New to this and dealing with separation with a child

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hi
I’m suspecting that my recently separated wife has an issue but I’m torn between NPD and BPD,
So my wife is a migrant and I’ve been in the USA since I was 13,
She comes from a big family, at the beginning I saw some red flags but due to the initial stages of our relationship being long distance I figured it was normal like accusing me of liking or having relationships with woman that were in my life like my brother In law sister, she finally came to the states and we had our first child a year after she moved here, my family and her family came and she was well pampered however when my daughter was 7 months old she initiated a argument and after I left to work she sent me a text message saying she left the child at home and all her belongings, asking for forgiveness and left, I rushed back and found the infant alone and her, no where to be found until I found her walking along side the road.
I brought her back in and never mentioned it nor did she as I thought it was postpartum depression, well things got more difficult and I had to keep walking on egg shells and more threats of killing her self kept surfacing and I realized even her family keeps walking on egg shells around her, this feb she threatened to throw her self under a car to kill her self after I suggested divorce then proceeded to leave in the middle of the night leaving her belongings and go to the gas station and hit her self and claim domestic violence against me, I calmed her down and brought her back inside and again on May 15 after ai was grey rocking her she called my parents and asked them to come to sort things out between us, once I told her that someone from her family needs to be here she ran into the other room and threatened to hit her self and call the cops, my parents calmed her down and after another session of talking for 8 hours and not taking any blame for her actions they left, this passed until 8/14 where she lashed at my niece for not giving our daughter a toy and when I confronted her she ran outside and took the child to go to the gas station and calling the cops, once she found out the cops were coming while holding our child she proceeded to hit her self and my family witnessed it, cops came and they suggested ivc, I felt bad doing it and I let it be,  over the next few days till 8/17 she threatened to kill me and my family burn us and planed to accuse us of evil stuff to put us in trouble and run away back home so I never see the child again, I left with the child that day and immediately she calmed down and started to beg me to come back and confessed to hitting her self and said if I wanted to frame you I would have told the police when they came (even though my family saw it and gave statements) however I came back when cps was called since a child was involved in a 911 call on 8/20, After a 9 hour meet with cps and projecting all the blame on to me and saying I hit my self and shifting the blame to me cps suggested individual therapy which she agreed to attend a local therapist which speaks her language on 8/21 which I had setup earlier that week. Well on 8/21 she decided not to do it since the paranoia kicked in over drive and said I had coerced her into a false diagnosis and this was all a setup and she wanted to do couples therapy, I let the topic go and took the call my self with the therapist and said nothing nor pushed the topic, on 8/23 she called the cops saying I was a drug dealer and had plenty of drugs over a little marijuana that we both had consumed months earlier, cops came and again suggested ivc, I took them up on their offer and had her committed the same day and she was discharged the next day and left to the shelter and then filed for a restraining order claiming sexual abuse and 17 lines of absurdity against me, I filed one against her the same day and she disappeared for 20 days and texted me asking to see the child, I refused and told her only phone calls which she refused for 11 days, I filed for custody and she went back home and got her belongings and is claiming that I took her passports and jewelry which she had hidden from me and I tried to find them but was unable to, so I started to do research and I’ve realized she does have a disorder, she has omitted the a lot of facts from her lawyer and friends and gone on a smear campaign against me and my family and stating that I’m hiding money from her and assets etc, our court date was nov 6 which got pushed back to April 2021. I’m reaching out to see how to get custody of my child (she is 3 1/2 and been with me ever since) as I moved in with my parents to get away from her. I’m looking to gain insight as to how to deal with her and her erroneous claims and how to get her help independent of a psychological evaluation and a forensic custody evaluation. I appreciate any help and insight. I’m leaning towards a mixture of NPD and BPD, as she loves hard but when the NPD kicks in its complete selfishness, she is extremely competitive and grandiose sense of self and a complete sense of being lost at the same time, no empathy and also manipulative behavior.

