full custody of my child

[loveopendoor]

My wife shows all the signs of BDP and we are 3 months into our divorce. She is abusive to me. I think she will always try to punish me for "abandoning" her. She  often goes after the things and people I love. I am worried about our 4yo daughter and the impact of her mother's behavior on her. She is using our daughter to punish me as well.

I wonder if you know of any cases in which the healthy father was granted full custody.
My wife is not addicted to alcohol or drugs. She is interested in men with money ( I was an exception) and loves to spend money on things. That is her way to deal with her inner void.

I am new to this group. I have a hard time to find anybody around me that can provide me with good info/advice about dealing with a high conflict personality. Right now, her and her attorney are trying to run me out of money by doing a lot of BS to make the divorce last for a long time. I am only interested in protecting my daughter from her abusive mother. The best outcome would be for me to get full custody and that my wife gets diagnosed and be forced to take care of her mental health.
Thank you.

[momtara]

Sorry about your situation. Yes, few people around you will understand what you are going through - but you will find many on this board who DO.

Custody depends on a lot of things, including your judge, lawyers, and the state you live in, but yes, without being able to prove abuse, it can be hard in many cases to get full custody.

But keep posting here - you will find lots of help.

She may try to punish you for a while, but may move on to someone new and abuse them instead. It's hard to predict. The book "Splitting" by Bill Eddy addresses splitting from someone who wants to hurt you.

Sometimes setting boundaries, and not getting sucked into their drama, takes small steps, and so does divorce. One thing to know legally is that early decisions can set precedents. So try to ask for as much time with your daughter as you reasonably can - just in my opinion based on what I've read (Not a lawyer). Keep us posted!

[Sluggo]

Love open door,

I just wrote this is a post a few min ago so I thought I would share as it touches upon what you had asked...

I feel a little closer to peace.  I moved out a 18 yr marriage with 7 kids. I was beaten down emotionally.  I have been gone since jan 2016.  For 3 years went through court system fighting to get a least 50/50 custody if not full.  I lost.in court and only received minimum guidelines despite a court custody evaluator stating I should have 50/50 and 100 percent if alienation continued... evaluator went on to tell court kids were being emotionally  abused by Mom.  However I lost and was devastated probably due to having 2 kids special needs and court wanting to give that to.Mom.  

6 months ago mom gave up.all rights to kids voluntarily- telling court she only wanted them 30 days in summer.  No holiday, no bdays, etc.

Fast forward 3 months ago  mom filed a CPS charged against me.  All charges unsubstantiated.  

Yesterday I received the testimony to CPS of the 5 kids that live with me.   The kids had positive things to say but my daughter who is 15 really touched my heart.  It was written in CPS report: ' daughter reported that living at Dads house was good.  I do not have to walk on eggshells or feel paranoid like I did before" (aka moms house).  

My kids have not told.me how they felt at Moms.  I know I  felt 100 times better not living in that oppressive environment but to know my daughter felt that better also was such a comfort to know that.  It was a confirmation that I did make a good choice of leaving 4 years ago and fighting for the kids and almost going bankrupt doing so.  
...
The best thing I did was get a custody Eval done.  It cost almost 20k normally about 10nin our area but the 7 kids complicated things.  The CE helped.me realize I was not crazy.  It did diagnose her with a Personality disorder.

Sluggo

[ForeverDad]

I wonder if you know of any cases in which the healthy father was granted full custody.

I've "been there, done that".  I can attest to the long term perspective, that mothers often get default preference at first — though that is not as much a foregone conclusion as a couple decades ago — but that's never an excuse to retreat into passive acceptance.  You must be proactive (not to be confused with aggressive), using an experienced family law attorney (yes, some lawyers are out of their depth in our sort of high conflict cases), use time tested strategies (such as those recommended here in peer support) and maintain perspective and objectivity for the years ahead.

When I arrived here my son was still 3 years old.  That was 14 years ago, last month.  Very soon he will have aged out of the court system.  Yes, he will be an adult.  A lot happened along the way.  Though it took years, there were progressive steps forward.  I went from alternate weekend dad during the two years of separation and divorce process to the equal time recommended as a start in the Custody Evaluation.  The attempted Shared Parenting and equal time didn't weaken my ex-spouse's entitlement and control demands.  In her mind's perceptions, her being Mother trumped my being Father.  So back to court and I became Legal Custodian.  The GAL was reluctant to grant me majority time, hoping Mother would be glad to have child support.  So a couple years later we were back and with the school's input I was able to get majority time during the school year.  Since then, six years ago, the entitlement/control balloon was weakened and we never went back to court.

