Editor’s note: On April 15, 2009, we posted “Bob’s” story—Leaning on his family while battling his wife. Well, the battle continues. Bob is asking the Lovefraud community for suggestions.
I recently received the email below from my P ex-wife and wanted to share it with your readers. I would like someone to analyze this to get some insight and commentary on this situation. It is so reminiscent of what I have read on Lovefraud.com and in books and comes really without surprise; it just surprises me of the lengths she will go to try to falsely trash me in an effort to obtain custody of our kids. The allegations are either fabricated or extremely exaggerated. She has a knack for manipulating people to write letters for her and support her. She has no fear of me and really no fear that I will endanger our kids; she knows I would never hurt them. This is all blowing smoke, but there is motive.
A quick background: Post-divorce with joint custody, she moved out of state to be with her lover and took me to court to move the kids with her. Her motion was denied and the kids still live with me in my state during the school year, but she moved regardless. Her child support to me was tripled by the court order, and that has angered her. She lies to my kids about the circumstances of her move and casts blame at me for us being so far apart geographically.
During the custodial evaluation, up to the hearing and after the order was handed down she has been on a vigorous campaign to portray me as angry and hostile towards her. Apparently this is the only way she could convince the courts to give her custody. She stopped paying me for children’s expenses after the court order was received, attempting to elicit angry emails from me. That was over a year ago and this continues to this day, even after I took her to court this year to force payment of children’s expenses. After that court order, she still refuses to pay me what is legitimately owed. She is very angry and vindictive, but she conceals it from others very well.
Note, I have been to her home on only three occasions to drop off or pick up my kids and she lives over 1,000 miles from me. She travels to my state with regularity to pick up and drop off the kids at my home without any fear of me. The characterizations of me”—hostile, angry, vindictive, inconsistent, unbalanced, unstable, threatening, harassing, bi-polar—”are a common theme in her emails.
Bob:
I have just returned from a meeting with local law enforcement. I met with them because I fear for my safety and the safety of our children. Your actions, writings and overall demeanor are unstable, inconsistent, vindictive, and threatening.
During this discussion, I shared the following:
1) Our guidance from the Court.
2) years of correspondence between Bob and me, highlighting particularly the exchanges that were most hostile, threatening and vindictive.
3) A tape of Bob’s wire tapping of my phone while I lived in (city removed).
4) Several documents that prove Bob’s attempts to hack into my bank accounts, my AT&T account, my email account and one credit card account.
5) Data I have collected through Bob’s emails of him stalking me, including one today where he has details of my flight information that I did not provide to him. There are several other emails that confirm this pattern of behavior.
6) A written statement from the Summer Camp employee that he interrogated in August, complete with her statement that he appeared unstable and made her uncomfortable. She also confirms that he explicitly told her that he had sole custody of the children and that I was not allowed to make the decision I had made when enrolling him in his summer activities.
7) Evidence suggesting Bob’s taping of the children’s and my conversations.
I agreed that I would follow up this information with an opinion from my therapist, since she has been privy to the daily deluge of drama and interactions and has formed some opinions, based upon what she has read.
The officer confirms that there are red flags in this situation that do not need to be ignored. His suggestion is that I state first my concerns in writing directly to you. I am once again asking you to stop this harassment and contemptible behavior immediately. If you continue, I will have no choice but to proceed with the process of highlighting these situations and writings to the proper authorities and to seek protection for myself and our children.
This is not a threat and these are not games. Your anger, vindictiveness, and nonacceptance of the rules we were given have resulted in harassing and predatory behaviors which are at a minimum, disturbing and at the extreme, dangerous.
Our community saw a triple murder within the last two months at the hand of their father, a white-collar banking manager. The background and circumstances of this heinous crime were eerily similar to our past two years. I will no longer take the chances of what your volatility, instability or hostility might lead to.
Angie
In these cases, I think you have no choice but to:
1. Surround yourself with witnesses every time you speak or write either to her or on behalf of the children.
2. Do not speak with her or write her unless it is absolutely necessary. Stick to the task at hand and only that. Do not exchange emails as these could be altered. Have someone witness your writing.
