Question:
Hiya Tim! You’ve got a good head on your shoulders (try to keep it there!) Thoughtful response – just some comments – (thinking I would get cooperation was a pipe dream)
Well, not necessarily a "pipe dream", but you tried it, and it doesn’t seem to be working. So, try something else. so minimizing dependence is a logical way to go. For example, I’ve even gone so far as to buy at least double the amount of clothes they need so that I can have decent things for them at my house and not rely on their mother to send anything back.
I think this is a "no brainer", the packing thing gets to be old in a hurry. And why should kids feel they have to "pack" to go *to* a parent’s house? Seems silly. Also, as your use of "fruitcake" implies, keeping a sense of humor is important.
What do you mean? I will also push for solutions in arbitration — for example I might be able to get the arbitrator to decide that the girls should be in music lessons and that I would take them to music lessons regardless of which parent’s time the lessons fall on.
This is a hard one – you can try to schedule all the activities on your days, and take care of transportation when things need to be done on "not your days" – just call or pick the kid up and take care of what has to be done – but I can assure you that you will be taking on a *lot* of responsibility, and you will be trying to cram all of the parenting responsibity into half the time. If you can do this for more than a year, I would be amazed – it is exhausting. Doesn’t seem fair – all work and no play for Tim. But, parenting is like that. Thanks again, especially for the "you ‘can’ get there."
It’s what they tell me! Best – Fido
Response:
Tim, I am an attorney in Indiana who practices in family law. While I can’t represent you, please feel free to email me if you want to bounce some 
I am assuming you are in Tippecanoe County if you are at Purdue. Denise — Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. -Shakespeare- – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi Barb, Thanks for the book idea and it is nice to know there are other procrastinator’s out there. While married I always felt like I was walking on eggshells. My instant reaction is that I’m done with that. My instant reactions are often dead wrong though. Perhaps that approach might actually have a chance of working now, especially if contact is minimized. Cheers, Tim Tim, I’m not a psychologist, and so I’m not qualified to comment on your ex’s behavior. There’s a book called "Walking on Eggshells" which was recommended to me in dealing with my own "ex" situation. Procrastinator that I am, I’ve never read it, but it might be worth your checking out. There are others here with far more experience than I in managing the kind of post-divorce issues you’re experiencing. All I can do is offer my sincere sympathy — and welcome to ASD. Barb Hello to anyone kind enough to read my message, I am divorced (six months past the final decree) and have been struggling to co-parent with the ex-wife. I have joint physical custody of two daughters (rising to 2nd and 3rd grade) — we are each supposed to have them about 50% of the time. I love my daughters dearly, and will not do anything to hurt them (thus giving the ex-wife power). As I move on with life, I need to figure out out to cope better with a hostile, self-centered, lying co-parent. My friends think she suffers from emotional problems, and the MMPI in the custody evaluation points that direction ("severe emotional difficulties"). I am currently of the view that it is more probable than not, that she is just a person low character — I do go back and forth on what the problem is though, as there is clear evidence of emotional difficulties. She had severe fibromyalgia for the 10 years we were married (it "disappeared" during the long divorce process when she wanted full custody and falsely claimed to be a "stay at home mom") and she has recently been treated for breast cancer (a difficult one to face for her, but it was caught very early with a 90% expectation of survival). Of course, she blames me for everything, including her illnesses. The hostility has been difficult with her calling the sheriff, interfering with my parenting time, frequently disparaging me to the children, she made a misleading/deceptive report to child protective services, has made MANY threats to call police if I don’t do exactly what she wants, she puts the girls in the middle every time she can so that she can get her way, she constantly calls people (parents of the girls’ friends, people at school, people in Girl Scouts, people at church) to spew her attacks on my character, and it just goes on and on. There is something new (and egregious) about every week. She harassed people in Girl Scouts (over my participation in activities) to the point they threatened to kick my daughters out if she didn’t stop. She had few friends to start with, but now has a growing number of people who observe what is going on and care about the children, polarized against her. (This too does no one any good.) Co-parenting requires cooperation and many decisions. Reasonable decision-making requires trust, honesty, give and take, and basically negotiation in good faith. I need help on how to cope with the difficulty of making decisions with a hostile liar. Every little thing (not to mention big things) results in wasted time, high emotion, many phone calls, e-mail, and often she calls my friends too. For example, a ’situation’ occurred yesterday over a trivial matter — she called and I said that I wouldn’t make an extra trip home from work to set out the girls boots for her and asked her to stop calling me at work so much — she responded "eat shit." Today she e-mails me saying she didn’t swear at me, blamed me for her saying (what she didn’t say), claimed that is the FIRST time she has ever sworn at anyone (incredible lie) and attacked me with her lies/delusions about the past. It is not easy to respond calmly and rationally, however, there is really no other sensible way. It takes a lot out of me and takes time, perhaps an hour for me to settle completely back into being productive. (Or it takes longer if I search out a