In the past couple of weeks, I have come to realize that my Custody War with Luc (my sons sociopathic father) has entered a new phase – I’ll call this phase the “unsustainable pseudo co-parenting” phase. The initial Custody Trial is over and our Family Law case has been closed. No matter how bad the judge, lawyers, and supervised exchange professional all want us to go away, none of these people are going to be able to cure Luc of his psychopathy so “going away” is not going to happen.
In my post last week, I noted that my lawyer had suggested me and Luc get “Family Therapy” in order to learn how to communicate with each other. I have thought a lot about this suggestion, and its clear and unabashed ridiculousness. Here I thought that my attorney’s had gotten up close and personal, witnessed the crazy, and understood the depth of Luc’s disorder over the past year. After suggesting that I sit in a room across from my own personal terrorist, however, it became clear that I had been in this fight alone and I was really nothing more than – a client.
Unsustainable “Plan”:
At several points during this Custody War, I remember asking my attorneys to try and make the Custody Order as detailed as possible. I knew that with any vague language, Luc would go to town and continue to terrorize me and baby boy at every turn. I ended up being somewhat disappointed with the final order as it left several unanswered questions and had holes big enough for Luc to drive a truck through. What we ended up with appeared to be a bandaid instead of a real plan.
By giving Luc weekly visitation, the court was asking us to “co-parent” (all be it minimally considering I was granted sole legal custody). I was asked to share “critical information” with Luc via third party (i.e. attorneys) and we were never to communicate directly with each other. The court recognized, at least somewhat, that there was a physical threat involved with direct contact and that “co-parenting” in the classic sense was not possible. The court failed to address, however, how on earth we were supposed to “co-parent” given that communication was too dangerous. They didn’t cover this issue in the court mandated Co-Parenting class I was forced to attend (that Luc was able to effectively skip without accountability).
The supervisor for the exchanges has expressed that she will not pass messages between us, as Luc has already attempted to use her as his personal secretary on numerous occasions. His lawyer has dumped him for not paying her and my attorneys are sick of this case and want me to “go to family therapy” vice bother them with important information to pass (such as medical emergency and doctors information).
Pseudo Co-Parenting:
According to wikipedia (which I understand is not always a reliable source), the principle of co-parenting states that a child has always and in any case the right to maintain a stable relationship with both parents, even if they are separated or divorced, unless there is a recognized need to separate him/her from one or both parents.
(Note: As I am sure many of you who have been through a Custody War with a psychopath will agree, the threshold for a “recognized need” to separate a child from one or both parents is extremely high.)
I take real issue with this concept of co-parenting. The idea of co-parenting fails to take into account parents who are not capable of sustaining “stable” relationships with anyone – including their own children.
That all being said, I call this phase I am in “pseudo co-parenting” because its not co-parenting in the true sense at all. It feels as if I am going through all the motions (so to follow the court order), but I am waiting for the next shoe to drop because this is not reality.
What the court failed to realize is that it doesn’t always boil down to the child’s right to maintain a relationship with both parents. I think my son has the right to have a father who cares about him, is stable, and who capable of maintaining a healthy relationship with him; however, I understand that this is not possible given WHAT Luc is – a psychopath. I would like for a magical genie to show up at my front door and grant me three wishes too, but will also never happen.
The Waiting Game:
I received some legal advice this week from at attorney who has been practicing for nearly 30 years. She also specializes in cases involving domestic violence. I went to her for some advice on how to manage situations that appear unsustainable and how to deal with this new “phase” of the Custody War. After hearing my story, she said “you need to learn that you cannot ”˜manage’ a person like this. You are dealing with someone who is dysfunctional at his core; therefore, any time you spend trying to make him functional will be a complete waste of your time.”
This advice seemed so simple and obvious. I felt a little ridiculous that I needed a lawyer to point this out to me after an entire year of feeling like I am beating my head against a wall to come up with a solution to this madness. This lawyer was dead on point. She identified after only a five minute conversation that I was trying to manage Luc, trying to make him less dysfunctional, and trying to make him a better father.