Many fathers don't manage to get full custody as I did.  However, note that it took me some 8 years to get an order that finally worked.  So the recommended strategy is to start with the best temp order you can get.  Our rationale is that temp orders often take much longer than expected (the stbEx has many opportunities to delay a divorce case) and the longer a temp order is in effect, it seems harder to get the court to act on making the changes needed, even if the Custody Evaluator is excellent.  At least, my experience was that the court is reluctant to make extensive changes, preferring small steps in hopes that the disordered parent will accept the revisions sooner than later.

A lot depends on how your state views custody (often the legal overall parenting decisions such as health, schools, religion, etc) and parenting (specific schedules and other details).  If you have a hard time seeking full custody, then one tactic (not exclusive of other strategies) is to seek decision making or tie breaker status.  Getting something like that is so close/similar to full custody as to not be that much of a difference.  Courts can be more comfortable with such outcomes because the other parent isn't made to feel shut out.

At first my lawyer estimated my divorce to take 7-9 months, it was actually triple that.  So it wasn't long before he said we needed a Custody Evaluation.  He recommended a child psychologist whose recommendation the court always accepted.  The quoted price was about $3K, the lowest estimate I've ever read about here.  Even  so, my ex managed to force him to take longer and it did cost more.  Most are $10-20K, could be more these days.  The key is not the price, it's the quality of the evaluation.  A lousy evaluation by someone unqualified, biased or partial can have a devastating effect.

[worriedStepmom]

You are not alone. 

My H has close to full custody of SD12 now.  As of a few months ago, SD sees her mom from 10 am - 6 pm, 4 days per month.  That's it.  From ages 2 - 10, it was 50/50 custody, then a year of 60/40 in H's favor, before we had to take more drastic measures.

In what ways is your wife abusive?  Is it physical or verbal or both?  Has any of that been in front of your D4, or been directed at her? 

How are you doing at documenting what's been going on as well as who is doing what for D4?  Do you need any tips on how to do that effectively/what to document?

How are you doing at taking care of you?  Do you have a good support system?  Maybe a therapist to help you talk through all of this?  Are you taking some time to do healthy things for yourself?

[Panda39]

My Partner started at every other weekend plus Wednesday evenings during his separation and divorce (2 years  ). 

He was able to prove, Medical, Dental, and Education Neglect...using email correspondence/documentation and school attendance records.  By the time the divorce was final my Partner had custody M-F and one weekend a month (the girls were about 12 & 16).

Their mother's instability caused problems with the girls and in 2015 both voted with their feet to live with their dad full-time. 

It seems to me from reading the stories here it is often like my partner's story...with additional custody building incrementally vs getting full custody from the get go. Documentation of my partner's undiagnosed BPD ex-wife's (uBPDxw) behaviors, particularly her inability to take care of their daughters was key in my partner's situation. 

Your daughter is younger than my partner's daughters were...they were 11 & 15 when their parents separated.  What kinds of concerns do you have regarding stbx caring for your daughter? 

Panda39

[loveopendoor]

Thank you so much for your replies, it feels great to read you.
I have read the book Splitting and it helped me get started and keep things in perspective. I understand that the first few months are important and I am trying to go as fast as possible.

My stbexBPD made false allegation of domestic abuse last September, It was an epiphany to me. I realized that I have been in an abusive relationships for many years and that I could not accept it anymore as it got me to jail. The more I was trying to keep the peace at home, the more demanding and aggressive she became towards me but also towards our daughter. She was constantly angry and moody, I did everything wrong, she undermined constantly my self-confidence, she was demanding and I accepted to spend a lot of money for her in ways that were not financially sound. I feel so ashamed about that. I learned about BPD in 2018 and read about walking on egg shells. I started realizing the situation but was not ready to end the relationship. I tried really hard to make it work because I wanted to be here for my daughter who is little.

