Divorce Process Dragging On

[grootyoda]

It has been a little while since my last post - I have been in the midst of the divorce process from my BPDw for a half year and change at this point, and it has been as much of a rollercoaster as you might expect.

She is actually diagnosed and self-describes as having BPD traits, with unstable relationships, risk taking behaviors, anger/rage, and dissociative tendencies being the core issues she struggles with.

We have a TCO that we agreed to near the beginning of our separation that gave me sole custody with supervised visitation for her until such time as we either agree to custody terms or a judge decrees otherwise, and that is still what we are working with.

Early on I had hope we’d reach a settlement, but those negotiations were cut off by her L after a few rounds and they proceeded to discovery. They also recently filed a motion for relief and were granted a hearing to address custody and her need for financial support, but then pulled out on it the night before given how close we are to the actual trial date and a loss of employment she experienced the week leading up to the hearing.

So now we are coming up on the trial date, and it’s looking like they want to revisit having the hearing on that date instead. Simultaneously, I’ve been getting communication from her commenting on the materials we provided during discovery, including insinuations that my L doesn’t know what they’re doing and our case for custody is poor. Interestingly, we haven’t heard anything about the settlement offer we recently made in a final effort to resolve things without going to what are going to be bitter, expensive, emotionally difficult court proceedings.

That’s a really abbreviated version. I am reaching back out here because I want to check my understanding and work on what I can do to keep myself grounded and “OK” at this stage in the game. From my perspective, based on my experience, it seems that she is avoiding dealing with the prospect of this process reaching a conclusion that she is then going to have to live with. She’s also probably experiencing distress related to both the divorce and her current career uncertainty, which is being misdirected towards me. I also suspect she’s projecting her own doubts about the outcome onto me.

In any case, how likely does it seem that what’s going on is unrelated to any of the actual facts of the situation? Do I need to prepare emotionally for this to simply drag out regardless of any efforts I make to get this to a workable conclusion?

Lastly, what all can I do for myself in terms of emotional and social support? Our shared social spaces have become difficult, if not impossible, to access because she makes a point of trying to be present when I am and creating issues (sorry to be vague, it’s hard to get more detailed than that about it). Being the full time parent currently, it can be difficult to find time for me to socialize on my own - I have excellent family support but they’ve been put through all the same stuff as I have throughout this process. We were all looking at the court date as a light at the end of the tunnel, or at least an exit marker, but this latest move has thrown that into doubt and made the whole situation uncertain all over again. It feels as if we’re all in limbo and the only person who wants to stay there is my BPDw.

[ForeverDad]

The divorce is a done deal, in the perspective that the court is there to be the referee to get it done.  Whether the trial proceeds or is delayed with a hearing is in the realm of the lawyers and the legalese.  But eventually it will be done.

What you need to keep in your focus is the best interests of your child.  The parents are adults and can deal with life outcomes.  Not so the children, so present solutions and approaches that are healthy and overall practical for the children.

Clearly the mother has issues to deal with in her own life, so her parenting will be limited.  That is the issue before the court... how much should it be limited?

It is currently at a supervised level, evidently only video contact.  Do you feel she should have in person visits?  By a facility trained in such visits?

Be aware that court generally has in mind that supervised ought to progress toward a standard increased level.  Could one daytime visit on alternate weekends be feasible, or once a month, or short day visits on a few select annual holidays?  Any overnights?  I don't recall your ex's limitations - or what she does to sabotage her parenting - but often in such situations the pwBPD can't handle long visits.

Whatever level you consider practical and appropriate, beware of the court expanding out a too-optimistic schedule of more and more, expecting her to magically recover to being a normal mom.

It's hard for a court to be willing to remove a mother totally from parenting, even though her capacity as parent is not fully there.

[grootyoda]

Just a quick clarification - she currently has both in person supervised visits at her home as well as several scheduled times for video calls each week.

[livednlearned]

It feels as if we’re all in limbo and the only person who wants to stay there is my BPDw.

This sounds perfectly normal in a completely unwanted way.

Stonewalling and obstructing and getting in your head are how many people with BPD manage the things they can't manage.

Her behaviors led to a bad outcome and the consequences are persistent and impossible for her to reverse. She's made such bad decisions and isn't coping in a healthy way with her condition, and these are the small ways she is trying to right the boat. Her same habit of making impulsive bad decisions are probably present except this time a lawyer is involved making things look more grown up.

