Settled a case!

[Penny Lane]

Hi everyone, we got a rare huge victory recently when DH and BM settled their case! It seemed for a long time like she was going to force it to trial over some very minor final issues then she just ... came around and agreed to compromise. This outcome is better for everyone - most importantly the kids! - and I am so happy. I thought I'd share some of the strategies he used that helped him get her agree to settle in case it might help others in a similar situation.

Quick synopsis: Even when I met DH not long after the divorce, it was clear their arrangement wasn't working. In her times of stress things got worse between DH and her and ultimately for the kids. And the kids' bills often weren't getting paid, it was to the point where she would hide bills from DH. Eventually she let their health insurance lapse and wouldn't agree to let the kids go on DH's insurance. So DH decided to address alllll the financial and parenting issues in one case. Two years later, here we are! The outcome is that they settled the case in three parts: insurance (the kids are on our insurance and there have been no problems), parenting issues, then finally child support/bills. This final settlement was made on the eve of what would've been their trial.

Here are some things he did right that I think someone else could replicate:
-- Documenting: He actually didn't have to work very hard to pull together documents on the back end because most of his best evidence was actually her own words. What he did do well, however, was in the months and years leading up to the trial, he made a good faith effort to work with her on these issues. Even though he didn't really expect her to engage, he gave her an opportunity to do the right thing over and over. So there were tons and tons of email exchanges that showed him being productive and her telling him to fuck off, literally or through her actions. I also think she worsened the problem by lying to her lawyer about what documents existed, so the deposition/discovery answers were very eye opening for the lawyer. And DH did pull together some documents that, combined with her emails and texts, showed that she had been lying to him all along, showing more coparenting bad faith.

-- DH set the agenda for the case. BM had spent years threatening to take him back to court for child support or custody. But in the actual case it was him driving the discussion and setting the agenda. That meant he could keep it focused on the things the kids needed the most. (And the midpoint would be halfway between the current situation and what we wanted, instead of what she wanted).

-- When DH talked to her about settlement he mostly kept it on her level. By that I mean, like, the reality was that he wanted the kids on his insurance because then there would be the certainty that the insurance wouldn't lapse. And if he went to the judge he would've argued that BM isn't capable of handling the insurance. But that argument would've never flown with her - he kept it focused on why his plan was better, and his was clearly better in every way.

-- I think it was really key to break it into three separate discussions. All three at once would've been too overwhelming. She agreed to give up parenting time waaaaaaaaay more easily than she agreed to give up money.

-- He kept his asks reasonable. On child support in particular, he was asking a very reasonable midpoint, not the absolute most a judge might've ordered. He said his own lawyer seemed really surprised that he wasn't out to get everything he could from BM. He and I had several discussions about that and I felt really strongly that he needed to be fair to BM financially (and otherwise!) while still trying to make sure the kids get taken care of. He agreed of course.

-- He and I both spent a lot of time brainstorming creative solutions to offer in settlement. BM is all black and white so she would ask something and basically say, take it or leave it. Like when they were discussing parenting time the final sticking point was a new vacation schedule that would've prevented a trip that DH and the kids have been making every year since they were born. But when we looked at her email it seemed that she just wanted a little more vacation time to match DH's vacation time. So he just offered that, rather than redoing the whole schedule and the deal was back on.

-- Pretty early on he learned that he needed to push the case forward even if it seemed like settlement was progressing. BM jerked him around several times, making noise like she was going to settle, then when DH agreed to push back the upcoming hearing she would stop responding until the next hearing was coming up. He finally said, OK we're not pushing that hearing back anymore, and BM settled that part of the case the morning before the 10 a.m. hearing.

The whole process was an expensive and frustrating energy suck. At different times I both gained and lost weight because of the stress. I would not recommend it if you don't have to go through it. DH's goal in settling was to get a plan that he could live with long-term so that none of us would have to go through this again. Thought obviously that depends on BM not doing something like letting the kids insurance lapse again - but hopefully now there are enough safeguards that she can't do that.