newsgroup, read a lot of the posts, and type a long post.) This type of thing seems daily in occurrence. The divorce decree ordered monthly binding arbitration to assist with decisions. She resists scheduling (has many excuses and pushes it off to well under once a month) and has refused to the best of her ability to follow two of the arbitrator’s rulings. Arbitration is grueling — for example, it took 1 hour and 45 minutes to determine what weekend I would get in exchange for her traveling with the children this coming Father’s day weekend. The long run solution is to change custody but I don’t think that will happen soon (and it is only a partial solution — there would still be many difficulties). Warning — venting ahead. My frustrations have me saying that lawyers are useless and the courts are worse than useless. It also seems like custody is terribly biased toward mothers, and it seems like mothers can do about anything and get a pass — especially if they have been ill. If I had denied my daughter psychological care, in spite of a ruling in binding arbitration, in spite of chest pains (and pediatrician recommendation of counseling), and the daughter ended up in the emergency room shaking and heart racing from anxiety — I would be in jail for child neglect — the mother on the other hand gets an automatic "pass." I am wondering how others cope in similar situations. I suspect that this is not terribly uncommon. Perhaps another newsgroup is more appropriate… Thank you for any ideas, Tim
Response:
hiya Tim! 
Also, as your use of "fruitcake" implies, keeping a sense of humor is important. What do you mean? I don’t mean anything deep — just that the "this broad is a fruitcake" comment was a humorous approach — and it is easy to lose the sense of humor when you life is turned upside down.
Humorous? Who was being humorous? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I will also push for solutions in arbitration — for example I might be able to get the arbitrator to decide that the girls should be in music lessons and that I would take them to music lessons regardless of which parent’s time the lessons fall on. This is a hard one – you can try to schedule all the activities on your days, and take care of transportation when things need to be done on "not your days" – just call or pick the kid up and take care of what has to be done – but I can assure you that you will be taking on a *lot* of responsibility, and you will be trying to cram all of the parenting responsibity into half the time. If you can do this for more than a year, I would be amazed – it is exhausting. Doesn’t seem fair – all work and no play for Tim. But, parenting is like that. Your comment sounds like it is from someone who has experience at this. How does one get decisions on what activities the kids will be involved in when they are parented out of two houses? My approach isn’t working. I thought you would decide what is in the best interest of the kids (including what their preferences are) without regard to which parent’s days the activities fall on. Then address parental responsibility second. I hear of kids who are on sports teams part time, only on one parent’s time. That kind of thing just drives a stake through my heart.
You’ll suffer silently and die a thousand deaths. Ummm.. two daughters? You’ll die 2 thousand deaths. Just you wait, Enry Iggins, jus you woigt. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – One issue that has not been settled is church and Sunday School. I would like to see my daughters attend only one church and attend Sunday School. If they are divided between two churches, with inevitable travel, illness, and the like it seems unlikely they would have any continuity or real connection with either church. I don’t understand how it could ever work for them to be in a choir, or participate in anything. However, all my ex-wife wants to say is that she, "doesn’t want to see me there," "it turns my stomach to see you there," "people at church know what you are doing to me," "everyone at church knows what a hypocrite you are," and my favorite paranoid response, "you are trying to isolate me like all abusers do." I find this crap annoying because she wouldn’t need to "see" me there — for example, the kids could always go with the parent they are with to Sunday School and the second service, and the other parent could go to the early service. If we just ignore her emotional response, it is still an issue of how to handle this. What do other people do?
Co-parenting requires co-operation. (Imagine Jesse Jackson saying it…) My kids’ mom and I have a terrible relationship, but we do manage to pay attention to the kids’ needs – one example is doctors and orthodontist appointments – the kids’ mom will schedule those during my "time" and I take care of it. School functions, plays, etc, you just work into your schedule – as any involved parent would do. Suppose, though, you think piano lessons are important and she doesn’t? She just ain’t gonna drop everything and take the kid to the lesson because it is what *you* want. So, you need to work around those things. That, unfortunately, caused a lot of activities to be dropped for my kids, and it is frustrating, but consistancy in attendance is important for those, and if one parent is not going to co-operate, you can’t make them. Some things, if *you* want to avail the kids of those things you will have to take all the responsibility for. I think you have a case where things arbitrated she would be bound to, but, if so, you will have to look to *enforce* those things. Unfortunately, like you, the court can not *make* her do those things – (but can, like the Sergant Major make her *wish* she done it). Parenting sometimes seems like a lot of time and a lot of effort — but I am convinced that parenting has even more pay back than it has work if you pay attention. I am older than most parents with children ages 7 and 8, so I’m not as anxious as parents in their 20’s and 30’s to do my own thing. For many years it was just about me and my spouse, now it is time for my daughters. They will grow up all too soon, this intense effort (scheduling, driving, and the like) won’t last forever.