That doesn't mean there is a there there. You have to be on your toes of course, but also, expect that every little thing that can be obstructed, will be obstructed. It's part of the legal process and it's an effective bit of leverage for someone who doesn't have much. 

It's so unfortunate. It's expensive. It creates confusion and causes a lot of people a lot of suffering, but if this were a teeter totter, it looks like you're the one holding steady, planted fully on the ground. 

I cannot overstate how anxious I felt during my custody battle. It is a miracle that I was able to function when I look back. You're in the worst stage of this in part because of the uncertainty, but that part will pass.

The social support piece is challenging because your daughter is young and your ex is trying to get into public spaces to stay negatively engaged. This board is a positive step. What other avenues have you explored? Maybe we can be a listening board for you as you think about new things you want to try or old things you want to revisit.

[Stockdoodle]

Simultaneously, I’ve been getting communication from her commenting on the materials we provided during discovery, including insinuations that my L doesn’t know what they’re doing and our case for custody is poor.

Mine does this too. The discovery packet we sent her L was extremely thorough. My L said it was the best response packet he'd ever seen. She still considers the whole thing to be just a formality preceding everything being handed to her. She's convinced my L is actually on her side and that he and her L openly mock me while preparing to screw me over. You know, because she's totally worth being disbarred over.

If she actually had something, she'd probably be keeping it quiet. This sounds like banging on the table.

[ForeverDad]

And yet, despite all this obstinacy, obstruction and entitlement, "when push comes to shove" most of us did end up settling.  Apparently courts are desperate to avoid a full-blown trial and decision.  Anything but.

However, not all settlement opportunities are the same.  There is a vast difference between a settlement in a mediation (we would be the ones who gave up too much too soon) versus a settlement at a major hearing or trial (the ex finally realizes the entitlement and sheer audacity/chutzpah aren't enough).

What is the difference?  Well, for one thing, the better outcome would be "less bad".

How did it work out with me?  My ex was determined to keep the custody and majority parenting time she had in her favorable two year temp order.  The Custody Evaluator, a child psychologist, encouraged equal time in a 2-2-3 schedule for young children.  I wanted majority too but as the solution-oriented parent I was prepared to settle for the Custody Evaluator's position.

I learned afterward from my child's counselor that my ex had been told by her lawyer that she'd lose at trial.  Of course, no one told me!  So when I arrived at court on Trial Day I was greeted with the stunning news she was ready to settle.  So the lawyers wanted me to fall in line too.  But stubborn me, I knew even equal everything would still leave her quite entitled, so I stated one condition or else we would start the trial.  It seemed small, the lawyers both insisted it meant absolutely nothing, but I stated I must be the Residential Parent for School Purposes.  I knew if I didn't do that then she would be assumed to be in charge of school, the primary school contact and if she moved away then I'd have to tag along behind.  (And she did move a few times over the years.)

Well, she begged but finally agreed.  It was a wise move for me.  Within weeks she had caused more disruption at the school (I had asked for him to remain in her school for the last couple months of his kindergarten year) that the school said the board gave me one day to enroll my son in my nearby school district.  Lesson learned... if I hadn't obtained that residential status as priority contact then her school would have had no choice but to suffer silently while dealing with her.

Of course, it didn't keep us out of court.  But the divorce was final and I had a very slight advantage (something like 50.01%) that I built upon over the next years.

[grootyoda]

That’s actually good to know, and it kinda helps me better understand why the other L would keep pushing more hearings then ultimately delaying things when it gets close. I imagine that, if they felt good about getting a decision close to what they’re asking for in a settlement, they wouldn’t be holding things up. On the contrary, they’re probably hoping I get so burnt out and desperate to be done that I accept her unreasonable terms just to get done.

I guess it’s just really hard, at least for me, to fully escape my BPDw’s warped version of reality and accept that mine and everybody else’s realities aren’t equally warped. It’s like I know what she’s saying does not make any real kind of sense, but she is so seemingly confident and certain that I can’t help questioning myself.

[ForeverDad]

Oh, did I forget to mention all the steps I had to go through to get to my Trial Day?  I think this was the sequence...