The ugly truth is that this phase of “unsustainable pseudo co-parenting” is maddening. This phase is difficult because while it appears impossible and unsustainable, and there doesn’t seem to be a playbook on how to fix the situation. There are a lot of things I won’t have control over. No matter how much I document and how much I plan for the safety and protection of my baby boy, Luc will continue to lie, deceive, and terrorize.
So, for now, I battle my nerves and practice my “grey rock” of emotions when faced with Luc’s terror and menacing behavior. There are many things out of my control in this situation, but I can control one thing – I can be the best mother I know how to be. This is going to be one bumpy ride and the war is far from over.
The mediator reccomended I wrote an e-mail saying I object to spath taking him out of school for vacation, but I will allow it. Nor sure how to put that. Here I am in a situation where I could actually say no and he’d have no time to get permission by the court and I would totally ruin his vacation plans, and I’m not going to do it. I could come across as an agreeable person who is willing to compromise to “keep the peace”, or I could come across as a person who doesn’t care about her ds. I could write that I’m scared of the retaliation, and that could either reinforce the “crazy, paranoid person” he says I am OR reinforce my valid fear of him. I don’t know what to do here. Advice, please??? Pretty please? I don’t trust my own judgment in the legal arena. I’ve played into spath’s hands too many times to my very horrible detriment. It just never ends, does it?!
Freemama: Write a non-emotional business-like letter to your ex telling him that both you and the principal think that it is a bad idea to take your son out of school for two weeks.
If there are any “neutral” details that you can add to the letter, do so. Ex.: Timmy has already missed 11 school days this year due to asthma; Timmy is already struggling to keep up with his classmates, etc. and possibly add a generic statement to the effect that it will be difficult to insist that Timmy attend school every day when he is in high school, and his grades and attendance matter for college admission if he has memories of a time when he was allowed to take weeks off at a stretch for non-essential reasons.
Keep a copy for your files, and send a copy to the principal of the school, and send the dated & signed original to your ex. For a couple of dollars, the post office will give you a “proof of mailing” certificate. If you do NOT do this, your ex will later say in court that it was a “mutual decision” to have Timmy miss two weeks of school, and that you had a lot of errands, etc., to take care of, and that he was helping YOU out at YOUR request by taking Timmy on a two-week trip.
If you have already agreed to allow Timmy to miss, FINE, everybody on this website understands the ugly reality of having to choose which battles to fight when you are up against somebody with satanic energy levels, but create a paper trail that makes it crystal clear that the decision was your ex’s, and NOT yours.
Lots of men ask for huge blocks of custody time, and then immediately begin to weasel out of the obligations associated with having a lot of custody time. When a woman gets a note from the school saying that everybody with a name from A to L is to bring a salad, and the M to Zs are to bring a dessert, she groans but gets it done. A lot of men, including my ex, would just throw the note away.
My ex did NOT do school runs. Either I did it, or Wife #2 did it. He was a busy executive who couldn’t be locked into a rigid schedule, although HE WAS THE ONE who insisted on enrolling the kids in a school half an hour from where we lived. It could be that if your ex actually is cornered into a situation where he can only take vacations that coincide with the school schedule, he will agree to a reduced custody schedule that doesn’t cramp his style as much.
CQueen: Pray that your ex loses interest in your son before your son develops verbal fluency. If he doesn’t, there will be several years during which your son will be a complete “loose cannon.” My parents never divorced, but both of them worked full time and were very harsh and critical, and my older siblings were always very quick to ridicule me for my childish errors. I know that by the time I was five and a half and started kindergarten I was very secretive, and my ability to keep secrets was so well developed at that point, that I must have been secretive even before then.