3. IF you have been in mental health treatment, stay for now and have your new partner also attend with you periodically.
4. Always keep your cool, and never drink any alcohol when you may being seeing her.
5. If you have tried to collect, stop thinking about what you are owed as this will only poison your life.
“The officer confirms that there are red flags in this situation that do not need to be ignored. His suggestion is that I state first my concerns in writing directly to you.”
My personal opinion is that if the officer truly believed you were a danger, you would have heard from the police directly.
I would either ignore this email, or respond with “Thank you for your email.” You need to reduce your risk to this latest tactic. Whenever there is a pickup/dropoff with your kids- you need to be sure to have someone else with you or in your stead. Make sure it is someone who will not rise to her taunts- because she needs to make a scene to make some of her story true. She’ll most likely try SOMETHING the next time you personally have to interact. In a way, this email is a heads up to her new strategy.
If she is the one who is truly in violation of your court orders, do not contact her yourself. Have your atty contact hers. The less you have ANY contact with her, in person/writing/cyberspace, the less ammo she has to twist around.
If you absolutely have to exchange an email with her to finalize visitation details or such, have someone proofread it before you click send. Or if you have a friend or family member handy, have them act as intermediary for you. Tell them, “I think Angie is going to try to railroad me with a harassment claim. I can’t interact with her for awhile. Can you help me out?” You can’t threaten or be accused of threatening behavior when you have zero interaction. In dealing with my xs’s, I found that my own sanity and damage control was more important than their smear campaigns- sometimes I gave more weight to their nonsense than anyone else. It’s that whole brainwashed, larger than life thing not dying off as quickly as it should. After years of placating them, their little tantrums take practice to ignore. Stay consistent, stay the course. The kids are still WITH YOU, yes? Eventually, if you are as cool as a cucumber, her erratic behavior will be easier for others to discern.
If she calls the house to talk to the kids, YOU don’t answer. Have one of the kids get it.
“If you continue, I will have no choice but to proceed with the process of highlighting these situations and writings to the proper authorities and to seek protection for myself and our children.” This sounds like a tantrum threat because the cop wouldn’t start those proceedings now.
If ANY of the allegations of stalking are even a little true- STOP. Any evidence from that probably wouldn’t be permitted into the courtroom, so it doesn’t do you any good anyway. But it could make you look bad.
That last bit, comparing you to a murderer, is just a jab. We all know just how useless that threat, even when real, is in the courtroom.
I’m sorry she hasn’t found something shiny to distract her from badgering you- you’d think 1000 miles worth of distance would have something she could amuse herself with. I base my opinions on the kids still residing with you the majority of the time. If that is not the case and I misunderstood, and she has gained custody, my advice would be different.
Bob,
I agree with the advice of the other posters but I would also add that this is gas-lighting. She is trying to access your emotion of fear. The last paragraph made it clear. Furthermore, she is doing what my xP did, using the fear of law-enforcement and a smear campaign against you there.
I’m tempted to tell you to go to the highest authority at the police station, but I tried that myself (since this is what my xP did to me) and they won’t talk to me. Of course, my problem is that the cops in my area have already involved themselves with him after many years, so now they are afraid of being implicated, I guess. In your case, it might be a good idea to put on a nice suit and go visit law enforcement, with a copy of the email. You’ll never get them to understand narcissism, but you can tell them that she is predictable. Tell them that you know she will continue to try to slander you to anyone who can listen.
Point out the last paragraph. It really shows the workings of a deranged mind because no normal human being, who was really afraid, would plant “suggestions” such as these into the person they were afraid of. On the contrary, they would avoid any suggestion of murder for fear of inciting it. But the sociopath doesn’t know this. By the time she was writing the last paragraph, she was already deep into her fantasy and visualizing a catastrophic ending. Feeling quite pleased with herself.
Dear Bob,
First off I am so sorry tht you are having to deal with this, and your children are having to deal with this too.