[Invest111]

Hi
I’m suspecting that my recently separated wife has an issue but I’m torn between NPD and BPD,
So my wife is a migrant and I’ve been in the USA since I was 13,
She comes from a big family, at the beginning I saw some red flags but due to the initial stages of our relationship being long distance I figured it was normal like accusing me of liking or having relationships with woman that were in my life like my brother In law sister, she finally came to the states and we had our first child a year after she moved here, my family and her family came and she was well pampered however when my daughter was 7 months old she initiated a argument and after I left to work she sent me a text message saying she left the child at home and all her belongings, asking for forgiveness and left, I rushed back and found the infant alone and her, no where to be found until I found her walking along side the road.
I brought her back in and never mentioned it nor did she as I thought it was postpartum depression, well things got more difficult and I had to keep walking on egg shells and more threats of killing her self kept surfacing and I realized even her family keeps walking on egg shells around her, this feb she threatened to throw her self under a car to kill her self after I suggested divorce then proceeded to leave in the middle of the night leaving her belongings and go to the gas station and hit her self and claim domestic violence against me, I calmed her down and brought her back inside and again on May 15 after ai was grey rocking her she called my parents and asked them to come to sort things out between us, once I told her that someone from her family needs to be here she ran into the other room and threatened to hit her self and call the cops, my parents calmed her down and after another session of talking for 8 hours and not taking any blame for her actions they left, this passed until 8/14 where she lashed at my niece for not giving our daughter a toy and when I confronted her she ran outside and took the child to go to the gas station and calling the cops, once she found out the cops were coming while holding our child she proceeded to hit her self and my family witnessed it, cops came and they suggested ivc, I felt bad doing it and I let it be,  over the next few days till 8/17 she threatened to kill me and my family burn us and planed to accuse us of evil stuff to put us in trouble and run away back home so I never see the child again, I left with the child that day and immediately she calmed down and started to beg me to come back and confessed to hitting her self and said if I wanted to frame you I would have told the police when they came (even though my family saw it and gave statements) however I came back when cps was called since a child was involved in a 911 call on 8/20, After a 9 hour meet with cps and projecting all the blame on to me and saying I hit my self and shifting the blame to me cps suggested individual therapy which she agreed to attend a local therapist which speaks her language on 8/21 which I had setup earlier that week. Well on 8/21 she decided not to do it since the paranoia kicked in over drive and said I had coerced her into a false diagnosis and this was all a setup and she wanted to do couples therapy, I let the topic go and took the call my self with the therapist and said nothing nor pushed the topic, on 8/23 she called the cops saying I was a drug dealer and had plenty of drugs over a little marijuana that we both had consumed months earlier, cops came and again suggested ivc, I took them up on their offer and had her committed the same day and she was discharged the next day and left to the shelter and then filed for a restraining order claiming sexual abuse and 17 lines of absurdity against me, I filed one against her the same day and she disappeared for 20 days and texted me asking to see the child, I refused and told her only phone calls which she refused for 11 days, I filed for custody and she went back home and got her belongings and is claiming that I took her passports and jewelry which she had hidden from me and I tried to find them but was unable to, so I started to do research and I’ve realized she does have a disorder, she has omitted the a lot of facts from her lawyer and friends and gone on a smear campaign against me and my family and stating that I’m hiding money from her and assets etc, our court date was nov 6 which got pushed back to April 2021. I’m reaching out to see how to get custody of my child (she is 3 1/2 and been with me ever since) as I moved in with my parents to get away from her. I’m looking to gain insight as to how to deal with her and her erroneous claims and how to get her help independent of a psychological evaluation and a forensic custody evaluation. I appreciate any help and insight. I’m leaning towards a mixture of NPD and BPD, as she loves hard but when the NPD kicks in its complete selfishness, she is extremely competitive and grandiose sense of self and a complete sense of being lost at the same time, no empathy and also manipulative behavior.

[ForeverDad]

Many of us here in peer support have experienced some if not most of the behaviors you've noticed.  It is possible that she has both BPD and NPD (the phrase is "co-morbid") however you will have a hard time convincing the court and other professionals that your experiences with her qualify you to "Play Doctor".  You'll have to leave diagnosing her to the professionals, if they're interested to figure her out.

If she demands to be the center of attention then she might also have traits of another PD, Histrionic Personality Disorder.  It is diagnosed even less frequently than BPD, so you may never know for sure how many PDs she has.

