Neglect

[cgr68311]

Sorry about the verbatim, trying this again

So this week during an exchange, I caught PDx red handed on audio recording complaining that she doesn't know how to even feed our child, that only she can feed him is with videos or tablet, and that now that she has began to work, she will just have to show him MORE videos, that she doesn't have the energy after working full time to educate, discipline, read, play with him, so it will just be more videos, because that's what other parents do! She says she can only enjoy him if she's rested. She asked to do 4-4-3-3 but I said that's not a good schedule for a 2 year old child, and she said she agrees it may not best for him, but she comes first, that she's not doing well, and it's preferable for him to be away that long than have a mom going crazy.

So we agreed to do a trial where we split the weekends, instead of child spending a full weekend every other weekend, child would spend Saturdays with me so she can 'rest' and do her 'shopping' etc., then she can have him Sundays. However, instead of spending her Saturday to rest, she went out of town 3 hours away, and got caught in bad weather, and picked up child almost 2 hours late, very well past his bed time. I told her the trial was off and that we are going back to court schedule, and to not push my buttons with her constant CS blackmails because my lawyer is already looking into her recorded audio confession.

We will see what happens this week, but I am at least looking into neglect and have more time awarded or take full custody. I know the bar is high but the audio recording would shock any judge. It's that bad. I also have text messages from a few weeks back where she admitted having undiagnosed mental issues (currently she's taking some natural supplements).

[notrightinthehead]

Would you be happy to have full custody? Would you be able to manage it?

[cgr68311]

Would you be happy to have full custody? Would you be able to manage it?

Yes, and it's not really about me, I cannot just stand there and let him be neglected by his own mother, that would make me a participant.

[athene1399]

I am so sorry this has been going on. Do you think going back to the old schedule will help? Or is that temporary until you go back to court and hear what they have to say?

[cgr68311]

We are already back on the court schedule. We never began the proposed 3-4-4-3 schedule because she was 2 hours late on the first official exchange. We were supposed to start it this Saturday evening. It was not my Saturday to watch him but I did so in order to start 3-4-4-3 but she failed to appear on time.

She said she wanted to have every Saturday to rest from work, do shopping etc. But the bad weather that night exposed her. Instead of resting and shopping, she went 3 hours away and got stuck on terrible weather. All documented. So I said sorry but we are going back to status quo, I did not agree to split weekends so  you could go out of town. She was supposed to buy sippy cups and other daycare essentials, and guess what? She dropped him off today and apologized to the daycare for not bringing them.

One of my lawyers responded and said the recording is a mixed bag. While she says a number of things that do not reflect well on her, a court would also have a problem with both us having the conversation with our son present and using the parenting time exchange as an opportunity to record her. Well, I always record exchanges, but I think lawyer is right, I usually tell exPD to text or email me any scheduling or other concerns but recently had said she has not had time to read them so she just wanted to talk about in person. She had been calm last couple weeks so I fell for it, and yes, it's not good for our child to listen how she despises him when she's tired.

[cgr68311]

Update: tonight she tried a dirty tactic at exchange but came prepared with more than a recorder. Since our last exchange when she was two hours late coming back from her trip out of town, she had blocked me. Knowing her, she is probably livid and trying to figure out how to nullify the recorded confession of how she treats our child.

I figured she would try other dirty tricks at tonight's exchange. I picked up a recorder, then picked up my mom who just came into town, and she came along for the exchange, since I didn't know what to expect, figured I would need a witness. Arrived at her apartment complex, texted her, and because we both have iphones, I could easily tell she still had me blocked. I called her from my mom's cell and went to voicemail. So plan B went into effect: I had my mom knock on her door, she opened, greeted her and came downstairs with the baby. When she brought the baby, I asked her to unblock next time for exchange and said okay I will.