I would check and see if tape recording telephone calls is LEGAL IN YOUR STATE. In my state, as long as ONE OF THE PARTIES to a call knows it is being taped, it is legal, also if you are ever face to face with her I would also have either a nanny cam type thing going and/or a voice recorder in my pocket. I saw a video a while back where a guy had one of thse cams installed in his car and was stopped by a P-type absive cop and it got it ALL on tape, it also showed his speedometer and proved he was NOT speeding or driving crazy.
I would DOCUMENT AND DOCUMENT AND DOCUMENT every exchange between the two of you, and I would NOT talk about her to ANYONE without that conversation being recorded except for your attorney.
As far as her not paying, the less she pays and the more she VIOLATES the court orders, the better in my book, I would just keep records to prove she has NOT PAID expenses. I know you may think you need the money, but in reality it is a small price to pay for EVIDENCE of lack of caring about her children.
A good bit of this I think is about MONEY and her perception that you have “WON” so she is trying to get out of paying the money and make it look like SHE is caring about the kids and thinks you are a danger. LOL
I dont’ know how old your kids are Bob but hang in there, you have won the biggest hurdle of all and have the kids.
If possible I would NOT drive to her house and would put the kids on a train or plane (depending on ages) and let HER FOOT THE BILL…since you are unable to afford the tickets since she has not paid her part of the expenses. I would handle that negotiation through your attorney as well.
I wouldn’t put it past her to when she has them in HER state to try to get an emergency custody order for “protection” of the children….some states will do this, I would have your attorney check and see if that is possible in HER state. She might be laying ground work for this in her state with “contacting the officer”—ask your attorney what you should do about this.
Good luck and God bless you and your children. Thanks for sharing this with LF.
I have been doing for some time what you recommend. But I do appreciate other good, new advice I have received from the few posts.
We recently had be fighting for a couple months over the x-P’s parenting time and the boys travel to her state. The court order is explicit yet vague at the same time. The parenting consultant made a directive last night, which squelched her plans for an overnight trip for my children with another family, but rather ordered that the children stay in town and trick-or-treat in my neighborhood (shared parenting time on Halloween, per the J&D).
This angered the father of the other family (one of my x-P’s former affairs). This man has been manipulated by her and is one of her leutenants in her battle against me, fully manipulated by her. He sent me an angry and scathing email this morning. I took it to local police, but it wasn’t threatening and I haven’t heard from him enough for it to be harrassing.
In response to one of the comments above, one past story. When this custody ordeal was in its infancy and the mother was packing up and moving away, she left me a message inviting me over to pick up the last of my belongings at her home that was being sold a few days later. She said my things were at the curb. I called back and left a message that if anything was stolen or missing I would hold her accountable. When my girlfiend drove by her home, she had both of her cars at the base of the driving blocking access and my items moved up near her house. We left and called my son to ask his mom to move her cars (Porsche and Mercedes) so we could get my things. We went back with my truck. When we arrived her cars were moved, but her former lover’s large landscaping truck was blocking the driveway. We parked behind it in the street. I also had sent her an earlier email advising that she was no move the boys personal items away since she had not court order to move them with her. I printed a copy, put in an envelope to deliver to her (since she won’t respond to emails she doesn’t like). We started moving my things to my car. My three children were wandering about us as we moved things. My x-P’s father happened to be there from out of town, and the ex-lover was there, both watching closely over us. I sent the envelope inside with my oldest child. Several minutes later, my ex-P came storming out of the house waving the email and engaging me. Her neighbors come out of the house a few minutes prior to that and witness our heated argument. We left and I went home and wrote my attorney about the situation. Needless to say, the x-P wrote a scathing email about my hostile confrontation in front of our children and witnesses. She suggested that I now have supervised visitation. Wow, what a set up.
What a joke. I stayed home and raised my children while she travelled the world and had affairs. She was abandoning her children and leaving them in my care. Yet she was now claiming I was not a capable parent.
This is how bad it gets. It has only gotten worse. What next? That I sexually abuse my children????
AKA Bob:
“What next? That I sexually abuse my children????”
Do not disregard this statement. I was having drinks the other night with 2 colleagues — one who does matrimonial work and the other who does criminal defense work. The latter is currently working on 5 cases with the former. All involve vindictive wives who make allegations of sexual abuse against their husbands in order to gain the upper hand in divorce actions.
