Experience with the German system?

[nehemiah]

This is my first post here in L4.  For a background, please see:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=75856.0

Is there anyone who has experience with the German system?  I, an American, have lived here for most of the last 22 years.  My wife, Polish, of 11 years took our D8 three and one-half months ago to a women's shelter and started a "smear campaign" against me, claiming physical and psychological abuse.  At this time, I have seen my daughter four times, supervised, for 2 hours each time.  For more info, please read the above link.

I should have seen her tomorrow, but she is reported sick, and the visit has been postponed.  This is the second postponed visit, the first was simply canceled, until my lawyer got involved, then they found a new time for it.

I think the next step is to request a "family psychological evaluation".  This is a long process here. 

Is there anyone reading this with experience with the German system?

Nehemiah (not rebuilding Jerusalem, but trying to rebuild my life and rescue my daughter!)

[JerryKew]

Hi nehemiah,

I read your introductory post and am really sorry about the problems you are going through right now. I can only imagine how painful and distressing the whole situation is.

Although I live in a neighboring country (France), I am not familiar with the German system. I would however encourage you to contact your local group of American expats. If you live in a big city there should be one near you. Chances are you'll meet people who are either lawyers or have a good background in law, or perhaps even people who have had to deal with the German court system.

I think there was another poster here whose daughters were taken to their mother's homeland, Germany, a few years ago. He posted about his situation a while ago but I can't remember who it was (maybe one of the moderators or posters will remember?).

I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help to you, but I thought a few words of support might help anyway.

Hang in there,

JerryKew

[Oy-vey!]

From what I understand, the German system is quite objective in comparison to the U.S.  A friend of mine (U.S. citizen) was married to a German national.  3 children born in the U.S. then moved back to Germany.  He filed for divorce, moved back to the U.S. leaving the xW and 3 children in Germany.  he now has full custody of the 2 older girls and the 3rd may join soon.  xW is BPD.

I'll see if I can get him or his wife to post here for support and/or information.

[Sieglinde]

I am the wife... .my husband was married to a BPD German woman for 20 years.  She's undiagnosed, because, as we know, everyone else has the problem.   He's American.  The kids were born here.  Last summer we won custody of the older two girls, who are now 16 and 15.  The 11 year old is still with her mother.  The court basically granted the wishes of the children.  As far as the law, once a child reaches the age of 14, their wishes are supposed to be the basis of any decision.  D11 said she wanted to stay with her mother.  Court ruled she wasn't ready to leave.  Older two couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Your child is only eight.  Your wife sounds like she may be slightly less functional than my husband's ex.  If your lawyer is good, you may be able to use the court system to help you.  Last summer husband's ex had a major meltdown in the courtroom, and was so insubordinate to the judge that her lawyer (number 4, I believe.  She is now on number 5.  Or is that 6? ) said, "You can't dictate to the judge what his calendar is going to be!" 

Be very very very patient.  That is the best advice I can give.  You will not be able to negotiate anything with your wife, and from what you are saying she does sound quite off.  Do what you have to do to remain a participant in your daughter's life.  The fact that you were so active previously should play out well for you.  Not necessarily in the court, but down the road when she thinks back to who was there for her for support and love.  Keep your emotions out of it and don't play the victim. 

I'll send this link to my husband. 

[Dogbert]

Hi Nehemiah,

I'm Sieglinde's husband.  I went through a custody hearing in Germany last summer, and my experience was positive.  I described the custody hearing here:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=60915.msg575128#msg575128

Is CPS (Jugendamt) involved?  How is the case worker?  The CPS representative in my case was the strongest advocate for the children and recognized the mother's "issues" almost immediately.  My impression was she knew well how to ferret out the truth, and false abuse allegations are pretty common in their line of work.  It became clear at the hearing that the judge based almost his entire decision on the CPS woman's assessment and her interview of the children.  (It also didn't hurt that the ex thought CPS was biased, hurled insults at the case worker, tried to have her replaced and refused to show up at scheduled appointments).  My impression was that everyone involved was very familiar with her kind of "condition".