A couple other things to know:

Unsurprisingly through all this BM behaved really badly. She would do things like, tell him that she was considering his settlement proposal and then when he asked her where she was at on it tell him that she didn't want to do it because she was mad that he took her to court (but if you don't want to be in court you should settle?) She kept trying to trap him into doing or saying something that would help her case, but he didn't ever take the bait. But the good thing is that when it really came down to it all the concessions she asked for were really short-sighted. Like in exchange for giving up parenting time she wanted DH to tell her about how we clean the house. So DH has more parenting time for the rest of the kids' childhoods, and she has a piece of useless information that's already become outdated. It was all about control, none of it was strategic. That's really where he won - he focused on the long term outcome and she focused on what she wanted in the moment.

They were in front of the judge a lot over the course of the case and I would say that he was generally fair but very reluctant to change anything. I've said this before but he wouldn't do an emergency order to put the kids on DH's health insurance when they weren't covered. That felt like a huge blow at the time. But I imagine that his goal was to force them to try to work it out themselves, which they did. I think in all it's probably better that they settled, I think she is more likely to do something she agreed to.

And the outcome has been great so far! The kids are here only slightly more in any given week but it seems that the extra stability has been wonderful for them - they're doing better in school, they seem happier and more confident, they're less tired overall. And on the financial side DH didn't negotiate a windfall for us by any means but there is more certainty that if the kids have a big unexpected expense the money will be there (rather than BM squandering it on bars or clothes or whatever else).

I know this is loooong but I feel like I wish someone had said all this to us two years ago! I really hope our hard earned experience can help someone else.

[sevenyears]

Penny Lane - that is wonderful news!

[Stepping lightly]

That's awesome news PL!  Hopefully you guys gets some peace, at least for a while. 

I really really have to ask, and you don't have to  tell us if you don't want to, but just how DO you clean your house?

[Penny Lane]

Thanks guys! We are soooo happy. I for one am really excited to start spending all the energy that would've gone toward the trial on the kids and on enjoying our time as newlyweds!

Oh man that whole thing cleaning was so bizarre. I would say we clean our house the normal way but that answer was NOT enough for BM.

The backstory was that she realllllllllly hates DH's boundaries about her not coming into our house. So in her mind "you are not to come in the house" =  DH must be embarrassed that the house is so dirty. And somehow that turned into, the house must be a safety hazard and DH is hiding from her that the kids are living in unsafe conditions. So this was an ongoing issue for years, she would insist he "had to" let her come in and inspect the house. I want to say at one point she involved the kids' doctor, like maybe she told him that we have mold at our house or something, though I wasn't there so maybe I'm remembering wrong. DH pretty much just ignored all of it.

As a sidenote, this really seemed like projection which makes me really worried about what her house is like. At one point she hired a lady to come clean her house but I'm sure that didn't last long - we haven't heard about the cleaning lady for years.

So then when the court case came up her lawyer kept asking DH's lawyer to detail his exact cleaning process. Like, several times, and each time they acted like DH was hiding some big thing? I mean honestly I'm not sure how much more detail he could've given them. Then in one of the rounds of settlement they had the documents all drafted and the day before they were supposed to sign BM said she wouldn't sign unless DH again wrote out his cleaning process and also attached pictures of the house so she could see for herself that it was clean. Believe me I did NOT like DH giving her pictures of the house that I was by then living in. But again the kids were going to benefit so much in the long term from this deal we just went with it. I really thought she was going to find something to complain about in the pictures but she never said anything else. And at that point the document was already signed so what was she going to do, MAKE us dust the high places we can't reach (or whatever her issue was, it was never really clear to me)?

There's a funny post script to the story which is that pretty soon after that we figured out how to turn house cleaning into a family game that we play every weekend the kids are here. And the kids like the game so much they ASK to play it. Like at the end of the day I'll be like, "OK the house is really clean, we can stop now," and the kids will say "just 20 minutes more???" I imagine stories of our game have made it back to BM's house - actually I know it has in some form or another because one time on the phone BM asked what the kids did that day and DSD said "we cleaned!" and BM said something like "oh that's too bad" and DSD said "No it was fun!" Since then DH hasn't heard another peep from her about the state of the house.

My theory is that she liked asking about it when she though she was making DH feel bad about his cleaning skills. She didn't actually want to hear the real answer, that the house is generally clean (not spotless for sure! but definitely sanitary) and there aren't a whole lot of cleaning-related problems in our home. Now I can laugh about it, what a bizarre and pointless episode that was and she spent such an incredible amount of energy on it.

[Stepping lightly]

That's really funny, and you are amazing that you have made cleaning fun!

