Ex won't give up on reconciliation

[ruby_belle]

My ex is BPD which I didn't actually know until after I left him and after we made our first parenting schedule. We have an 11 month old daughter together.

Despite our separation and me saying that I don't want to get back together, he still says that he believes that we are going to reconcile and have a perfect future together raising our daughter. This fluctuates on a 2-3 week cycle in which he's in euphoria and his dreams are so possible, to I've excepted that we're never getting back together to the deep depression that follows and then back to his dreams that he really feels like we can work it out.

I've been pretty passive about his ideas knowing he's going to cycle through these feelings but I'm not sure this is the right thing to do.

The problem that this is creating is that at the same time this is happening he is also threatening me with taking more time with our daughter ( we currently have a 70/30 split) and he's also starting to talk about pulling back on child support (his been out of work due to COVID but did purchase and Audi last month as well as some other luxury items). Because she's so young our first agreement was temporary and we have another negotiation scheduled for August.

My therapist says this is a ploy to get me back but my logical mind is saying I need to fight back on this as I'm pretty certain that he's just using our daughter and custody as a whole to get to me. Before we broke up, he was minimally involved with her and since we broke up, he's become strangely obsessive about her. While I'm not too concerned about the time he has now, he clearly projects, he's horribly controlling and the physical force has shown up in his parenting here and there (not enough to call abuse but it makes me  uncomfortable) and I feel that this could start to affect her as she gets older.

So my questions are:

Has anybody been through this and how has it affected your legal proceedings?

Should I start making it clear that we will never get back together and will he stop trying for more time with our daughter if he knows it's not going to get me back? Or do you think that will that make him more aggressive about getting the time?

[MeandThee29]

If you've told him, and he's not believing you, what are your options? Either remain in that lop-sided situation, or start the divorce process.

The divorce process likely will really ramp things up, but there are quite a few of us who got through it and are on the other side. As they often say, divorce is just the legal action that closes what happened long before emotionally.

[ForeverDad]

How might legal proceedings be affected?  If the current court order or if none then your current parenting arrangement is favorable to you, then there is little benefit and possible risks if you delay proceeding to court.  The extra time might allow your spouse to sabotage your separation or divorce strategies.

On the flip side, however, delaying could allow extra time for you to document any substantive poor behaviors.  And the longer you have undisputed majority time, the harder it will be for your spouse to later contest the status quo.  Frankly, the other spouse had years to change for the better, granting extra time is unlikely to save the relationship.  There very likely will be either quick promises of change or demands to retreat to the past dysfunction (extinction bursts) but it takes a lot of intensive therapy to make a dent in the Borderline (or other acting out PD) perceptions, moods, thinking and behaviors.  For those here who divorced — most who ended up on this Family Law board — the only reason tom delay was to better prepare for the legal path.

For most here, once we made the decision, it was time to move forward.  We realized that past behaviors were a reality check and a predictor of the future unless we stepped forward to take that better path.

If you are "done" then best not to feed an expectation to return to the past environment.  Of course, we don't needlessly trigger PD reactions and overreactions.  While we have to accept that we can't be peacemakers, we can be peaceable enough not to incite more problems or incidents.

[RolandOfEld]

Hi ruby_belle and welcome! 

It sounds to me like your ex wants you back in the relationship and has found his strings to pull on: 1) time with your daughter and 2) child support. Is the agreement you mentioned a legal agreement or an unofficial agreement between the two of you? If its legal, than you should be able to report or at least record his violations? If its not a legal separation agreement, I might suggest moving to make it one. Either way, documenting his violations of it will be very important towards your future court case.

In terms of when to do it, I have to back up FD in saying that how fast you move for divorce and custody should depend on what you have evidence wise.

If you have sufficient evidence to show that he is a not a capable parent to your daughter and presents a danger to either or both of you (and yes emotional or psychological danger counts!), then I would suggest to move as quickly as possible since it sounds like he will not allow for a stable and healthy situation for everyone. Also, my lawyer explained to me that the longer you let evidence sit, the less meaningful it might be to the court.

If you do not have evidence, then I suggest you take a few months to gather whatever you can, e.g. records of his violations as above, screenshots of disordered or threatening text conversations, signed statements from friends or colleagues who have witnessed his bad behaviors, etc.   

Please keep close to the board and let us know how things progress.

~Roland