My stbexBPD slapped me several times in front of my daughter, threw things at me. would insult me on a daily basis, would lock herself in her bedroom for hours, my daughter had to knock to get her attention. She would yell at my daughter and use emotional blackmail on her. She refused anybody to come to our house including for playdates. she would try to isolate us from our friends and family by creating drama out of lies.

Because of the criminal charge, I was asked to leave the house and I am staying at friends for the last few months and I have my daughter every weekend. The criminal case is looking good, I was able to avoid the DANCO and just be subject to a conditional release order. She requested an Order for Protection against me to get the upper hand but it got denied by the family judge. He did not believe her story, she was confusing in telling what happened and she had past charges of welfare fraud that she denied in front of the judge. We impeached her. Now, that the OFP is denied, the criminal charges will likely be dismissed. It is just taking time to be dismissed. We are pressing on the prosecutor to make him realize that his case is weak and I have asked for the case to be trialed. the trial date is in May.

I am lucky that the judge who denies her OFP is also our family judge for the divorce. He already saw her lying and he ordered at the ICMC a custody evaluation and so far he has been good to me by moving things along.

My custody evaluation is starting now. We are using the county evaluator and I hope for the best. I am staying at my friends and I am looking for my own place ASAP. I still pay for my house where she resides. This is her tower of power. I am trying to get it on the market asap, so I can avoid bankruptcy. I am worried for my daughter, She told me that her mother is getting mad at her if she does not comply with her requests. Her mother would make our 2 weekly FaceTime very difficult by cutting us short and allowing calls in chaotic environments rather than at peaceful times.

I am putting most of my time, energy and money to fight for that case. It is the battle of my life for the love of my daughter. I understand that I need to go hard if I want a chance to protect my daughter and my health for the long term. I run often, write in my journal, meditate and see a therapist. All of that is good but I struggle sometimes to find the energy to assertively be aggressive and my lawyer seems to pick the path of less resistance. I love my friends and family, they are supportive in many ways but they remind me that I have little chance to get full custody and want me to slow down.

I am taking any advice you may have to get as much custody as possible. Right now, I try to keep her unstable so she will make mistakes that will play in my favor. Her lawyer is trying to drag things along to squeeze me out of money.
Thank you All.

[worriedStepmom]

It sounds like you are doing so many good things already!

It is really good that the judge has seen her lie in court already.  They remember those things.

Other potential ideas -
You may want to request that your daughter see a therapist.  There are registered play therapists that work with kids as young as 3 (my daughter went to one when she was 5).  A T can not only help your D deal with her feelings around the divorce, but also, if the T figures out what is actually happening with mom, may be a good advocate for what's best for D.

You could also request that a Guardian Ad-Litem be appointed for your daughter.  The GAL is a lawyer who represents D in court - and both parents have to pay for that.  Your L ought to be able to tell you whether this is a reasonable idea or not, and part of that may depend on how the custody evaluation goes.

Try not to descend into hopelessness.  This isn't going to be an easy or quick process, but there is hope.  Dads do get custody.

[ForeverDad]

I still pay for my house where she resides. This is her tower of power. I am trying to get it on the market asap, so I can avoid bankruptcy.

You may need the court to help you navigate the sale of your home.  Also, court may be willing to issue an order but then when it is ignored or sabotaged, but will it enforce it?  Our experience is that it may not and if you try to get it enforced, it will take time with the delay of repeated court hearings.  Our experience is that you should {try to} get consequences for noncompliance included in any order so when ex doesn't comply or delays, then when you return to court the court already doesn't have to spend time to ponder what to do and more hearings to give second or third chances which means even more delays, the consequence is already there in writing.

My ex started our son in therapy with the county's child therapy quasi-agency when he was still 3 years old.  She was seeking to brand me as a bad dad but failed, thankfully.  He had sessions there until I had both Legal Guardian status (full custody) and majority time during the school year... and he was nearly 12 years old.

[livednlearned]

That is great that the judge could see through her lies, and that this same judge will be involved in custody. Hallelujah.

Obstructing and delaying and stonewalling are common tactics. It took me a few years to learn that any time I filed a motion, there needed to be a deadline for compliance and a consequence for non-compliance. I had a good lawyer and she didn't point this out, I had to learn the hard way and direct her to tighten up the language in any document we submitted to court.

For example: House appraisal. Mr. loveopendoor will select three appraisers for Ms stonewaller to select by day/date. If Ms. Stonewaller has not selected one by close of business on day/date, Mr. loveopendoor will choose.