Your wife's actions in cutting off contact with your daughter (as my ex did) and making false accusations are common, and the institutions know that.  After my hearing, the guardian-ad-litem turned to me and said it was unusual in her experience to have the father go to such lengths to maintain contact with his children in the face of a recalcitrant wife.  Most fathers, she said, eventually give up. If you persist, you'll prevail, and probably sooner than you expect.

FWIW, when I was going through all this, it seemed to me that the "system" was going to drag on forever and produce a result unsatisfactory to everyone.  Thankfully, I was wrong.

Where in Germany are you?  Feel free to pm me.  Good luck!

Dogbert

[nehemiah]

Thank you all!  Especially your message, Dogbert, is very encouraging.

Some days, I just feel so much anger at the injustice being done to my daughter at this time.  And their objectivity can be tormenting, due to its slowness.  But all of my friends attest to my patience with "you are the most patient person I know".  So, there are some advantages to spending 11 years with a BP!  I see the counselor/psychologist tomorrow (every two weeks, I alternate with my wife). I do get some encouraging messages from her, but she is also very "objective", so no indication at all of what she is thinking.  The CPS (Jugendamt) has not been very involved, passing it all off to this counselor/psychologist/mediator.  The CPS (JA) person had one discussion with my wife, one with my daughter and one with me, then made her recommendation to the court, which was based primarily on my D8's statement: "I want to live with mommy and see daddy very, very often".  That was during a school break, and I don't think at the time that she had any idea of what that meant (changing schools, not seeing friends anymore, being cut off from all activities, church, brothers, etc.).  Now she is displaying the effects of "fear of disappointing her mother" and being faced for the first time in her life that "daddy is powerless to rescue me".

I have told the psychologist that I would be patient until the middle of June before going back to court to try to get time with my daughter.  So the meeting tomorrow will be very interesting.  I will have a long discussion with my lawyer, and based on what the psychologist says tomorrow, I think the next step is to request a "family psychological evaluatation" and to insist on the court allowing (forcing) at-home visitation.  Currently, based on the CPS (JA) my wife has temporary custody to the end of the year, then it will be reevaluated.  I have no problem with my wife having the D8 half of the time, but not more than that.  My wife tells everyone that she wants D8 to see her father (me) as much as possible, but the supervised visit, 2 hours, every two weeks is the very minimum that the court would tolerate without getting involved without action on my part. And yesterday the visit didn't happen, because D8 is "sick".

So far, I think I am reacting very "normally" with a mix of anger, hurt, and self-control.  I do see that affecting the psychologist and my new lawyer, as far as I can tell, in very positive ways. I am in Munich, and the "system" here is developing something called the "Münchner Model", a program to help a family, when the parents divorce, to take care of the kids.  By "luck" I landed at a lawyer who is part of the founding team and the psychologist is also part of the founding team.  Being somewhat non-objective (let's just say very subjective), my little interaction with my wife's lawyer has led me to believe that she also demonstrates some of the characteristics of being a BP.  By living in the women's shelter (3.5 months, so far) my wife can continue to let someone else take ultimate responsibility for her life and whatever happens to her. 

I will be back later with more info.  Thanks again for your help and encouragement!

Nehemiah

[nehemiah]

Dogbert,

I just read your whole story behind the link you sent above.  Congratulations and God bless!  This does give me some hope.  You are so right about the situation here, there is virtually zero interest in "she said/he said".  The past will not be looked at (much) because it is too difficult to sort out.  So it is more a game of watch and see.  I also get the feeling that I am being somewhat provoked by the psychologist to see how I react.  But, with Wife being in the women's shelter (Frauenhaus), the accusations, etc., I get NO information about what is going on. Everything with the psychologist is under "patient confidentiality" (Schweigepflicht). Wife is seeing a psychiatriist, but I am not privy to any of that, and of course, under the circumstances, family members are not being asked about "history".