Just ten years to go! I have gotten the "what are you doing for yourself" from lots of people, including my counselor. However, it seems that the more I give to my children and related activities, the more I get back. I don’t know what the next direction of change will be, but right now it seems that having a lot of friends and doing what I believe is the right thing is what I need to do for ‘me.’
Becasue if *you* don’t take care of *yourself* then no one else will. And burnout might be a potential problem. Best – Fido – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Thanks for any advice, Tim
Response:
Hi Julio, Thank you for your comments — they are all insightful. It is my observation of your number 4 that motivated my post. I can do number 1 easily if communication is in writing, and I am not doing badly in person or on the phone (but I fall into number 4 after). I spent the marriage years and the year of the divorce process viewing her as ill, lately I’m seeing a lot of evidence to the contrary, but we will see where that goes. Your angle of spiritual "illness" is one to ponder. This leads to your third point. The truth is — that was my failing in the marriage. I couldn’t get over the expectation that I married an adult age person who expected the respect given to an equal, but who acted with the emotional maturity of a child. Some of these things are coming full circle. It just might be that, although I couldn’t get there (approaching her as a needy child) in the marriage, I just might have much better luck with it in divorce. Now that we are divorced there is no need to treat an unequal as an equal. I have great patience with children and truly love my daughters’ friends and classmates — and they are not always angles. Approaching her as a child might have potential and that is really something to ponder. Thank you, Tim – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – As I move on with life, I need to figure out out to cope better with a hostile, self-centered, lying co-parent. My friends think she suffers from emotional problems, and the MMPI in the custody evaluation points that direction ("severe emotional difficulties"). I am currently of the view that it is more probable than not, that she is just a person low character 1. Always take the high road. Don’t get sucked into it. Life’s too short. 2. Perceive her as ill – emotionally, spiritually. 3. Try to approach her as a needy child – lovingly if possible but always firm and adult. 4. Try not to let her take up too much space in your head. Think about how often she abuses you in your own head when she isn’t around and endeavor to not waste that energy.
Response:
I would suggest you at least TALK to an attorney to see where you are from a legla standpoint. That will help you at least consider some options. Not saying you have t do anything legally right now but I think you should sit down with an attorney and see if he/she can offer you other options. Denise — Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. -Shakespeare- – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hello to anyone kind enough to read my message, I am divorced (six months past the final decree) and have been struggling to co-parent with the ex-wife. I have joint physical custody of two daughters (rising to 2nd and 3rd grade) — we are each supposed to have them about 50% of the time. I love my daughters dearly, and will not do anything to hurt them (thus giving the ex-wife power). As I move on with life, I need to figure out out to cope better with a hostile, self-centered, lying co-parent. My friends think she suffers from emotional problems, and the MMPI in the custody evaluation points that direction ("severe emotional difficulties"). I am currently of the view that it is more probable than not, that she is just a person low character — I do go back and forth on what the problem is though, as there is clear evidence of emotional difficulties. She had severe fibromyalgia for the 10 years we were married (it "disappeared" during the long divorce process when she wanted full custody and falsely claimed to be a "stay at home mom") and she has recently been treated for breast cancer (a difficult one to face for her, but it was caught very early with a 90% expectation of survival). Of course, she blames me for everything, including her illnesses. The hostility has been difficult with her calling the sheriff, interfering with my parenting time, frequently disparaging me to the children, she made a misleading/deceptive report to child protective services, has made MANY threats to call police if I don’t do exactly what she wants, she puts the girls in the middle every time she can so that she can get her way, she constantly calls people (parents of the girls’ friends, people at school, people in Girl Scouts, people at church) to spew her attacks on my character, and it just goes on and on. There is something new (and egregious) about every week. She harassed people in Girl Scouts (over my participation in activities) to the point they threatened to kick my daughters out if she didn’t stop. She had few friends to start with, but now has a growing number of people who observe what is going on and care about the children, polarized against her. (This too does no one any good.) Co-parenting requires cooperation and many decisions. Reasonable decision-making requires trust, honesty, give and take, and basically negotiation in good faith. I need help on how to cope with the difficulty of making decisions with a hostile liar. Every little thing (not to mention big things) results in wasted time, high emotion, many phone calls, e-mail, and often she calls my friends too. For example, a ’situation’ occurred yesterday over a trivial matter — she called and I said that I wouldn’t make an extra trip home from work to set out the girls boots for her and asked her to stop calling me at work so much — she responded "eat shit." Today she e-mails me saying she didn’t swear at me, blamed me for her saying (what she didn’t say), claimed that is the FIRST time she has ever sworn at anyone (incredible lie) and attacked me with her lies/delusions