Mr. loveopendoor will select three realtors for Ms. stonewaller to select by day/date. If Ms. stonewaller has not selected one by close of business on day/date, Mr. loveopendoor will choose.

Run through the house sale scenario and predict where she will stall and do the same thing. The consequence for not making her selection in a timely way is that you will get to choose and move things forward.

She may not accept offers because she believes the house is valued much higher. You may want a clause that says any offer within 5 percent of asking price will be considered or whatever you find agreeable.

I gave my ex the house. It took four trips to court and a real estate lawyer to get the house re-mortgaged and take my name off the deed. Only toward the end did I learn how to phrase things so that we didn't have to go to court every time my ex predictably stonewalled.

I also learned that when a judge rules on a motion, ask your lawyer to offer to write it up. The lawyers will consider it a courtesy moment with no consequences (other than their clients have to pay for them to write it up). But in my case, that's when I would suggest language. Once the order is written up, both lawyers go back to court and remind the judge what was ordered, s/he reads the order, and lawyers agree it's what was decided and boom, the order is entered. In my case, my lawyer usually went alone because I didn't technically have to be there, so my ex stopped going to these, too. When the order was signed by the judge, it would have language that was critical to me, like what could happen if ex did not comply. That way, I also didn't have to wait until the next court hearing for a judge to give ex more bites of the apple, which happened many many times in my case. Ideally, if you go to court, you want the judge to look at the order and say, Ms. stonewaller, it says right here that if you didn't select a realtor by day/date, Mr. loveopendoor could choose one. So why are you here wasting my time and your time and his time in court. Our docket is backed up for five weeks and you're wasting everyone's valuable time. He gets to choose the realtor. Next.

Toward the end of our custody battle, I learned to propose reasonable solutions (that made sense given documented history of behavior) with deadlines and consequences for non-compliance (like anger management classes, parenting classes, substance abuse treatment, psyche evaluation, etc completed by day/date).

My ex could only tolerate win/lose, and the lose/lose nature of family court, especially because our judge had ex's number, was intolerable. Ex refused to meet deadlines and do the most reasonable things, and eventually his behavior looked unreasonably high-conflict to the judge, and judges are considered supreme witnesses to a case.

It can take a while to reach your goals but these cases are marathons, not sprints. There are ways to try and cut costs. I eventually asked my lawyer straight up and she told me things I could do and not do to help defray some of the expense.

What is entailed in your custody evaluation? Does it include a psyche eval and home visits?
It's good to know as much detail as possible about it -- third party professionals can be very powerful in our cases.

[loveopendoor]

Thank you livednlearned for your post. These are great advice and I try to teach my lawyer about it. Tight and clear communications with deadlines and consequences for not complying are keys to success.

I wish there were short cuts or ways to demonstrate that she is abusive towards me and my daughter. The custody evaluation started 2 weeks ago, there will be a home visit and a psychological evaluation.

I wrote in a personal journal for the last 4 years, I have some audio recordings of our conversations in which she displays erratic behaviors. I am thinking that I can do transcripts of that and present them to the evaluators. It is very time-consuming.

Now, I see that she is manipulating our daughter, coaching her, using her to get information about me that she can use against me... This is a nightmare. my daughter is suffering. My stbex is so evil and mentally sick. She needs to be treated and to have inpatient mental care... Will she ever be diagnosed?

How can we raise awareness about the problem of BPD/NPD personalities to society ?
This is a serious issue that affects millions of people and kids in this country. I am sure that most people have run into these personalities at some point.  I know that Bill Eddy is doing a great job talking about it, who else is out there, raising awareness in the legal system? How can we better diagnose and teach people how to deal with these personalities?

Thank you.

[worriedStepmom]

The diagnosis really doesn't matter...and inpatient treatment isn't a cure-all either.

My SD12's mom is undiagnosed.  In the last 6 years she has been in inpatient psychiatric care twice (one was an involuntary commitment) and intensive outpatient pyschiatric care (10 hours/day, every day for 1-2 weeks) once.  The first 2 hospitalizations stabilized her (so she wasn't suicidal anymore), but she always reverted to her bad behaviors.  Things have been calmer since the last inpatient admission (August), but I don't know if that's because of the psychiatric care she received, or because we finally have a legal order that states if she can't behave herself she goes straight to supervised visitation.