BM has accused us of cleanliness issues in the past.  I agree on the projection idea, I've seen pictures of the house DH lived in with BM and it was pretty gross...stuff piled everywhere.  She demanded at one point that we have or brand new house professionally cleaned.  We said, "sure, will you be paying for that by cash or check?".  We actually get our house professionally cleaned the day before the kids return to us every time (with EOW, it's only 2x month).  We had so many issues with the allergy, dirty house accusations we just sucked it up.  It's funny though, the kids and therefore BM have NO IDEA!  We go to great lengths to keep that under wraps because the number of responses I can imagine about it;  how if we have so much money we should give it to her, how I am unable to keep a house clean on my own, and from the kids- I imagine they will feel no need to help keep things clean as "the cleaning people will just do it"....so...it makes me chuckle that the kids don't even question the extreme clean state of their room each time they come back :-)  I also dream of the day she tries to make the dirty house claim formal...and I have years of cleaning receipts.

[Whiteheron]

Great news PL!

The backstory was that she realllllllllly hates DH's boundaries about her not coming into our house. So in her mind "you are not to come in the house" =  DH must be embarrassed that the house is so dirty. And somehow that turned into, the house must be a safety hazard and DH is hiding from her that the kids are living in unsafe conditions. So this was an ongoing issue for years, she would insist he "had to" let her come in and inspect the house. I want to say at one point she involved the kids' doctor, like maybe she told him that we have mold at our house or something, though I wasn't there so maybe I'm remembering wrong. DH pretty much just ignored all of it.

stbx keeps insisting he be allowed to "inspect" my house to make sure it's suitable for the kids. His L brings up some version of "stbx needs to see the house because of ______" each time we're in court. There is no way that man is setting foot in my home. That is the one firm boundary I have drawn and will not budge on. I can't even (mentally) handle the idea of him driving the kids to my house - sitting in the driveway...at the foot of the driveway - nope. I start to panic at the thought.

[athene1399]

I am so happy for you, PL!! You must be so relieved. Thank you for the long post. There is so much useful info there.

he focused on the long term outcome and she focused on what she wanted in the moment.

I think this is huge. If you can find a way to do something dumb they want so matter how crazy, the PD may be more likely to agree to what you want. It sounds like you guys found a way to create your own win/win. I'm sure it wasn't easy, but I am so glad you were able to make it work. And how you said she was cool giving up parenting time, but didn't like the idea of losing money. I think this helped to show BM's true colors.

I really really have to ask, and you don't have to  tell us if you don't want to, but just how DO you clean your house?

I started laughing when I read this.  Do you have to keep her informed if you change cleaning supply brands? lol

[Penny Lane]

Thank you guys!

SL, I think the cleaning situation is, no joke, by far by biggest accomplishment as a stepparent and maybe a human. Every time the kids ask to play the game I text all my friends to tell them. It's amazing. A lot of it is that the kids are so good natured and can find the fun in almost anything.

WhiteHeron, I physically cringed when I read the thing about him wanting to inspect your house. STAY STRONG. If BM came into my home ever I would feel like burning it down and starting over. She does come to the driveway and I don't even like that - you never know if she's going to cause a scene or what. I know it makes DH extremely uncomfortable too but there's really not a way around it. I guess at the beginning she would come to the door, but DH put a stop to that pretty quick when she started trying to walk into the house. As part of the parenting stuff settlement DH actually had it written into the agreement that she has to stay in her car at exchanges.

Athene, I think focusing on the long term is pretty much always the way to go. Whenever I step back and think, OK, BM is trying to cause a petty argument, what's best for the kids here? It always guides me to the right thing to do. Sometimes you've got to engage in some short term conflict (or in a court case, long term conflict) to get the best situation for the kids. Other times, it makes sense to let stuff go. But it's hard to know without looking at the long term outcome.

LOL can you imagine if DH started sending her daily updates about our cleaning? "Today was deep cleaning day, we scrubbed the toilets, cleaned the floors, windexed the mirrors and cleaned out the bathtub." "Today things are a little messy, the kids did arts and crafts, I hope living among their drawings and crafts rather than having a spotless house isn't too detrimental for them." "We both worked really long hours today, not much cleaning got done." That probably still wouldn't be enough for her.