My CPS (JA) person didn't impress me with the feeling and depth of understanding as what you have described above.  But as I said, the whole case, from the point of view of the CPS has been referred to the psychologist/mediator.  And the judge has not yet seen any of the data to indicated BPD. We have only been in front of the judge once, just to see with whom D8 would live to start with.

The only accusation that is now standing, as far as I know, is that I was going to kidnap my D8 and flee to the States.  I don't know how that could take place, but that is her fear. Wife has apparently also transferred this fear to D8, according to the psychologist.  Originally I was accused of physical violence, psychological terror, of being unstable jobwise (I am self-employed for the last 19 years and, with the exception of 4 months in California in 2003, have always worked, absolutely unbroken.  The time off in California (we lived there one year) was by personal choice, just to relax for a while), and of being a member of a church sect (my church is one of the oldest, established and recognized free churches in Germany - the "freie evangelical Gemeinde" - more or less the same a the Evangelical Free Church in America).

Why do I suspect BPD, in the absence of diagnosis:

She scratches her face and forearm until it bleeds.

She attempted suicide (swallowed *all* medicines we had) shortly after our wedding.

She threatens suicide about once a year.

She sees me as all good, or all bad.  Since our separation became clear, she started the smear campaign.

Our apartment must always be perfectly clean, no shoes, and D8 and I are seriously verbally attacked if we make something dirty.

She often puts words in my mouth or thoughts in my head, saying that I am thinking or said something which I didn't.

She is often sick, and seems to "wallow" in it.  About five years ago one of our doctors told me that, when she is sick, there seems to be no motivation to get better.  I now think he was telling

me then that I should try to get help.

She argues endlessly with her mother when we go visit in Poland.  I cannot understand much Polish, so don't know what is going on.  But she "must" do everything her mother tells her to do, or there will be a big fight.

She throws things and breaks things in a big way.  When she fully understood that we were going to really split up, she cut all the plants out of the back yard, screaming "If I cannot have these plants, then no one will have them!"  (Anyone remember "Mommie Dearest"?)

She blames me for everything that goes wrong, claims to not have any problems with D8.  But they went on a vacation to the coast last summer, I wasn't there, and they fought, and she threw and broke D8's hairbrush.  I found out later at swimming, when I asked "How did your brush get broken?"

Her father is dying, and she doesn't want to go see him before he dies!

She especially tried to pick our fights when D8 was present, and would not postpone any discussion until D8 was out of earshot.

She found a job in the fall, but lost it before she started, arguing with the manager about what to do about child care. (It was at a child care center, they don't take kids of employees, and my wife almost got them to make an exception.)  My daughter came in saying to me "Mommie is not quarrelsome" - she had the discussion in which she lost the job, picked up D8 from school and came home for lunch.  Those were the first words D8 said to me as she came in.

My first lawyer does not primarily do family law - I am afraid I lost much ground with him.  He said, just don't worry about anything, in a few weeks she'll get tired of having the kid around all the time and be happy to let me take her.  That was 3.5 months ago. He tried to have me avoid having to pay any support - "let the court wring it out of me."  I decided that he just didn't have any understanding of the situation and changed lawyers.  My new lawyer agreed with me that I should make support payments and get that settled as quickly as possible, to take the pressure off of my wife in this regard, then we would start working on the visitation issue.  That is now to take place.

BTW, my wife "has no money", according to her statements to the court.  D8 has shown up to each of the four visits in new clothes and told me about two new Nintendo games (€45 each here).  I am, however, not allowed to bring any presents to D8 at all. (This is Wife's rule, and if I violate it, "then I will not get to see my daughter at all".)  So far there is no court ruling regarding visitation at all, everything is being attempted to be worked out through the "Münchner Model".  But, the Münchner Model does not consider BPD.