Despite my ex trying to get "protection" away from me for herself and our preschooler, while she faced a charge of Threat of DV in another court, the CPS rep stood up in court and stated they had "no concerns" about me.  Next was my sincere attempt at the required mediation.  It failed of course but that was no surprise, the mediator could see that "this woman has issues".

Court ordered a parenting investigation but although the court's counselor recommended I get more time than my then-current alternate weekends she had no legal authority to comment on custody issues and so a custody evaluation was recommended.  My lawyer was happy that he was able to get a child psychologist for the task, he said the court had absolute trust in the expert.  (So strange, my lawyer looked me in the eyes and said this could go against me.  It didn't but it showed my lawyer's concern.)  This took 5 months.  Some CE's take longer and write expensive book-sized reports, but my initial report was less than a dozen pages and still spot on.

Next was scheduling a settlement conference two months later which barely lasted a few minutes before my spouse flipped out.  Then another couple months for a trial date, the day I was surprised with a concession for a settlement.

All this took nearly two years.  My stbEx had a very favorable temp order for custody and parenting, so no wonder she stretched it out as long as she could.

[grootyoda]

Wow, I’m sorry to hear it took that much to get to an end result. It makes my situation as sole custodian in the TCO seem a lot more precious than I even realized. Did you find that your Ex was more hung up on custody, financial matters, or was it more convoluted than that?

Based on the most recent offer exchanges we’ve had, it seems like the actual parenting time isn’t all that important so much as just generally disagreeing with me having any kind of “status” advantage - she does not want any designation made whatsoever for school zoning, for example. Other than that, it seems like she is unwilling to settle for any situation where I am not covering her entire cost of living and her attorney fees for her. My L was pretty baffled by the amount of money they seem to think I can pay her.

[ForeverDad]

Did you find that your Ex was more hung up on custody, financial matters, or was it more convoluted than that?

Custody issues are so huge that by comparison the financial issues are just details for the court to resolve.  Many persons with BPD (pwBPD), especially mothers, view their children as extensions of themselves rather than little separate persons.

Your spouse may be unable to do parenting, especially over extended visits, but it may be that even so she still wants to present a public face as a good parent.  Is there any way to do that - allow that public perception for her - yet still have your child under your overall protective care?

Family courts are typically inclined, even obligated, to ensure both parents have relationships with their children.  Their concern is that custody and parenting are structured in such a way that the children, the court's major focus, are harmed the least.  You focus on solutions to both protect and prosper the children.  Can you and your lawyer, along with our extensive collective peer support experience, come up with strategies and solutions that can work and the court (and ex) will eventually accept?

[grootyoda]

I think we’ve done a good job proposing plans that accomplish what you’re talking about. She really cares about “big days”, so we’ve made a lot of compromises when it comes to holidays and birthdays. She wants to be “joint” custodians on paper despite agreeing to me having the majority of the parenting time,  so we agreed to her stipulation that I be designated primary for school zoning only - that we agreed to their language made it all the more confusing when they suddenly did not want any designation made on that front at all. The things we have left to agree on right now on the custody front are things like that, which the court is going to force us to declare anyway.

All in all, I think she’s more concerned with getting what she believes she’s entitled to on the financial front than the custody front. She’s insisted on terms that astronomical when you look at our respective incomes and the relative shortness of our marriage. That’s really where we are stuck.

Thankfully, I agree with you that, once custody is settled, the rest will be resolved by the courts eventually in an equitable fashion I’m hopeful that we can get some real progress on that soon, but who knows what wrenches could get thrown in the meantime.

[ForeverDad]

Be aware that spousal support is a term used during the divorce.  So of course she may prefer a long divorce?  Can you build in some limits there since it's impossible to determine in advance how long a divorce will be?

Alimony ought to be different than spousal support.  It often is based upon the length of marriage and is never more than half the length of the marriage and usually less.  (Be aware that the "length" may also include the time during the divorce.  I was married 15 years when we separated, 16 years when I filed for divorce and 18 years by the time of the final decree.  My alimony calcs used one sixth of 18 years, or 3 years.)

In summary, you need to have limits in the calculations so you don't get surprised when the unexpected happens, which it will.

[grootyoda]

In my understanding of our state laws, as well as my L’s and other experts they’ve talked to, we weren’t actually married long enough for any kind of alimony or spousal support to be awarded.That’s one of the reasons (if not the main reason) the negotiation process has broken down and restarted several times.