[Stepping lightly]

I actually have nightmares that BM enters our house, nightmares!  DH is not allowed to go to her house for an reason per the order, per her demand.  But it's fine for her to stand at our front door and scream at us.  DH gave in to putting that in the order because as much as it sucks having her here, it does remove a level of ability to cause conflict on exchanges.  I HATE it, and now that the kids are older we don't go to the door.  I actually hide in the kitchen, my game is to see how long I can go without putting my eyes on her or her on me.  But she ALWAYS comes to the door, drop off and pick up.  I just think that if I had been horribly abused by my ex, as she claims, I would NOT want to go to the door and would resist face time.  But alas, what do I know ?

[anxiousmom]

So happy to hear this, and also happy to hear that the court system was reluctant to change any current orders. I have been stressing non stop about the "what ifs" when it comes to the courts and their willingness to hear BPPex's case.

I do have documentation, and I do have a track record of my ex being non compliant when it comes to therapy, as well as going off meds just in 2017. When we are only talking about 2.5 years since the divorce, I keep thinking surely the court will consider this a short amount of time for him to be suing me to something he just agreed to only 2.5 years ago...?

In any case, very happy and encouraged by your message. Thank you for sharing! Now go enjoy your newlywed stage

[Penny Lane]

I have nightmares about BM coming to the house too and making a scene. They started when she came to the house and drunkenly screamed at us in front of the kids and we had to call the police. So I guess you don't have to do a lot of deep psychological digging to figure out what's the cause of the bad dreams.

Anxiousmom, not only was the judge reluctant to make changes but he explicitly told them that he wasn't going to amend parenting time. Obviously we were on the other side of that but I hope it gives you some comfort. They'd been divorced for about the same amount of time as you have when this case started. In our case that was part of the reason settling was so important - the kids are so much better for that extra stability, the money doesn't matter nearly as much to me.

[lilyflower236]

Congratulations!!!! It must feel like an huge heavy weight is off your shoulders!

I think we've discussed it before, but it's so strange to me that BM didn't want the kids to be on your husband's insurance. That reduces medical costs! I'm going to tell my ex this week that our son will be added to my health insurance in the next few weeks as a secondary policy. I started a new job, and ex's insurance is TERRIBLE. We're paying out of pocket for everything until a $5K deductible is met and it's been a real pain. My insurance has $20 co-pays for regular Dr visits, not to mention vision and dental insurance which his dad does not have for him. I'm worried my ex might fight me on this but it would make no sense, it benefits him since he has to pay 50% of medical costs!

Secondly, the clean house thing is soooo weird. I can't even fathom it. But I must know — how do you turn housecleaning into a game?  I need that information stat!

I must back up what you said about the important actions you took with the case. You must almost always give the co-parent a chance to respond to issues and work things out, most preferably in writing (text or email). Even though you know they probably won't respond, and even if you know they'll probably send a ranting message cussing you out. You can't go to court and present the judge with a big list of issues you've had with co-parenting and not show that you tried everything in your power to resolve it before going back to court. It will just make the judge angry if you didn't try to do something about the problems first before resorting to the legal system. I was able to show written evidence I had approached my ex in a respectful manner over and over (over a period of 3 years) about his wife's behavior to our son, and he would never respond. Written emails and text messages that were ignored. It was a huge advantage  in my case for me.

[Penny Lane]

The health insurance was so weird. The plan they were on with her was more expensive, and it covered less, than DH's plan. She said all the time that she was struggling to afford it. But she just wouldn't agree to put the kids on his insurance. Even after it lapsed she hid that fact rather than letting DH put them on his plan. I really do think it all came down to child support - his child support went down when he put the kids on his plan. I think she saw that as a "loss" even though it actually ended up being cheaper to her. But I really think everything is a competition to her and every dollar she gets from DH is a point for her and every dollar she gives to him she sees as a loss of a point.