What really matters - what the judge will care about - is how she treats your daughter, and, to a lesser extent, how she treats you.  Definitely tell your evaluator about your journals and the audio recordings.  They may want to see or hear those.

[KingofTexas37891]

Not likely you will get full custody.

But you could get to the same result by playing it smart.
Join legal custody
Joint physical custody with you as primary custodian.

[livednlearned]

Not likely you will get full custody.

But you could get to the same result by playing it smart.
Join legal custody
Joint physical custody with you as primary custodian.

Not likely you will get full custody right away.

Most of us end up back in court to tweak things along the way and get better outcomes when we are methodical about documenting troubling behaviors over time. For you, this abusive behavior has been going on a long time.

For court, they are learning about it for the first time and might have a hard time figuring out what is driving the problem. Many couples act emotionally during the early stages of divorce so they expect to see some of that. It's when things don't get better over time that court begins to note whether one parent is unable to settle down and return to baseline.

[ForeverDad]

I was one of those parents who eventually got full custody, not all do.  I can confirm it usually takes a few returns to court since courts typically are reluctant to quickly grant full custody, well, unless there is substantive basis to do so.

However, I do advocate that we do need to seek the most custody and parenting authority that we can get.  That's where our peer support experience and time-tested strategies really outshine the passive and appeasing approach that partly got us into this predicament in the first place.  Not that we could have avoided it, we were dealing with an acting-out disordered person after all.

I recall my lawyer turning to me in the first divorce hearing, "Keep quiet, we'll fix it later."  Though he did turn out to be a good lawyer, those fixes didn't start until the divorce was final nearly two years later.  For some frustratingly unstated reason neither the lawyers nor the magistrate nor the court's judge tried to change the 'temporary' order midstream.

That's why is it so vital for us to get the best order we can from the very start.  The "be nice, generous, overly fair and accommodating and it will turn out well" approach is not realistic.  It is wise to be proactive.

[Sluggo]

divorce hearing, "Keep quiet, we'll fix it later."

My first lawyer told me the same thing (I left him 24 hours after that temp order hearing when I realized that I signed my kids away and I could not change it in a few weeks as lawyer told me)  It took almost 3 years for the final decree and I was only a little better but not much different than the original temp order I agreed to 3 yrs before.    I relied on the advise of my 1st lawyer (we can change it after a couple weeks) and i was still in the FOG of my Exbpdw who proposed the temp order.   I signed off on it.  Huge mistake I made. 

The 2nd lawyer- who I still have now- documented and filed multiple contempts when ex could not follow court orders.

So I second the above opinions...  get as much time as you can get now   

[KingofTexas37891]

@Sluggo
Good points you mentioned. I did not know that lawyers were lazy like that. The lawyer I hired was good but I realized he did not want to extend the case into Trial but just make a deal with the mother and close the case.

It also turned out that my lawyer and the other side's lawyer knew each other.

[Sluggo]

Loveopendoor, 

Just checking in to see how you  and  daughter are doing since last posted especially with many courts shutting down with Covid 19

Sluggo

[loveopendoor]

Sluggo,
thank you for checking on me and thank you all for your advice and support.
I had a hearing canceled and the judge was not available to address some of the issues that we had. The custody evaluation is delayed by 3 months.

My stbex continues to cause trouble during the pandemic refusing to let me take care of our 4 yo daughter when she is at work. She is trying to alienate me in her eyes: I am stealing the family money, I got her father sick, I am an alcoholic, I am not a good person...
The truth is that my daughter and I have a beautiful and peaceful relationship and that enrages my wife. She cannot stand when our daughter has a good time with me, and will systematically shame her, punish her for it and find a way to blame me at the same time.
This is incredibly difficult for my daughter who refrains from showing too much joy or sharing good moments she has with me. For example, she learned how to bike by herself without the training wheels 3 weeks ago during our weekend together. Now, during my parenting time, she wants to bike everywhere all the time. When I ask her if she bikes with her mother, if she showed her mother how she bikes, she does not respond to my questions, stays silent and changes the subject. Eventually, she tells me that she uses her scooter when she is with her mother instead of her brand new bike that her aunt got her. This is so strange. I am not sure what is happening there?