about the past. It is not easy to respond calmly and rationally, however, there is really no other sensible way. It takes a lot out of me and takes time, perhaps an hour for me to settle completely back into being productive. (Or it takes longer if I search out a newsgroup, read a lot of the posts, and type a long post.) This type of thing seems daily in occurrence. The divorce decree ordered monthly binding arbitration to assist with decisions. She resists scheduling (has many excuses and pushes it off to well under once a month) and has refused to the best of her ability to follow two of the arbitrator’s rulings. Arbitration is grueling — for example, it took 1 hour and 45 minutes to determine what weekend I would get in exchange for her traveling with the children this coming Father’s day weekend. The long run solution is to change custody but I don’t think that will happen soon (and it is only a partial solution — there would still be many difficulties). Warning — venting ahead. My frustrations have me saying that lawyers are useless and the courts are worse than useless. It also seems like custody is terribly biased toward mothers, and it seems like mothers can do about anything and get a pass — especially if they have been ill. If I had denied my daughter psychological care, in spite of a ruling in binding arbitration, in spite of chest pains (and pediatrician recommendation of counseling), and the daughter ended up in the emergency room shaking and heart racing from anxiety — I would be in jail for child neglect — the mother on the other hand gets an automatic "pass." I am wondering how others cope in similar situations. I suspect that this is not terribly uncommon. Perhaps another newsgroup is more appropriate… Thank you for any ideas, Tim
Response:
Hi Barb, Thanks for the book idea and it is nice to know there are other procrastinator’s out there. While married I always felt like I was walking on eggshells. My instant reaction is that I’m done with that. My instant reactions are often dead wrong though. Perhaps that approach might actually have a chance of working now, especially if contact is minimized. Cheers, Tim – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Tim, I’m not a psychologist, and so I’m not qualified to comment on your ex’s behavior. There’s a book called "Walking on Eggshells" which was recommended to me in dealing with my own "ex" situation. Procrastinator that I am, I’ve never read it, but it might be worth your checking out. There are others here with far more experience than I in managing the kind of post-divorce issues you’re experiencing. All I can do is offer my sincere sympathy — and welcome to ASD. Barb Hello to anyone kind enough to read my message, I am divorced (six months past the final decree) and have been struggling to co-parent with the ex-wife. I have joint physical custody of two daughters (rising to 2nd and 3rd grade) — we are each supposed to have them about 50% of the time. I love my daughters dearly, and will not do anything to hurt them (thus giving the ex-wife power). As I move on with life, I need to figure out out to cope better with a hostile, self-centered, lying co-parent. My friends think she suffers from emotional problems, and the MMPI in the custody evaluation points that direction ("severe emotional difficulties"). I am currently of the view that it is more probable than not, that she is just a person low character — I do go back and forth on what the problem is though, as there is clear evidence of emotional difficulties. She had severe fibromyalgia for the 10 years we were married (it "disappeared" during the long divorce process when she wanted full custody and falsely claimed to be a "stay at home mom") and she has recently been treated for breast cancer (a difficult one to face for her, but it was caught very early with a 90% expectation of survival). Of course, she blames me for everything, including her illnesses. The hostility has been difficult with her calling the sheriff, interfering with my parenting time, frequently disparaging me to the children, she made a misleading/deceptive report to child protective services, has made MANY threats to call police if I don’t do exactly what she wants, she puts the girls in the middle every time she can so that she can get her way, she constantly calls people (parents of the girls’ friends, people at school, people in Girl Scouts, people at church) to spew her attacks on my character, and it just goes on and on. There is something new (and egregious) about every week. She harassed people in Girl Scouts (over my participation in activities) to the point they threatened to kick my daughters out if she didn’t stop. She had few friends to start with, but now has a growing number of people who observe what is going on and care about the children, polarized against her. (This too does no one any good.) Co-parenting requires cooperation and many decisions. Reasonable decision-making requires trust, honesty, give and take, and basically negotiation in good faith. I need help on how to cope with the difficulty of making decisions with a hostile liar. Every little thing (not to mention big things) results in wasted time, high emotion, many phone calls, e-mail, and often she calls my friends too. For example, a ’situation’ occurred yesterday over a trivial matter — she called and I said that I wouldn’t make an extra trip home from work to set out the girls boots for her and asked her to stop calling me at work so much — she responded "eat shit." Today she e-mails me saying she didn’t swear at me, blamed me for her saying (what she didn’t say), claimed that is the FIRST time she has ever sworn at anyone (incredible lie) and attacked me with her lies/delusions about the past. It is not easy to respond calmly and rationally, however, there is really no other sensible way. It takes a lot out of me and takes time, perhaps an hour for me to settle completely back into being productive. (Or it takes longer if I search out a newsgroup, read a lot of the posts, and type a long post.) This type of thing seems daily in occurrence. The divorce decree ordered monthly binding