Both her roommate and her were both present when my mom knocked. I figured if I had gone alone, and knocked on her door, she could have tried to use her roommate as witness for some made up vile story. Next exchange I'll just arrive 15 minutes earlier and will text her then, if still blocked I'll just have civil standby do the knocking. Not going to put myself in a compromising situation which is what she wants, being passive aggressive, blocking me and see what comes out of that.

[Penny Lane]

Hello, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. It all sounds a lot like DH's ex, and I'm sorry to report that it'll probably continue to be tough. I do think it'll get easier, eventually, as your son gets older. But it will still be tough.

I have a couple suggestions of strategies that might make it easier. Not easy, but easier. Hopefully some of them will be helpful because like I said I know how hard this is.

My first thought: I think recording exchanges is a good thing, because it protects you from false allegations. However we generally haven't seen recordings be helpful to the non parents, at least on this board, when it comes to actually changing custody. I'm not saying it never happens, I just think judges frown on recording because it sets up an adversarial situation where they really want you to be working together. I wouldn't treat any recording like it's a smoking gun guaranteed to help you prevail in court. However what this particular recording can do is if she doesn't want other people to hear it, she might agree to an arrangement that's better for your son in exchange for you not bringing the recording to court.

Your overarching goal here is the right one - to protect your son as much as possible. The sad/frustrating thing is that you can't totally protect him from his own mother. So you will need to approach every situation like this one as strategically as possible. First, what is the best realistic possible outcome for your son? And second, what are your boundaries around what you are willing to do? It sounds like you did think about this - the best outcome for your son is a different schedule where his mom isn't so overwhelmed. Your boundary is that you are not willing to change the schedule if she is not going to be on time under the new arrangement. This is good!

I do, however, recommend that you not worry about what she's doing with that extra time. It's not really your business if she goes out of town or not. However, it is your business if she can't show up on time and it impacts your life. Don't even discuss with her what she does when your son isn't there. You wouldn't want her weighing in on your choices either. Your boundary can't depend on things she does that have no impact on your son or you. So canceling the trial because she was two hours late and it was bad for your son - totally reasonable. Canceling the trial because she went out of town rather than shopping like you were expecting - not so much. I mean, it can bug you privately, but when you discuss things with her you need to get really clear in your head about what affects your son, what affects you, and what are annoying traits of hers that don't affect either of you and thus you will have to let it go.

One more thing: Her blocking you when you are scheduled to pick up the child is a HUGE problem. She cannot leave you with no way to contact her. That is worth documenting in an email to her in writing, at minimum, and possibly even with a letter from your lawyer to her lawyer. That is something a judge will care about and there's no question who is the problem there. In fact, I think it makes sense to keep a log of every time there's an issue with an exchange. This is the kind of a thing that a judge can address, even if it's just by changing pickup protocols, and it shows a pattern of her not being willing to work with you. I also think you were very very smart to have a third party there and you should continue to avoid going up to her door at all costs.

Going forward, I suggest you look into BIFF communication. The principle is that you want to be brief, informative, friendly, firm. I think that you can proceed basically with what you are already doing, but you might be able to deescalate more if you can put this communication style into effect. Pushing all communication to email or text helps with this. Not only does it force her to put it in writing, but it also lets you sleep on any response and really focus on making it BIFF.

So now you have this information, that your ex is neglecting your son. You have a recording, which might or might not help you in court. And you have an ex who is feeling especially hostile to you right now, partially because you set a boundary, partially because she wants you to help her but only on her terms, and partially because you recorded her and threatened to use it in court and now she doesn't trust you. What do you do?

Here is what I suggest: Figure out what you reasonably might get from her, and bluff (even if it's unspoken). I don't think you're going to get full custody. But you might get every Saturday, or something along those lines. Have your lawyer send her a letter to her lawyer stating that she told you that she doesn't have the energy to deal with a toddler with her new job and that she has asked for your help. Aka take a very collaborative tone. Quote a little bit from the recording, some of the less bad stuff that still doesn't make her look great. She won't want her lawyer to see this, and the prospect of her lawyer or a judge hearing the whole recording might make her realize that she needs to concede. The letter should say that she specifically asked you to take him on Saturdays, and that you're willing and able to do that.