There's little (or nothing) you can do to "fix" her.  Accept that.  BPD is a disorder that impacts close relationships the most.  And what is a closer relationship than a marriage?

If you can't fix her, then who can?  She has to want to fix herself, with professional guidance.  For her to make real progress toward recovery she would have to accept and apply diligently the therapy for years.  Cognitive or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (CBT or DBT) have been the two best therapies.  For many with these acting-out personality disorders (PDs) that recovery is just too hard for them to persist with all that work.

Your ex may or may not be truly suicidal.  Why do I write that?  Because she's never really tried to commit suicide, right?  Likely there's another reason why she's acted that way.  Though she of course gets distressed, she wants to manipulate you, make you feel you're the one more at fault.  BPD has been known in the past as a Blamer's disorder, it's all your fault.  The pattern is Blame, Shift Blame and Deny Responsibility.

From now on you would be wise to record her suicidal comments.  Why?  You know that when the officials arrive, she will change her story into being a victim and of course blame you as the abuser or aggressor.  You need to ensure you are defended and one way is to record yourself to prove you weren't aggressive or abusive.  And those recordings would document that it's her who is misbehaving.

She may demand you stop recording.  (Do not wave a phone or recorder in her face, that could trigger an incident.)  Rather, you are just calmly/quietly recording yourself and if she happens to get recorded, well, that's her problem.

There's a saying here, "If it has been threatened or even contemplated, then it will happen, given enough time."  Protect yourself from allegations.  You already know she will make accusations.  Don't feel sorry for her.  Sadly, the time for that is long past.  Now your focus needs to be on protecting yourself and your child.  That's your priority.

[Invest111]

Thank you for your reply and making me feel less guilt, she has hit her self to the point of going blue and kept running away from me, when she trusts me she agrees that there is a problem the grandiose sense of self is rampant, the manipulation is rampant, I have recorded her threatening to commit suicide, will the courts look at that as a sign of an issue? Abandoned her child and threatened abandonment and finally did for 27 days. My concern is that when she is the custody of the child something might trigger her and leave the child and I would never know about it until it’s too late. Do I push for psychological evaluation or forensic custody evaluation?

The issue that concerns me the most is she is constantly threatening the child like if you don’t sleep now I’ll leave
If you don’t finish your food I’ll leave and she does which at that point the child cries and cries until I go and tend to her or she calms down and goes back to the child. This is my greatest fear as well as her threats of hurting the child to frame me.

[ForeverDad]

Courts usually focus attention on only the 6 months prior to the beginning of the court case.  Anything older is largely ignored as "stale" unless... you are documenting a pattern of poor behaviors.  So you can do both.

Good that you are documenting details, courts largely ignore vague claims such as "he always..." or "she always..."  Your log or diary is private, you don't have to share it with her or others.  However, if you are testifying and need to refer to it to refresh your memory, that's okay, no one can demand to search it.

I called my local CPS office twice before I separated, reporting my my then-spouse was ranting and raging in front of our 3 year old child.  Both staffers asked, "Is she ranting and raging at the child?"  I had to admit it was directed at me and he was only witnessing it.  "Call back if she rages at the child."

Threatening to 'leave' may not be considered actionable abuse?  Confidentially check with your local children's agency to ascertain their criteria.  However, her threats to 'leave' might be actionable enough to help you tip the scales in a divorce case where you're seeking more custodial authority of parenting time.

Do I push for psychological evaluation or forensic custody evaluation?

A Psych Eval is a quick evaluation that should be helpful when you first go to court to get your temp order, you definitely want to try your best to get something better than the 'typical' quickie temp order where the mother is often defaulted to and assumed to be the better caregiver.  However, the psych eval gives only a generic overview and may not dig into the deep issues before the court.  The children are not assessed by the PE, perhaps by children's services if it is involved.

I recall I took a PE when we first separated, by court order.  My results: anxiety.  Yeah, surprised?   Anyway, my lawyer flubbed it.  We did as required and shared with the other lawyer.  The problem was that her lawyer never shared her PE with us.  For all I know after all these years, she may never have even complied with the order to get a PE.  I learned my lesson.  Although I did well to ensure both of us were ordered to be assessed — so court was less likely to automatically view her as victim/accuser and me as abuser/controller — I never expected her not to comply.  And of course the court moved on.  I should have told my lawyer, "Here are my results.  Inform her lawyer that you are ready to exchange reports."