arbitration to assist with decisions. She resists scheduling (has many excuses and pushes it off to well under once a month) and has refused to the best of her ability to follow two of the arbitrator’s rulings. Arbitration is grueling — for example, it took 1 hour and 45 minutes to determine what weekend I would get in exchange for her traveling with the children this coming Father’s day weekend. The long run solution is to change custody but I don’t think that will happen soon (and it is only a partial solution — there would still be many difficulties). Warning — venting ahead. My frustrations have me saying that lawyers are useless and the courts are worse than useless. It also seems like custody is terribly biased toward mothers, and it seems like mothers can do about anything and get a pass — especially if they have been ill. If I had denied my daughter psychological care, in spite of a ruling in binding arbitration, in spite of chest pains (and pediatrician recommendation of counseling), and the daughter ended up in the emergency room shaking and heart racing from anxiety — I would be in jail for child neglect — the mother on the other hand gets an automatic "pass." I am wondering how others cope in similar situations. I suspect that this is not terribly uncommon. Perhaps another newsgroup is more appropriate… Thank you for any ideas, Tim
Response:
Hey Fido, thanks for the advice. I’ve definately headed in the direction of getting as separate from her parenting as I can. It seems wrong, but survival is a higher priority. It is amazing how entangled parenting can get with kids this age, but even civil interaction is not going to happen (thinking I would get cooperation was a pipe dream) so minimizing dependence is a logical way to go. For example, I’ve even gone so far as to buy at least double the amount of clothes they need so that I can have decent things for them at my house and not rely on their mother to send anything back. Also, as your use of "fruitcake" implies, keeping a sense of humor is important. One area that entanglement seems difficult to avoid is the girls activities. I am stuck on that one. Last year it worked out that the activities were all on my "days." She dropped the activities on her time, and the weekend things just happened to fall on virtually all my weekends. However, this is not going to work as the level of activity increases. With her emotional and health problems, she does not follow through well on anything with a rigid time (e.g., organized sports, Sunday School, lessons, meetings, etc.). She knows that untimately this stuff is going to come back and be used against her, so she will try to sabatoge activities rather than have me take the girls on her time. The ’solution’ that I have used so far is just to create things for the girls to do with their friends on the days that I have them. I will also push for solutions in arbitration — for example I might be able to get the arbitrator to decide that the girls should be in music lessons and that I would take them to music lessons regardless of which parent’s time the lessons fall on. Thanks again, especially for the "you ‘can’ get there." Cheers, Tim – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hello to anyone kind enough to read my message, Hiya, Tim! I am wondering how others cope in similar situations. I suspect that this is not terribly uncommon. Perhaps another newsgroup is more appropriate… Naw, you’re probably in the right place. I think you have two workable options: 1. Go for full custody, this broad is a fruitcake. 2. Separate your parenting from hers – yeah, I know – co-parenting and all…. but do what you need to do when the kids are with you and forget about them when they are with her. At least the kids will only be driven loopy half of the time – and you a lot less. Finesse the monthly arbetration thing (amazing!) don’t do her stuff, and don’t worry about it. Just get it so that nothing you need to do is contingent or dependent on something she is supposed to do. The idea is to get you in a place where it doesn’t matter what she does – it won’t affect you. And you *can* get there. It’s a detachment thing. If she won’t co-operate with the co-parenting thing, then just stop humping that puppy, it just ain’t gonna hunt no matter what you would like to happen. Great story by the way, a classic. Sorry about your troubles, though, and it is too bad the kids are caught in the middle, but, sometimes life sucks. Sometimes it doesn’t. Best – Fido Thank you for any ideas, Tim
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – * Hello to anyone kind enough to read my message, * * I am divorced (six months past the final decree) and have been * struggling to co-parent with the ex-wife. I have joint physical custody * of two daughters (rising to 2nd and 3rd grade) — we are each supposed * to have them about 50% of the time. I love my daughters dearly, and * will not do anything to hurt them (thus giving the ex-wife power). * * As I move on with life, I need to figure out out to cope better with a * hostile, self-centered, lying co-parent. My friends think she suffers * from emotional problems, and the MMPI in the custody evaluation points * that direction ("severe emotional difficulties"). I am currently of the * view that it is more probable than not, that she is just a person low * character — I do go back and forth on what the problem is though, as * there is clear evidence of emotional difficulties. She had severe * fibromyalgia for the 10 years we were married (it "disappeared" during * the long divorce process when she wanted full custody and falsely * claimed to be a "stay at home mom") and she has recently been treated * for breast cancer (a difficult one to face for her, but it was caught * very early with a 90% expectation of survival). Of course, she blames * me for everything, including her illnesses. I would suggest doublechecking her chances of long term survival, esp. if it is early breast cancer. Also, I am hoping that you are aware that early breast cancer is often hereditary and that your daughters may be at risk. As for the rest, it seems like there was a reason why you guys divorced… I am sorry about all these annoyances… It is very difficult to deal with mean spirited persons. igor
