She begged. I said No.  She knew a trial wouldn't go well for her.  Frustratingly, both lawyers insisted that status meant nothing.  I held firm to that boundary.  She gave in.

Did that status help?  Well, after the final decree in March, I asked his kindergarten principal for approval for our son to finish the school year there and start at my school for the next school year.  In April the school contacted me and told me his mother had meantime caused scenes at school and gave me one day to register him in my district for the final 5 weeks of kindergarten.  If I hadn't been considered the primary parent for schooling, the school would have had to suffer with her and I would always have been the secondary parent.

Not only that, but over the years she moved a couple more times, once out of the county.  I never moved.  If she was in charge of school then I would have had to follow her moves because of distance to the schools.

[livednlearned]

Should I change it to 80-20?

In general, the more time D spends with you (and receives some kind of therapy), the better it will be for her and you.

Is there a history that suggests you will be able to get 80/20? It doesn't sound like mom will agree to it, so the next step is to prepare for court, which compared to dealing with a BPD spouse is not as intimidating as I once thought. You get into a room with other reasonable people and suddenly the ratio of rational to irrational works in your favor. 

My ex obstructed and stonewalled throughout the entire process. I recommend asking for what you think is best because there will be opposition no matter what.

I gave my ex the house and it cost me multiple trips to court and thousands of dollars in attorney fees plus hiring a second real estate lawyer just to give it away. Lesson learned!

[scraps66]

In the long run it may end up being more efficient to shoot for full custody and see what you end up with.  Going for full custody would likely ensure that, at a minimum, mental health could be included in the custody decision.

I have 50/50.  Got that easily.  However, in the time since things have been a constant struggle.  During the course of the divorce I did have an opportunity to get my exwNPDBPD psych evaluated.  Well, she dodged, contempt, three trips back to court, court wrote a bad order and she got away with having a bogus psych eval done that was useless.  Had I demanded full custody at the beginning there would have been no way for her or the court to dodge evaluating her and the situation. 

This is the way I look back at my case.  I spent nearly $40k on legal fees anyway so not sure how much more I could spend if some type of custody evaluation was done.  Would have cut out a lot of BS along the way. 

[ForeverDad]

Seeking 50% up front makes sense — if both parents are reasonably normal.  But odds are a possessive or controlling spouse will overreact and demand 99-100%.  (My son was approaching 4 years of age when we separated and she would rant that she'd just disappear and I'd never see him again.  Didn't happen but she did make allegations that were extreme enough that I could have been blocked from parenting.)

So imagine a judge seeing you asking for 50% and the  other parent demanding nearly everything.  Wouldn't a quick fix for a temp order be to split the difference and assign you the "typical dad schedule" (which I lived with for 2 years) of alternate weekends and maybe an evening or overnight in between?  After all, judges feel okay doing that since they will say it's only temporary.  (Yeah, I had two temp orders totally over 2 years.)

Perhaps a smarter way to present your case is that (1) you request primary and majority time but due to the time available to present a case for a temp order - often just a half hour is allotted - you would agree to equal time on a short term basis while the professionals determine the long term outcome.  (2) Also state that joint custody could be acceptable but that you as the stable parent need to have Decision Making or Tie Breaker status.  (In my divorce case the custody evaluator reported, "Mother cannot share 'her' child but Father can.")

Frankly, that approach may still be ignored.  (My court's process was to assign one parent temporary custody, and yes it was to my disordered and obstructive spouse.)  But at least you have made the effort to get it logged in court "on the record".  And can refer to that position later in the divorce case.

Be aware that much of the time discussions before the judge aren't "on the record".  It's almost as though they want to have the least amount of testimony on record so the judge has greater flexibility or discretion when making decisions.  So be alert to the times when the judge or magistrate starts or ends the recording.