I want to make clear that I am not sexist and I deplore sexual abuse of children unequivocably. However, I feel that women (and the occasional man) who play this so-called trump card should be shot. By the time the courts get done investigating the situation and determine that no abuse has taken place, the father’s relationship with his children has been irrevocably altered. The financial resources that have been expended by the father defending himself are immense. To say nothing of the hit to his reputation.
So, AKA Bob, I hate to be alarmist, but I would sure be on the watch for your ex to play this card.
Regarding the email storms, I would not respond. I am of the school of thought that emails can be too easily altered. For correspondence with a S, nothing beats certified letters. All those letters should be “cc’d” to your attorney and one or two independent, trustworthy witnesses. Make it clear in the letter that the only way she is to respond to you is via certified letter or overnight express mail — and that you will ignore all emails. As for the emails of her dupes, print them out, archive the originals and don’t respond.
Another reason I recommend certified letters versus emails is that it is too easy to get yanked into an escalating exchange of emails with a S and then have it blow in your face. By having to type up a letter and then take it to the post office or Fed Ex it helps keep you cool-headed and forces you to stick to the facts in the letter.
Also, for what it’s worth — I don’t think she has been to a meeting with local law enforcement. If she had, you would be hearing from THEM.
As far as sending your children to visit her, I am of the school of thought that I would put them on the plane and pay the fee the airlines require for unattended children. I would send her a FedEx letter in advance (that way you have her signature) that puts the onus on HER to get her ass to the airport and pick up the kids.
How many more years are you stuck dealing with the Creature from the Black Lagoon?
Dear Bob,
Can you provide an example of an email that you have sent her that she labels as harassing?
You say that she only responds to your emails that she doesn’t like. I think the advice you have received here is excellent. Stop emailing her. Certified mail only. Communicate through a third party, like a case manager. Follow the custody agreement to the letter. That way, it will become obvious who is causing the problem.
Of note, local law enforcement are unlikely to contact a harasser unless they are in violation of a court order. I ran into that problem with my ex who was sending me harassing emails, despite having a restraining order. I had to change my phone number, block his email and only communicate through my lawyer. all his friends believe think I am the vindictive ex “trying to punish him by taking away the kids”….the reality couldnt be further from the truth.
Here is a thread of email messages. Keep in mind, Angie flies into town and takes the children to a former lover’s home for the weekend (when she travels with and without her current boyfriend/fiancé). She is not capable of caring for and entertaining our children by herself, so she must always have adult company and pawn the children off on those people’s children to entertain themselves so they can have their adult parties. We call this “outsource parenting”. We hear stories from the children that they stay up to all hours on these weekends, she is very indulgent (Disneyland Mom) and also highly favors the oldest (“Tim”), while the youngest (“Chip”) gets bullied and the short end of the stick. I feel I have to call her out frequently after these weekends out of my concerns. Of course, what I am told is hearsay by the children, but I trust that they are telling me the truth. I am tire of this, and will likely just voice my concerns with the parenting consultant and therapists in the future.
Angie
It came to our attention this morning that Chip’s weekend writing and math assignments were not begun or completed, and Jerry’s assignment book and behavior slip were not signed by you either. I can only assume that no reading occurred as well. I do not like feeling I have to send you these messages, but you do have a parental obligation, as well as Dr. Smith issued a directive some time ago, that the boys’ homework and reading will be completed before they are returned to us following your visits to our state.
Chip fell asleep on the bathroom floor this morning after his shower and we had great difficulty getting Jerry up and out this morning. We were advised that they were up until midnight on Sunday. I would think that earlier weekend visit bedtimes would be in order to avoid this school morning lethargy. Chip struggles academically as it is when he is well rested and alert. This lack of sleep during many of your visits has got to have an adverse affect on his already lacking concentration and effectiveness at school.
I think that it is fantastic that you can on occasion facilitate social outings and parties for you and the boys when you visit our state. However, I do feel it is of utmost importance that the boys’ receive adequate rest and that their relatively few weekend assignments are completed during your visits. I trust that you would agree.