Frankly, I think she is probably so mad that she won't agree to this. It's a shame because this really would be best for everyone - especially for her. But I think at this point she's not going to be willing to work with you on ANYTHING. Then you'll decide what you need to do - follow up with a sterner letter, take it to a judge or drop it.

One more thing: The reality is that she is going to be your son's mom for his entire life. Where you see an opportunity, definitely press court-wise for a better setup for your son. But I also suggest you do some work on accepting that she will always be a part of his life, she will never be good at parenting, and that the best thing you can do for your son will often be to give him the coping tools he needs to handle her. Especially when he gets older. At some point, pushing in court will just be spinning your wheels, and your energy will be better spent on using the time you do have with him to make him more resilient. This is a very hard paradigm shift, when parents feel like they're supposed to protect their kids from everything and then it turns out they're not even allowed to protect them. But if you can really internalize this idea, I think it will serve you well in the long run.

[cgr68311]

Appreciate everyone's replies but particularly the thoughtfulness and perspective of this last reply, Penny. Not your first rodeo I can tell

I think you made very good points, and that is that it is difficult to protect from the other parent, how many cases of rehabilitated parents do we see that end up receiving parenting time down the road after living very detrimental lives? So I get it. But yes, at least the recording should be helpful as a deterrent from further pressure to do as she says or else court threats.

It appears she did unblock me since I have our child. Yes, I'll likely use BIFF (always forget) and will also start using Talking Parents again. So I'll just send her a very brief text and say "hey check your TP for some updates and pictures".

[Penny Lane]

Not your first rodeo I can tell

Every piece of advice I share on here is the result of hard-fought experience, often doing the wrong thing over and over until we found a better strategy, plus a very good therapist. I hope others can learn from our mistakes and sometimes successes!

What you are facing right now is something that probably every parent on this board has had to reckon with: Setting boundaries vs working with the PD (when they only want to work with you on their terms).

Is it better for everyone that you subject yourself to her lateness, rudeness and general bad behavior, and in exchange you get the opportunity to work with her to see your son more often when she can't handle it? Or do you sent boundaries for your own mental health, making yourself a better parent but likely leading the PD to close off information to you?

FWIW, DH leans heavily on the side of boundaries, although my stepkids are much older and he spoke to their mom much more regularly early on. We both feel that getting enmeshed in her drama makes us worse parents when the kids are here. And even when DH was more involved in what she's doing at her house, it didn't feel like he was actually able to effect positive change at BM's house. It felt like she was bringing him down a lot more than he was lifting her up.

So now they essentially parallel parent, and it means that she won't really let him help her out when she's struggling like your ex does. But it also means that when the kids are with us, we are truly focusing on the kids, not worrying about DH replying to 1000 angry messages from their mom or counteracting other damage from her.

Everyone ends up finding their own balance here. Some people make it work to have more interaction with the ex than DH does. My only suggestion is to be purposeful about looking for a balance that gets you the most benefit - and don't discount the benefit of peace!

[Rose1]

Its very difficult,  exbpdh was an absent parent but used every opportunity when he had the kids to get at me in some way.  With lots of parental alienation thrown in.
Because they weren't in the pd influence all the time my kids saw through it. It made them angry too.

In my case if there was something like very late drop-off I made sure I wasn't home after a certain time to allow for traffic etc. His meant he had to deal with it,  be late for his appointment,  make sure the kids ate etc.

I found that when it disadvantaged him I did not get much repeat behavior.  He did however instead up the pa, and the smear campaigns.  So there was always something because to him I deserved to be punished and it was never about the kids.

I found that setting boundaries worked better than anything else. But fortunately because he rarely saw the kids I didn't have to try and do it every week. I can't imagine that would have worked too well because he would have escalated.