We are also having issues around exchanges. My wife will interrogate her right away about her time with me. Then almost every time, I will get a few angry texts about things that she learned from her. She never gives up her anger and bitterness. It is exhausting and co-parenting is impossible. She would never agree to anything.

She sounds so fake when she interacts with our daughter at exchanges or during her Facetime calls with her during my parenting times. I do not like how she treats our daughter, like her puppet. Since I see that my daughter is anxious about drop-offs, I have asked yesterday my wife to promise me that she would not interrogate her or harm her emotionally. Instead, she changes the subject, deflects, is upset and does not promise anything. Since I know the suffering that my daughter is going through, I called CPS for advice, they told me that I should do what is best for my daughter's wellbeing regardless of the court orders (that was refreshing). Then I called my lawyer who, expectedly, recommended that I follow the court orders for parenting times. I have been playing by the book from the beginning, I have not done anything wrong. On the other hand, my wife has broken several court orders without much consequences so far. I have not been able to increase my parenting times more than 9 nights per month and have stretches of 10 days without seeing my daughter... My daughter is bullied, is being damaged emotionally and psychologically, it is hard to see. So, I decided to keep her with me one more night. My wife called the police who called me to verify what was the status of our parenting times and orders. I told them that I was protecting my daughter from her mother and keeping her with me unless she can promise me to do no harm to her. We will see if that will get the judge's attention. If I do not care for my daughter and ring all the bells available, who is going to take care of her? Did I do a mistake by keeping her with me? Will I pay worse consequences? Not sure about that, I feel that I had to do something. I will explain the situation to the custody evaluator who seems to get it.


I do not know what is worse : being in a toxic relationship but being able to see my daughter everyday and protect her or being away from the toxic spouse but also from my child without being able to protect her as much from her mother's mental breakdowns and being on the verge of bankruptcy? At least, now I can start healing from the abuses, regain some sanity and get out of the FOG, work on having a better environment for our daughter and show her that her dad is not the "piss of PLEASE READ" that her mother said he is for years.
If I was a woman and my partner had done what my wife is doing, I would have had full custody by now. It is a marathon uphill. I find very few good supports around me. My friends and family do not get what I am going through.

Her lawyer is a negative advocate, a narcissistic who has very low ethics and lies repeatedly. She is focusing on squeezing me out of money and it is working, I am running out of money and can barely pay my lawyer without the help of my family. I already paid over $100 000 in fees in just 9 months… I still do not want to slow down and will fight for my daughter’s full custody. I do not want to be alienated and to give up to the bullies. The quality time that I spent with my daughter gives me strength but  it breaks my heart every time I return her to the burning building...

If any of you have been in a similar situation or had to take extreme measures to be heard, I will be happy to hear your stories.
Thank you.

[worriedStepmom]

You have to be very careful when you violate a court order and keep your daughter longer.  It really needs to be an instance where your daughter is in imminent danger of severe emotional harm.  My H did this only once - when SD12's mother was ranting via texts and phone calls to both him and SD, mom was obviously not in her right mind, and SD broke down wailing.

If you only kept her one day, you need to be able to show what changed in that 24 hours to make it okay for your daughter to go back.  Otherwise, it just looks like you were trying to spite your ex.

Where we live, ex could not win a contempt charge against H unless she showed up at the exchange spot and SD wasn't there.  It didn't matter that H told her he wasn't going to give SD to her - she actually had to show up for proof that she was meeting the order too.

I know this is really hard right now, especially with everything shut down for the virus.  Be careful that you don't put yourself in a worse legal position.

[livednlearned]

One thing that might be possible (talk to your L) is to file an ex parte emergency suspension of visitation. That just means the court kind of gives you the benefit of the doubt that there will be more explanation later when a judge can schedule a hearing.

Does your lawyer not agree that the abuse you describe rises to the level of doing something? You deserve a good answer about why/why not, and what the strategy is. We can only share our experience. Your lawyer may have other information that will help with your case.

I withheld my son for visitation early in our custody battle and my lawyer was insistent that I not do that again, but she gave me reasons why, and under conditions we would suspend visitation and how she would handle it.

At the very least, you deserve to hear what the strategy is, or, if you disagree and feel withholding is essential, then your lawyer needs to explain how he/she will defend your decision in court.