Oh man, I looooove talking about the chore game. I'm so proud of it. All four of us contributed ideas and it kind of evolved into what it has become. First we started putting all their weekend chores on slips of paper and drawing them out of a hat. Then at the kids' request they started getting stickers for each chore completed. They they started pretending that they're animals while they clean, but they can only be an animal that they have a sticker of. They we started putting some fun stuff on some of the slips of paper, like playing video games. They LOVE this because they don't really get to play video games at other times. Some of the slips of paper are really big jobs - like cleaning the bathroom. DH and I will sit with them and show them step by step how to do it. I think that's a really key part of it - they like learning to do stuff like adults, plus the family togetherness aspect. Most of the slips are their normal weekly chores (clean their room, pick up the living room) then we'll add a couple things that need to be done sporadically, like help dad organize the pantry. Usually we don't get through every slip but I generally insist that the major ones get done before we stop, like the living room. The goal overall is that when they're grown they'll know how to do all this stuff without a lot of stress. Plus of course to try to maintain a somewhat clean house!

On the thing about working with the PD: In DH's case he knew he was documenting for court when he would politely ask her to work stuff out. But we also wanted to do a kind of experiment about what works and what doesn't In the time. I've known him he's probably tried dozens of strategies for productive communication with her and he truly did want it to work! Engaging more, engaging less, being proactive, just waiting to see if something comes up, trying to catch her at a good time, cc'ing other people (like the doctors office or whatever). None of it made her behave any better at all. The only thing that helped was BIFF and that made her emails slightly less rude but things still weren't getting worked out. And knowing that he's given her all those opportunities to work with him, that makes me feel OK about disengaging now. It didn't just prove to the judge that BM simply refuses to work with DH. It proved to ME that there's really nothing he could do, he's tried absolutely everything. And the fact that it makes her look really, really bad is a bonus. I mean we kind of knew that would be the outcome but now we REALLY KNOW.

[Stepping lightly]

Yep- health insurance headaches here too!  Big surprise.  I think a lot of it is child support and control.

DH carried the kids' insurance for quite a long time.  BM actually called  his insurance at one point and got personal/financial information that she should have never had access to.  DH didn't want her having access to HIS health/financial information so he put a password on the account.  She apparently tried to pull her trick again, and was told that unless she had the password they couldn't give her any information.  She lost it.  It got so ugly that her BF cornered DH in an exam room during a doctor's appt and demanded he give him the password then and there.  DH refused.  DH gave her EOBs, so there was no hiding of information, she just wanted more than she was entitled to. 

So- BM then went on a tear and demanded that she carry the kids' insurance.  Just like you all, it seems, there was also a lapse in coverage we weren't aware of.  She also tried to force DH to pay the penalty for the lapse.    Now BM refuses to provide EOBs, and I honestly think she is making a killing on what she is telling DH he owes, and she likely gets reimbursed for it.  We don't really fight it, we figure if she goes back for more child support, we'll ask for the historical EOBs she refused to send and we'll do the math.    But I do think BM has Munchhausen by proxy (feelings validated by professionals, but unable to prove), so she likely is hiding appts that she is taking the kids to.  This is another area of radical acceptance...she wants to prove DH is medically negligent so badly, but trying to stay on top of her about it was actually making DH and I sick.  But then DSD comes back last week and tells us she was sick, BM did not take her to the doctor, but they couldn't figure out what she had.  Per DSD, "Mom said she didn't think I had scarlet fever because I never had strep"...she was checking for scarlet fever...but didn't think that might be a good time to take her to the doctor?  WHO is medically negligent?

[Penny Lane]

Oh the similarities! BM wouldn't give DH the password the the kids' insurance accounts. But now she wants the password to DH's account (which unlike the plan she had for them  has his and now my information on it too). AND when she let the insurance lapse he figured out about it because a bill came in really high and she was asking him to pay half. Like a routine doctors visit that should've been free was several hundred dollars. And even after it became clear that it was her fault she tried to argue that he still had to pay for half. And then when THAT didn't work she tried to lie and say only part of the bill was because they kids didn't have insurance. AND she refuses to take the kids to the doctor on her time or even let DH take them. This is for things like strep where they really need to see the doctor. But then she'll get the idea in her head that one of the kids has cancer and needs to go to the doctor immediately. Fortunately that one died pretty quick and DH said the doctor was baffled about why they were even there.

[Penny Lane]

I just remembered that at one point she had to give DH a password for an account she'd set up for the kids. I can't remember if the judge made her or her lawyer told her to or what. Anyway she changed the password to something ridiculous before she gave it to him. It wasn't exactly - but it was along the lines of - (her name) is (kids name) favorite.

[Stepping lightly]

Ha, at least we are given some things to chuckle about!