Damn, at first I thought this was a serious post about the problems of co-parenting! After getting burned on the "handjob" post, I’m reluctant to respond to what sounds like another troll-job. M
Response:
I wasn’t able to get back to the newsgroup until this morning and all the posts are extremely kind. Janie has some specific questions. First, let me note that I was extremely fortunate to get joint physical custody (actually I think it was my daughters that were lucky). Joint physical custody is not in the law in Indiana and the judge went out on a limb to award it. It is awarded if the parents agree, but there was NO agreement here. By the way, the judge committed suicide for reasons that are not known (publicly at least) within a month after the final decree. The newly appointed judge is evidently not making decisions of any kind, perhaps trying to maximize chance of election in the fall. He will run and lose to my attorney’s partner (the new judge is a democrat and it is highly unlikely that a democrat will win a local election here). There was a GAL appointed right after she filed for divorce, he chose the ex-wife. He is an attorney and perhaps a nice man, but he has no qualifications in the area of mental health. He based his decision on who he thought did 51% or more of the direct care of the children. With the ex being at home, it was hard to convince him that she didn’t do more than I did. This was especially true because the ex got a good attorney 6 months before she filed and spent that time preparing her case. The ex-wife falsely accused me of abuse, neglect, alcoholism, and every mean nasty thing you can think of except sexual abuse (I believe that they would have used that lie too if they though it would have helped their case). She claimed that I had no interest in the children at all, did nothing with them, and on and on. I honestly do not think the GAL believed her, but much to my surprise, rather than disbelieve everything she said when she was obviously lying, he chose to believe neither of us. I did have a daily calendar/diary detailing the ex’s illness’ (in her own writing), and I found her "divorce" notebook with her plans written in it and much incriminating material. But again, the situation gave the appearance of two people fighting so neither was given much credit and the GAL went with the mother. My personal counselor is a professor at the university and in one of his seminar classes they reviewed GAL reports. He told me that all the reports from this GAL turned on the same issue — who did the majority of the daily care. Since I believed the issues the were mental health I got an additional attorney who was able to get a custody evaluation done by a psychologist. I was so far "behind" at that point, and facing the ex being likely able to take the children from Indiana to Florida where her family and support system would be, I focused on joint physical custody — at least that would keep the girls here and give me time to let joint custody work (or not). I believe that the research shows that children do no worse and often much better in that arrangement. Once I was kicked out of my home by the system, I realized that I was free to do the best that I could for my children — I no longer had three to take care of, it was just the two children. In the marriage, the ex-wife’s physical and mental illnesses kept us isolated and constrained in unbelievable ways. I failed to overcome that, and I was increasingly unable to work with her toward reasonable solutions to large or small problems. I digress — anyway, my entire focus has been to do what is best for the children. The psychologist/custody-evaluator did the MMPI and came up with the joint physical custody recommendation with monthly arbitration. The GAL never really spent much additional time on it, and did not seem inclined to admit to making any error in his recommendation. I now have the children going to the psychologist who did the custody evaluation as their psychologist. They are doing better since starting to see her. My first attorney is a rational good man. But he is not aggressive, and got beat up by the other attorney in the couple of court appearances we had before the trial. I had to get another attorney to do the four days of trial that the divorce took and she got the joint custody for me, but I lost BIG time financially. The second attorney did little to prepare and just wasn’t functional outside of the courtroom (in the courtroom she was somewhat of an idiot savant). Neither of these attorneys are what I need, but I kept the first one on, and wanted to use him to finish up the details. Then there has been a series of actions that have required that I use someone (defend against the protective order, get the arbitration decisions implemented, and others), and I can’t really even afford another big retainer to start with another attorney right now. My attorney’s current advice, and the advice of a friend who is an investigator and heavily involved in these kind of matters, is that custody will not change if the children are not hurt. The psychologist thankfully says that they are doing well at this point. I have the sense that I am hurting my custody case by making sure that my children are well, but so be it, and I am thankful for that blessing. When I was kicked out of the house, I made sure that I saw the girls every day (and did all buy one day of the first 60 days that I was out of my home). The ex did everything she could do to keep me away, but she couldn’t stop me from doing things at school with them, even if it was just going to eat lunch with them. My daughters are very shy partially by nature and partially because they got out so little (and no one was allowed to our house) for the first 5/6 years of their lives. I made it my goals to get them socialized, get them with their friends as often as possible and just get out and go places and do things. It has worked wonderfully. I honestly believe that I can make them be well, by loving