Thanks,
Bob
Dr. Smith (parenting consultant involved in case ”“ Bob cc:d on message):
I will not engage in, nor honor, Bob’s continued harassment and erroneous accusations. His motivations and focus continues to concern me. I will not respond to him on this type of nonsense, and this is exactly the kind of continued bullying that prohibits any type of sustainable progress in our communication (per my last email to you). In fact, it drives us further in the opposite direction.
Each of the boys (everyone, in fact) had in excess of 9 hours of sleep Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Tim and I sat for over two hours on Monday morning working on a school project. Chip had said he had none, and it was not until late Monday afternoon that he remembered he had a writing project. Therefore, he had to do it when he returned to Bob’s at 5:00, and reported to my by 7:00 pm that he had finished it. If you would like further data, details or information regarding our time this weekend, please let me know.
We all had a wonderful holiday weekend, and it’s such a shame that each time I return from our terrific visits, I am sent this kind of harrassment and Bob’s list of grievances, based upon false assumptions and interrogation of the children. Rarely does he operate with a full facts, and never does he find anything positive to say.
He can choose to stay stuck in his misery, but I won’t stoop down to his level.
Thanks,
Angie
Angie,
The rhetoric and projection contained in your emails have become old, stale and exhausting. Your characterizations of harassment, bullying and anger, among other less than complimentary terms, have been used falsely and frequently in response to my parental concerns to the point of ad nauseam. The fact is that such written assaults have been the cornerstone of your communications for years used as knee jerk responses to divert attention from the real issues; your lack of responsible parenting, poor judgment and record of delayed and/or non-existent communications. Conversely, the harassment and bullying directed towards Cheri and me by you and your closest supporters is well documented. While such tactics fail to affect us, they do ultimately serve to affect the welfare of the boys.
The undeniable truth is that Chip did not touch his weekend homework, Jerry’s school forms were not signed by you and Chip fell asleep on the bathroom floor on Tuesday morning before school. However, you did find time to work with Tim, which is not surprising. Perhaps the time and effort expended on organizing social gatherings for your circle of friends in my town could be channeled and focused into personal, quality parenting time with all of our boys ensuring all of their educational, emotional and physical needs are met. Your parenting time after lengthy absences is intended to strengthen your relationship with our boys, not their relationships with your friends’ children, and certainly not to promote your social needs.
FYI, regarding Chip’s missing reading assignment last weekend, your assertion that Chip spoke with you on Monday evening about the assignment is not believable. We were advised via email on Tuesday by Chip’s teacher that his writing assignment was not even started and that his math assignment was only partially finished. When asked about his writing assignment on Tuesday night he still couldn’t remember either the subject or specifics.
You make this about you. Its not, it’s about the children. This really isn’t complicated.
Bob
Bob:
I acknowledge receipt of this email, and while I did read its content, you are incorrect and wrong. I will not honor your angry and malicious attempts to defame my character. In fact, your judgement, as evidenced by your inciteful writing, is severly impaired.
No further response would be productive or support the goals and objectives that we parents must have.
Angie
Bob,
When dealing with a P, remember you are dealing with an incorrigible child with oppositional defiance disorder, so treat her that way. Whatever you say you want, she will do the opposite and then, in her state of delusion, she will deny the truth and project her own behavior on you.
So, knowing that, you have to use reverse psychology whenever possible. Whatever you want, hint that you want the opposite. In the case of your children, don’t tell her that you want her to do better, tell her you know that she can’t do better and then YOU model the behavior that you want her to do and take great pride in it. Meet with teachers and become their friends. Hopefully her competitive nature will take over and she will try to outshine you. Remember the story of Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence and how he got the other boys to paint for him.
Well, Bob, I would suggest you hire a case manager. Request this through a lawyer. That way, any concerns you have, you can use a third party. If your children have any complaints about their mothers care, they can also talk to the third party. Use a journal. Finally, dont give your children letters to give to your ex. And dont question your children about their time with your ex. That could be seen or reported as an abusive use of conflict. Your emails to each other should be business-like, short, cordial and no more than once a week. Good luck and stay positive.