Your son will know by the time he is able to talk that you and your ex hate each other, and if your ex is continually trying to pry information out of him, then one of your son’s first full sentences will be, “I don’t remember.” Don’t ask your son anything about what goes on at his father’s house (this will be tough!) and if he reveals something about what goes on at your house and you find out about it, just gently tell him that it is better if he does NOT discuss what goes on at your house with his father, as you and he do not get along.
Make phone calls that you want to be private when your son is not around, and when he gets to be old enough to read, start locking up ALL of your papers. When your son is old enough to have his own house key, you are going to need to sanitize your home of all important papers, etc., if your son still has any contact with his father. If your son has a key to your house, your ex will almost certainly have a copy made of it, and use it freely when you are out of town on vacation.
I have been, more or less, where you are now. Each day is endless, but the weeks and months pass by quickly. As much as it is humanly possible, try to give your ex the impression that you aren’t too worked up about any of this. If you are taking him to court, or sobbing at the mediator’s. or throwing a big fit an the school Open House, he will stick around just for the fun of wrecking your life.
I sometimes get people’s stories mixed up, but I think that you said that Luc is unemployed and broke? If so, he may lose interest when the baby gets older and more expensive to entertain. Is Luc currently using the baby as a “prop” to show prospective female victims what a great dad he is? My ex used to use my kids that way. He also liked to take the kids to the beach so that he could approach teenage girls and ask them if they did any babysitting, then chat with them for as long as they would put up with him. As soon as he had a new wife, he went out by himself and left the kids with Wife #2 if it was his custody time.
If you can fake a non-chalant attitude, Luc may drop out of your child’s life as soon as he has a new girlfriend. Otherwise, if he is continually pumping your son for information, your son will grow to dislike him, just as everybody ends up disliking the busybodies in their lives.
Thank you!!! And I agree for cappuccino queen – don’t let him know that you’re bothered by any of this. They crave the excitement of causing pain like a heat-seeking missile. Don’t take the bait (easier said than done!) and pray that he loses interest and moves on to the next forest fire. I didn’t do that, and look where I am!!!
Freemama, just for the record, I wrote my entry while you were writing yours, but it doesn’t change my advice. If you agreed to let him take the child on vacation during the school year, then stand by your agreement, because otherwise you are going to look like a spiteful, vindictive person who says “yes” before the non-refundable tickets are purchased, and then says “no” after they are purchased.
But put your version of events in writing, etc., and make sure that a copy goes in your son’s school file. This year’s principal may not be principal two or three years from now, or the principal may not remember the incident at all.
Good luck with it all.
Freemama, I am sorry to hear about your situation. I agree, however, with the advice above. You should not give him your ok just to make peace. Nothing will give you peace for as long as he is in the picture anyway. Document everything and get the principal to sign an official letter.
Divorced from Gaslighter: Thanks for your advice. It makes a lot of sense. And yes, my ex is the one who is broke and jobless. That being said, he won’t care about sitting in the house and just making baby boy suffer through his boring lifestyle. He will also make the child too afraid to request any entertainment.
Tonight our situation took another terrible turn. The psychopath drama fueler showed her colors again. I had some emergency paperwork to give Luc and she refused to pass it for me saying she wanted to remain neutral, however, she continued to send me text messages asking me if I was available for the numerous requests to schedule a make-up visit for Luc. (because the visit had to be cancelled when baby boy was in the hospital)
This woman has no problem passing information and terrorizing me for Luc, but she said if I want to pass messages I need to go through my attorney (unless I agree to pay her more).
Finally, the idea of mediation scares the hell out of me. Luc is dangerous and I don’t think its reasonable for us to sit down with a mediator after all he has done to me and my family. He is a visitor and should be treated as such. It would be one thing if he were acting like he was trying to be the kind of man his son could look up to. He is making no attempts to turn his life around. Instead, he continues to try and cash in his older son’s dead mother’s life insurance policy.