A Custody Evalution is an in-depth assessment of the family relationships, can take months to complete and is usually ordered as part of a divorce case.  It is crucial that the custody evaluator is very experienced and respected by the court.  The CE can make or break your case, get a good one!

Here's a suggestion how to select professionals and have the court support you... if the stbEx (soon to be ex-spouse) doesn't agree with you.  Court prefers to see the parents share in such decisions.  So  your task, when the time comes, is to research potential custody evaluators and build a short list of the best of the best.  Then present it in court and state you're will to have stbEx select from your vetted list.  She may balk and insist she gets to find her own but this approach (you building a list and her limited to selecting from it) almost surely will get the court's approval.

[Invest111]

Thank you again for your reply,
My main concern is whether or not she will hurt my daughter to hurt me and frame me?
Her threat to run back to her home country with the child to hurt me... it’s a constant struggle in my mind whether My daughter not seeing her physically will hurt her in the long run until the court decides in March. It’s a tough time even though kids are resilient but she needs motherly love the only thing I have going for me is my diary of her calls with our daughter and constantly involving her and telling her why don’t u push dad to bring u to me? Did u pray to come to me?
Or if she is in a bad mood telling her is dad bothering u? Is he hurting u? U want me to send cps lady to your house to tell her? Or when cps came to the house why did you not tell her to bring you to me? Or this time when cps comes tell her to bring you to me... it’s just really tough stomaching these comments that goes hand in hand in her threats.
Do BPD/NPD people follow through on their threats? Or am I just over thinking this? And should I be more amicable time her visiting her with out supervision/court order?

[ForeverDad]

Your first concerns should be to protect yourself and protect your child.  Everything else is way down your list of priorities.  So you're fretting whether daughter not seeing her mother is wrong?  It's not.

Yes, it sucks that mother is pressuring, manipulating and even guilting your child.  Others will chime in soon to add their suggestions on how to counter that.  What I can say now is that you need to be positively validating your child's perceptions and conclusions.  For example, saying "Mama still loves you" is invalidating.  Ponder that.  You'd be trying to be 'nice' and 'fair' but you would be confusing your child.  There's only so much you can do at that age to explain the mother's cycles of irrational up-and-down behaviors.

There is no single pattern of BPD (or other PD) behaviors.  Each person is a little different and responds a little different.  For instance, I can estimate that your likelihood of have accusations thrown at you, repeatedly, is high.  However, she's got a history of false allegations, though court-speak legalese would term them benignly as "unsubstantiated" allegations.  Doesn't mean she'll stop.  So be aware and beware.  (My ex made allegations of child abuse during the entire time of our separation and divorce, over two years.)

[Invest111]

Just a thought looking for feed back
Would it help if I suggest to go to her therapist and together or separately and talk to see if she can get better?
We have suggested supervised visits and her attorney declined and is asking for our evidence, we have a mandatory custody mediation on 11/19 and want to pose to her this method to go to counseling online together and see if she will crack and realize how she is hurting our kid and possibly she’d some light?

[GaGrl]

A thought...

Are you in possession of your daughter's passport? Is the threat to take your daughter to your wife's country a serious threat, and even possible?

[Invest111]

My daughter is with me and I’m in possession of my daughters passport, the issue that bothers me is that she has threatened to take the child using some of her relatives passports since my daughter is dual citizen and upon exiting the USA all she has to show is an infant pictured passport and the airlines can care less. I have her threatening my mother with running and that same afternoon she came and threatened me and said I think ur so smart for holding my daughter passport? I can sun using some of my relatives passport.

[Invest111]

We did as required and shared with the other lawyer.  The problem was that her lawyer never shared her PE with us. 

[/quote]

She has gone to a therapist which speaks her language and of course it was one sided, I did too and I was diagnosed with anxiety and now I’m realizing that I’ve had anxiety all my life and she has definitely made it worse to a point that I have panic attacks and constant state of worry which is a never ending cycle.