We’ve attempted to negotiate on financial matters that are applicable to our situation, and it has seemed on several occasions like we’re close to a reasonable agreement, then they just put an arbitrarily large amount of alimony back in out of nowhere for the same length of the marriage itself. My L is at a loss as to how they could possibly be coming up with a justification for it.

I can’t see any reason this keeps coming up either, besides 1) BPDw is insisting on it and the L can’t manage her expectations, 2) They know we won’t agree on it and it ensures this will keep dragging on, or 3) They think at some point I will get so fed up with the process that I just give up and agree.

[kells76]

While I think I've heard that "technically" you aren't supposed to negotiate custody for $$$... given that she's highly financially motivated, can your L find a legal way to use that to better your parenting position?

Kind of like -- okay, she keeps making these bizarre alimony proposals... can you counter with "we will do alimony of $X per month for Y amount of time, as long as ABC happens in the parenting plan"?

Put the ball back in her court with a counterproposal so she'll either say "well, never mind about alimony" or "sure, I'll bite". Either one would be a win for you. If there is a legal way to do that, it would be very jiu-jitsu.

[livednlearned]

it has seemed on several occasions like we’re close to a reasonable agreement, then they just put an arbitrarily large amount of alimony back in out of nowhere for the same length of the marriage itself. My L is at a loss as to how they could possibly be coming up with a justification for it.

Your L is a rational actor, whereas your ex is not. And your ex's lawyer probably sees no real financial incentive to talk her out of something that generates $$$. Trying the same argument three or four times adds up to billable hours whether the proposals are nuts or not.

Maybe in the next round, instruct your L to say something like, "My client will not respond to any future counter-offers in which alimony is requested." That way you aren't paying for the counsel or responses to nonsense.

Unfortunately, the high-conflict nature of your divorce is not of your choosing. What you have control over are your expectations and how you respond.

It took me four years of being in court on average once a month to realize that giving an inch really did mean giving a mile. I wish I could've given my ex an inch and he would be content and move on, but it never, not once, ever worked out that way. An inch is always a mile and then some when there is disordered behavior.

If you give your ex alimony after she made 3 or 4 attempts, then next time when you say no, she will try 3 or 4 times again, then 5, then 6, then 7, because eventually you can be worn down.

When someone keeps coming at you with the same offer, take a deep breath and say no. Each time.

Wait her out. It's awful that you and your extended family are left in limbo but remember that you have the better temporary custody situation and the longer it continues, the harder it gets to change.

You have far more leverage in the situation than she does, at least from how it appears out here on the Internet. The fact she keeps asking for the same thing suggests she doesn't have much else to work with.

I can’t see any reason this keeps coming up either, besides 1) BPDw is insisting on it and the L can’t manage her expectations, 2) They know we won’t agree on it and it ensures this will keep dragging on, or 3) They think at some point I will get so fed up with the process that I just give up and agree.

Probably all of the above.

[grootyoda]

Update - this week we had a favorable day in court and came out with an agreement on updated visitation - W is getting unsupervised visits, including a few overnights a month and gradually some full weekend visits, but no changes to custodial status. I feel pretty good on that front, I think it’s a more sustainable situation for me and my support system overall and still maximizes the amount of consistency at home I can give our child. We'll have to reach a settlement or go to trial to get a “final” custody agreement, but I’m in good shape on that front by all indications.

The other big news was the court denying any spousal support/alimony - technically they could pursue something at trial, but all indications are that it won’t be given serious consideration and is effectively off the table.

Our communications also now have some official requirements around them that will make it much harder for her to push me throughout the day.

With those matters handled, I feel like the patience and continued boundary setting is starting to pay off. I have some room to breathe and live my life while the rest of this process plays out.

[alterK]

You might want to read "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss. He's an ex-FBI hostage negotiator, and the book starts out with life-and-death stories, but he goes on to less frightening business negotiations. He doesn't mention divorce negotiations, but there is  helpful advice for keeping someone engaged without making them feel threatened.

I'm presently trying to figure out how to negotiate with my BPD soon-to-be-ex, so you have my sympathy. My case will only involve money, so the stakes are much higher for you, with a child involved.