them with every ounce of energy that I have. Prior to the separation my role was to take care of them in the morning, some after school, and evenings/weekends. They were never allowed to go to their mother at night and I also did virtually 100% of the night-time care as infants. By the way, they are adopted. In particular, I had to protect them from the irrational demands/actions of their mother, so there was a lot of picking up crying, emotionally hurt children off of the floor. Their mother has a bad back and is not supposed to lift more than 7 pounds, so I have done all the lifting and giving them physical comfort. We still watch movies snuggled together now in a big couch (the three of us no longer fit in a recliner) almost every night that they are with me. I paid for one year of a series of mostly unreliable day-time in home care, then two years of day-time nannies, then day care for a couple of years. Then, when school started for the oldest and the other was in pre-school (and the attorney visited) the ex wanted to "save" the money and try to care for them after school, until I got home. (Thus the GAL’s decision criteria was met.) Oops, I seem to have gotten off topic. So there are several reasons that I am not pushing for a change in custody at this time. 1. The ex has been ill and she is getting a "pass" on all her crazy actions, 2. I probably don’t have the right attorney, 3. We have to wait for this judge to move on, 4. The children are doing OK, and 5. It still wouldn’t solve all the problems. With respect to the latter, I mean that I can’t see her getting less that the Indiana minimum (every other weekend, one day a week, and half of the summer). There would still be plenty of ways that she could cause trouble. Also, the children love her and want to spend time with her. I am not sure that the minimum would be enough time for them to be with her anyway. Still, if the joint physical possession was changed, then there would be a number of decisions that would be a lot easier and indeed the problems would be reduced by them spending less than 50% of the time with their mother. One issue is that the school-year schedule creates more interaction than needed with going back and forth many days (Monday and Wednesday are hers and Tuesday and Thursday are mine). I am trying to change the schedule in arbitration. So, we get to what I wanted to focus my post on which is how in Hades to cope with a difficult person. Several of you have made some great suggestions on how to cope, I will reply to the posts above when I get the chance rather than add more to this version of War and Peace. Thanks Janie. All of these posts have been so considerate and thoughtful… Cheers, Tim – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – <snip Co-parenting requires cooperation and many decisions. Reasonable decision-making requires trust, honesty, give and take, and basically negotiation in good faith. I need help on how to cope with the difficulty of making decisions with a hostile liar. I think joint custody with this type of parent involved was probably not the best way to go for the children. Water under the bridge and all, and I’m sure your choices were limited. But my first thought is that it would be much better for the children if you had full custody and she had as much of 50% access time with the children as she desires. But she doesn’t seem capable of joint decision making, and the kids shouldn’t have to suffer for that. :-( <snipped examples of frustrating intereference in daily productivity The long run solution is to change custody but I don’t think that will happen soon (and it is only a partial solution — there would still be many difficulties). Warning — venting ahead. My frustrations have me saying that lawyers are useless and the courts are worse than useless. It also seems like custody is terribly biased toward mothers, and it seems like mothers can do about anything and get a pass
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Hello to anyone kind enough to read my message,
Hiya, Tim! I am wondering how others cope in similar situations. I suspect that this is not terribly uncommon. Perhaps another newsgroup is more appropriate…
Naw, you’re probably in the right place. I think you have two workable options: 1. Go for full custody, this broad is a fruitcake. 2. Separate your parenting from hers – yeah, I know – co-parenting and all…. but do what you need to do when the kids are with you and forget about them when they are with her. At least the kids will only be driven loopy half of the time – and you a lot less. Finesse the monthly arbetration thing (amazing!) don’t do her stuff, and don’t worry about it. Just get it so that nothing you need to do is contingent or dependent on something she is supposed to do. The idea is to get you in a place where it doesn’t matter what she does – it won’t affect you. And you *can* get there. It’s a detachment thing. If she won’t co-operate with the co-parenting thing, then just stop humping that puppy, it just ain’t gonna hunt no matter what you would like to happen. Great story by the way, a classic. Sorry about your troubles, though, and it is too bad the kids are caught in the middle, but, sometimes life sucks. Sometimes it doesn’t. Best – Fido – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Thank you for any ideas, Tim
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As I move on with life, I need to figure out out to cope better with a hostile, self-centered, lying co-parent. My friends think she suffers from emotional problems, and the MMPI in the custody evaluation points that direction ("severe emotional difficulties"). I am currently of the view that it is more probable than not, that she is just a person low character
1. Always take the high road. Don’t get sucked into it. Life’s too short. 2. Perceive her as ill – emotionally, spiritually. 3. Try to approach her as a needy child – lovingly if possible but always firm and adult. 4. Try not to let her take up too much space in your head. Think about how often she abuses you in your own head when she isn’t around and endeavor to not waste that energy.