I never agreed to it. He bought the tickets and told me after the fact. Here’s my draft:
After speaking with the principal, I must tell you that I think it’s a very bad idea to go through with your plans of taking ds out of school for two weeks on your vacation. She informed me that he was already struggling with Spanish. He has has missed two weeks already, and since this is not an “educational trip”, it will be inexcused, regardless of of making up the homework. It will also be very difficult to enforce that he attend school in the future, since he will always have the memory of you pulling him out for 2 weeks for no good reason.Â
I understand now that I have the absolute right to refuse per the parenting plan, but since you have already purchased the tickets with no input from me prior to doing so, and since you will not have time to get permission to do so through a motion, I am allowing it with my strong objections and plea to reconsider your action with regards to how it will affect ds in the long run. This is not in any way a “joint” decision. I hope you will show me the same consideration in any future conflict.
C-Q- if it’s any comfort, you are not in the same room with him during mediation. Nothing is binding. In your statement, just focus on YOUR positives. The sad truth is that the more you focus in him, the more likely it will be that you are perceived as the “vindictive ex”. Just state what you have to offer clearly and concisely with as little emotion as possible. It’s cruel because of course we are emotionally attached to the outcome, but as someone said earlier, the fact that you are walking into that room suggests that you are somehow being “petty” and unable to put your anger aside in the interest of the child. You e gotta prove them wrong!
freemama, thanks for your advice. For your letter, have you considered instead having the school write him a letter? I had a recent situation with my ex exposing my son (who has a medical issue) to cigarette smoke. Instead of me complaining about it, I simply had the doctor write a note stating that cigarette smoke will exasperate infections and it is recommended that the baby not be exposed to it.
If you get the school to detail their concerns, you can refuse basically saying that you are following the recommendations of the school and that if they had not disapproved you would have been more than willing to let him go. I just don’t think you should allow him to get away with using the excuse that he purchased tickets. He did this because he didn’t want to be told he couldn’t go.
Freemama,
the above advice is very very good. I also want to say that giving in to him will NOT buy you peace. On the contrary, your allowing him to win will only make you seem “weak” and predators salivate when they see weakness.
On the other hand, they also love rivalry, so opposing him will also make him want to up the ante. The answer is not to play the game. CapQ’s advice to let the principal decide may be the best solution. But be careful that the principal doesn’t end up being his best friend. Spaths can be very charming and they will brown-nose authorities if it will help them win a game.
I opposed a spath this week. I brought in the cops and the spath was so charming to them. They saw right through him.
Later, one of them said, “he becomes very submissive in the face of authority.” They all do.
Lastly, I would recommend that you buy the book, “Why Does He Do That? Inside the minds of angry men.” by Lundy Bancroft. Mr. Bancroft has got this down. He doesn’t call all of these creatures spaths, but he details how they behave.
After you’ve absorbed the book, you should give it to the supervisor who doesn’t get it. Tell her you cannot coparent because your ex is extremely abusive and you fear him. Give her the book. Unless she is a spath, she will understand. IF she IS a spath, she will become worse. Either way, at least you will know what you are dealing with. In the second situation, it’s called “giving them rope.” If she takes the rope and becomes spathier, then she hangs herself because you’ll see through her.
That book was recommended by my DV counselor years ago. It helped me sooooo much. I reccomend it to everyone!
The principal is amazing, and one of the very few people who didn’t fall for his charms. I suspect she’s been through the experience herself. This woman today did NOT get it. Of course he laid it on thick with her. He did in his letter to her (which of course he had to send to me, too. I did not share mine with him.) If the legal system folks (or anyone!) could just understand that the reason they do this is so the victim will not be believed when the doors close and we get the full wrath of Mr. Hyde, maybe the charm-act would show more proof of their sociopathy than denial. Instead, the same tired myth of a sociopath looking and acting like a deranged serial killer persists, and we continue to suffer the consequences.
I gotta pick my battles. The ds is really excited about going. The last thing I need is for this to become a wedge in my so-far wonderful relationship with him. It’s not worth it. There will be other battles. That’s the only guarantee I get with this messed-up parenting plan.