On the custody evaluation I have already spoken to a few and I’ve found 2 that are experts in cluster b disorders but they are very expensive 8-10k but her attorney is rejecting it all together and saying this case does not warrant one which is bs and her attorney has a reputation for being unreasonable and gun hoe. She had called my attorney and yelled at him and he is very calm and collected and level headed. Our court date is almost 5 months away and she is not budging, coming from a traditional background I’ve reached out to so many of her family members and I’ve learnt that blood runs thick and she comes from a clergy family that controls massive religious organizations and I’m up against a whole tribe which makes my anxiety worse.

[ForeverDad]

Clearly her lawyer is protecting her from looking bad in these reports or evaluations.  However... her lawyer probably can't fight a court order to comply.  So, yes, you're getting no cooperation or compliance but if you've got a decent proactive lawyer that is willing to hold the other side's feet to the fire, you'll probably get the judge to order the evaluations.  It would be nice to get the consequence terms of noncompliance included in an order too, in advance to reduce the delays between court appearances but courts typically assume compliance and don't think ahead for these intractable cases.

My Custody Evaluator was a child psychologist, very excellent and surprised me with his under $3K quote.  Most were up in the $5K-$10 or more range a decade ago.  So the rates you got are probably normal these days.  About my evaluation.  My then-spouse was a certified interpreter/translator for legal and medical matters.  But she wanted to take a Spanish tests so the CE had to hire a someone to translate her test results.  Of course, I had to pay that additional cost.

Some CE reports are virtual books with charts and whatnot.  My Ce's report was barely 11 pages but was spot on.  The summary stated, "Mother cannot share 'her' child but Father can."

It is crucial that you get a very reputable and experienced CE, a gullible or biased CE can be devastating to the case.

[worriedStepmom]

I have anxiety, too, made worse from dealing with my H's uBPDex.  I am on medication for it now, and that has helped me a lot.  I hope that you have found something to help you - therapy or meds or both.  Besides making you a better parent who can face the world a little more easily, it is also showing the court that when you find issues with yourself, you FIX them.  You are working to be better, not to avoid those.

It is common to worry that the child needs to be around the parent.  However, your STBX has left your daughter unattended.  She should not be around your daughter without supervision.  Period.  It's not safe.

It is emotional abuse for a parent to tell the child they will leave/abandon them/etc if child doesn't do X.  My SD13's mom has done this to her a lot.  Unfortunately, this is not actionable abuse - CPS won't get involved just over that.  SD's therapist, however, is up in arms over it.

Your STBX's lawyer can rant and rave all she wants.  What does your lawyer advise?

[worriedStepmom]

Would it help if I suggest to go to her therapist and together or separately and talk to see if she can get better?

Nope.

My H has tried this repeatedly.  After ex's T gets info from H, ex has a major tantrum.  Within a month or so, she changes therapists.  She cannot handle a challenge to her view of the situation (that H was an abusive husband to her and their marriage - which ended 11 years ago - is the source of all of her problems).  We tried having ex go to therapy with SD, and that was an utter disaster (the family therapist quit).  Ex is already trying to find a new therapist to see with SD (H said absolutely not).

Our goal is to stop the trauma to SD.  At this point it is ex's responsibility to fix herself.

[Invest111]

Your STBX's lawyer can rant and rave all she wants.  What does your lawyer advise?

Thank you for taking the time and sharing your story,
My attorney is suggesting we stay the course and let the process take place and not budge, her attorney has a bad reputation for taking cases personally and having a bad temper and it’s a female representing a female and she is trying very hard and crossing a lot of ethical lines protecting her client and threatened to dig up assets that I own etc not knowing I’m recently bankrupted as of 2015 still with over 200k USD $ in debt so she is trying but won’t get anywhere. She is spinning her wheels, ex has gone ahead and leased an apartment and leased a brand new Honda to prove to the courts that she needs to be taken care of etc the delusion continues.
I’m also thinking about having my therapist release my info and story to her therapist since they are all from the same country to be able to help her diagnose her better and have her change her statement that she is battered etc and not come to court and testify and ruin her reputation since she has no idea about the suicide threats etc... life is upside down and dealing with anxiety is made me gain a few new conditions ulcers smoking  a pack a day of cigs and just low patience and fatty liver to name a few