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Hello to anyone kind enough to read my message, I am divorced (six months past the final decree) and have been struggling to co-parent with the ex-wife. I have joint physical custody of two daughters (rising to 2nd and 3rd grade) — we are each supposed to have them about 50% of the time. I love my daughters dearly, and will not do anything to hurt them (thus giving the ex-wife power). As I move on with life, I need to figure out out to cope better with a hostile, self-centered, lying co-parent. My friends think she suffers from emotional problems, and the MMPI in the custody evaluation points that direction ("severe emotional difficulties"). I am currently of the view that it is more probable than not, that she is just a person low character — I do go back and forth on what the problem is though, as there is clear evidence of emotional difficulties. She had severe fibromyalgia for the 10 years we were married (it "disappeared" during the long divorce process when she wanted full custody and falsely claimed to be a "stay at home mom") and she has recently been treated for breast cancer (a difficult one to face for her, but it was caught very early with a 90% expectation of survival). Of course, she blames me for everything, including her illnesses. The hostility has been difficult with her calling the sheriff, interfering with my parenting time, frequently disparaging me to the children, she made a misleading/deceptive report to child protective services, has made MANY threats to call police if I don’t do exactly what she wants, she puts the girls in the middle every time she can so that she can get her way, she constantly calls people (parents of the girls’ friends, people at school, people in Girl Scouts, people at church) to spew her attacks on my character, and it just goes on and on. There is something new (and egregious) about every week. She harassed people in Girl Scouts (over my participation in activities) to the point they threatened to kick my daughters out if she didn’t stop. She had few friends to start with, but now has a growing number of people who observe what is going on and care about the children, polarized against her. (This too does no one any good.) Co-parenting requires cooperation and many decisions. Reasonable decision-making requires trust, honesty, give and take, and basically negotiation in good faith. I need help on how to cope with the difficulty of making decisions with a hostile liar. Every little thing (not to mention big things) results in wasted time, high emotion, many phone calls, e-mail, and often she calls my friends too. For example, a ’situation’ occurred yesterday over a trivial matter — she called and I said that I wouldn’t make an extra trip home from work to set out the girls boots for her and asked her to stop calling me at work so much — she responded "eat shit." Today she e-mails me saying she didn’t swear at me, blamed me for her saying (what she didn’t say), claimed that is the FIRST time she has ever sworn at anyone (incredible lie) and attacked me with her lies/delusions about the past. It is not easy to respond calmly and rationally, however, there is really no other sensible way. It takes a lot out of me and takes time, perhaps an hour for me to settle completely back into being productive. (Or it takes longer if I search out a newsgroup, read a lot of the posts, and type a long post.) This type of thing seems daily in occurrence. The divorce decree ordered monthly binding arbitration to assist with decisions. She resists scheduling (has many excuses and pushes it off to well under once a month) and has refused to the best of her ability to follow two of the arbitrator’s rulings. Arbitration is grueling — for example, it took 1 hour and 45 minutes to determine what weekend I would get in exchange for her traveling with the children this coming Father’s day weekend. The long run solution is to change custody but I don’t think that will happen soon (and it is only a partial solution — there would still be many difficulties). Warning — venting ahead. My frustrations have me saying that lawyers are useless and the courts are worse than useless. It also seems like custody is terribly biased toward mothers, and it seems like mothers can do about anything and get a pass — especially if they have been ill. If I had denied my daughter psychological care, in spite of a ruling in binding arbitration, in spite of chest pains (and pediatrician recommendation of counseling), and the daughter ended up in the emergency room shaking and heart racing from anxiety — I would be in jail for child neglect — the mother on the other hand gets an automatic "pass." I am wondering how others cope in similar situations. I suspect that this is not terribly uncommon. Perhaps another newsgroup is more appropriate… Thank you for any ideas, Tim
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