Dogbert - I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel, but I believe that if I am patient and careful, that it could all turn around.  My S24 came back from USA last year after graduating from

college, is getting married in August (D8 was supposed to be a flower girl for them in Oregon, I doubt that that will happen) and then they will most likely be living with me.  D8 loves S24 and S26 (he lives in Prague) very much, and also S24's fiance.  With them living here (it is a big apartment), then there are also no valid arguments for D8 not to live here, Fiance would be there after school. Wife must start looking for a job under new German law - German law effective January 1, 2008 says that each divorced spouse takes care of him/herself.  Support is no longer lifelong, only for a VERY short period until the "stay-at-home Mom" can get reestablished in the working world, more or less a maximum of three years.

So patience, stability, mental health is the name of the game.  But it is slow here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post! 

Nehemiah is the one who rebuilt Jerusalem after the exile in Babylon.  He was a very humble man.

Patient and consequent!  I hope that I can be like him.

[Dogbert]

Hi Nehemiah,

Lots of memories triggered by your post.

The main point is not to get discouraged.  Things looked very bleak to me, especially when, before the hearing, I went to see the guardian-ad-litem and she seemed to be insisting I should leave well enough alone and content myself with one phone call a week.  I sputtered, "But they are my children, too, and *they* want more contact than one phone call a week!"  After that conversation, I was devastated and thought the situation was hopeless.  Sieglinde, otoh, thought it sounded like she was just testing me, and it turned out that was exactly what she was doing.  At the hearing, the guardian basically confirmed that (and made oblique references to ex's intemperate outbursts).

What's probably (hopefully) going on is that the institutions are trying to arrive at their own assessment, and no amount of journaling and historical rendition is going to help.  It was clear that they don't give a rat's ass about what's "fair" to the parents (50-50 physical custody is an example, they rarely do that).

Munich is nice.  My mom used to attend services of an evangelical group on Paulstrasse when she visited Munich.  Is that the same one?

Stay positive.

I need to go but will post more later.  Take care.

Dogbert

[nehemiah]

Dogbert,

I just had my biweekly meeting with the psychologist.  ndBPw didn't show up to her meeting last week, "because the daughter is sick".  The same reason that I didn't get to see D8 at the supervised visit on Saturday.  D8 apparently had a fever of over 102 deg.  Supposed to go to the doctor today.

Psychologist is unhappy, she is of the opinion that the current situation cannot go on.

She is trying to reach ndBPw today.  She agrees with me that it is time to start the process of a Family Psychological Evaluation with my lawyer.  She also warned strongly against being too aggressive, that could well backfire.  I am already quite clear on that.  The only thing that is really important is D8, not my feelings or that I miss her or "my rights".  I think I already understood that well.  I am beginning to slowly have hope that 1) persistence will win, and 2) if I am right about ndBPw being BPD, then it will slowly show itself to everyone concerned.  The Psychologist said it is not unusual for a woman to be in the women's shelter for 1.5 years.

I helped found and go to the FeG in Ottobrunn, so no, not the same one as in the Paulsstr.  I do love Munich - it is a great city, a little wet and cold for a Californian, but quite tolerable.

I really appreciate your help and tips - I am glad that the book "Stop walking on Eggshells" led me here.

Nehemiah

[Dogbert]

Nehemiah,

Small world.  The ex is from Perlach.  I met her when I was stationed in Munich in the late 70s.

It sounds like you're on the right track, and that the psychologist will come around, if she hasn't already.

The biggest worry for me at the time was that the institutions wouldn't recognize just how awful ex was and believe her lies about me.  I, too, started out with a restraining order preventing me from kidnapping the kids and shlepping them back to (their native) US against their will - something I never would have done.   When you're in that position, it can look like an endless uphill battle, but it can also be just one more indication for the court that someone is delusional.  The best way forward is to be entirely truthful and stay calm and rational.  I think you are right that your stbx will blow a gasket soon enough; she sounds a tad worse than mine. 

If you haven't read "The Borderline Mother" by Christine Lawson, I would highly recommend it. The reviews on Amazon give a good overview.

Good luck!

Dogbert

[indigosun]

I have same going on with my self. BPD diagnosed mother. Could someone PM me please I need to talk. I fear the mother is watching everything I do online.

Help needed please. 

[indigosun]

I soon also deal with jugendamt.