Second time posting

[NotHereButHere]

Hello again,

   I posted here almost a month ago, I was in a pretty low place filled with confusion, guilt, regret, and all of these other feelings that I am pretty sure I have been to distracted to feel for so long. I was searching for some kind of hope or magical piece of advice that might make things work out. But the truth is that piece of advice just doesn’t exist and things don’t get better without time and consistency.

   I still have not gone back to see my exPWBPD. But it is inevitable that I will have to deal with her since we have kids together. My kids are very upfront with being happy to be away from her but how much of that is really notable with them still being so young (9YO daughter and 6YO son).

   She can pull me back in with great efficiency and I have always caved, but this time does seem different. Things were bad, unmanageable and I could not get anything done other than argue which was not productive. After she choked me in front of my son the thought of going back is sickening. Anytime she calls both kids yell “Don’t Answer!!!” and I haven’t talked to her other than a few texts in over a month. I have tried to keep it that way because I can carefully think out my responses and it has to follow taking turns talking which doesn’t happen in a phone call.

   I have been able to accomplish alot in the past month that I never would have been able to do if I was still involved with her. It's hard to not fantisize about working things out but that is all it really is, it's a fantacy and what I felt was never the reality. Ioss something that didn't exist and I know to trust my experiences along with my family.

   She has been trying to convince me to let her take the kids alone for a weekend that is a really unsettling thought. She can switch from being the most fun and loving person I've ever known to being the most ruthless and emotionally damaging person so quickly that I am not comfortable with that. We have been going through court for a custody agreement and a divorce talked onto that case as well but it is not finalized yet. Our last agreement was for her to have supervised visits and if I did let her take the kids alone that would show the court that I trust her enough to be alone with the kids. So that just can't happen until I actually do trust her enough.

   I have been paying for her therapy even though we are not together anymore. I really hope it does help but I also know how she can be and I really think she will manipulate the therapist and not be honest or work on the real problems.

   She wants to watch the new Avatar: Last airbenderovie this weekend as a family and that does sound great, bit I am really worried of any manipulation, subtle guilt tripping, or not so subtle events that might happen.

   Thanks to anyone who reads this and everyone who responded toy fist post

[ForeverDad]

You may never be able to truly trust her.  It is what it is.

It is good she has therapy sessions, however is she applying those skills and perspective in her feeling, thoughts and life behaviors?  That is why just having sessions isn't much in itself, what counts is whether it is meaningful therapy that is diligently applied in her life over years.

Likely your court will not be inclined to keep long term restrictions on the ex unless there is documented substantive abuse.  So be aware of that legal perspective... where court assumes at least some parenting at some level is a goal.

Understand that court is inclined to gradually loosen restrictions when certain progress is measured.  What court typically falls short in handling is what happens when there are relapses in behavior.  To be honest, some relapses are to be expected.  With such one-sided orders you're stuck with going back to court - typically months down the road - to get restrictions resumed.  You would do better if you end up with an order that not only adjusts for improvements, but also reverses back to prior limitations to address when there are (predictable) relapses.

There could be an order which sets goals of gradual increments of parenting.  She shouldn't jump immediate to a normal parenting schedule.  Perhaps start with supervised.  Then maybe short visits.  Then maybe longer day visits, still not entire weekends.  Then if consistent progress is noted then maybe an overnight.  And so on.

Some here have concluded short visits are best when the ex simply cannot handle longer visits without becoming stressed or worse.

[NotHereButHere]

Getting a set place of limitation to return to might be a good plan in I can pull that off in court. She does have supervised visits at a visiting center. That was set up over a year ago but we tried to reconcile and I started going to her house with the kids instead of the visiting center.

 The abuse has been noted, some of it was documented but not very well. She has really hurt the kids when we lived with her, gosh it's been 3 years since we lived with her and that is half ofy son's life. She was a stay at home mom and I worked full time so it was really difficult to nail down specific things. But I have included a long list of abuse in my original affidavid a couple years ago.

We were supposed to return to court for another mediation if she showed up for all of her supervised visits for a year. That was the court order. Things were great when we first started visiting over weekends, but they progressively got worse. My daughter never wanted to go so I would let her stay with her grandparents when we visited about half of the times I went. My son never wants me to go anywhere without him so he wpulditterly follow me to hell and back. Bit he doesn't like going either. Over the past couple months we haven't gone over there he hasn't asked about his mom, just the stuffed taco plushy he left there. And that is heart breaking. Neither of these kids miss being around her and she can be really fun and charming, until she's not. I am having a hard time not drifting back into wanting to fix things.

The most recent event was in front of my son but she didn't hurt him, she hurt me so the court wouldn't really look at that. Also short visits like you mentioned sounds like a really good long term goal too. She can't really handle more that a few hours and she has admitted that, but that would be hard to see on paper.

I'm not the perfect dad or husband either, I've made mistakes but I strive to grow and learn from those mistakes and move forward with life. No one knew how bad things were until I took a videos of her rages. Because there are kids inboled I felt I had to take action, otherwise I would probably still be there just dealing with it. I know my kids deserve better without a doubt, so I'm struggling with accepting that I also deserve better.

[ForeverDad]

I didn't realize how long she's been limited to supervised arrangements, I had imagined it was only set up recently.  I've refreshed by reading your prior posts.  It would be wise to continue to limit parenting contact with her.  (And your contact with her as well.)

It would probably be best to continue with the supervised structure.  Don't undo or ignore the past history.

It seems that relaxing the arrangement so that you're the supervisor isn't working.  Probably best to going back to letting emotionally neutral experts handle it.