The Psycho Ex Wife

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Folks, this is a really long one.  If you think you’re going to try to do this all in one sitting, better wrap yourself in a Snuggie and have a nice, strong drink at the ready.

Go on, take your time… I’ll wait…

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(This is me, waiting…)

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We often fail to realize “things” when we’re right in the thick of it.  Thus, comes the beauty of hindsight.  You see, PEWs like mine never learn from the past and therefore are always doomed to repeat it.  I annoyingly speak of projection when it comes to PEW, but it simply cannot be helped.  One of the unfortunate by-products of my long layoff in 2007 and my long layoff last year is the dreaded trips to the courthouse for the waste-of-time conferences followed by the inevitable hearings.  Child support has to be adjusted one way or the other (and sometimes not) and this gives PEW the opportunity for PEW to recycle her old tricks, like her magical math that grossly over-inflates child care expenses and health care expenses and whatever else it is she can fabricate in an effort to maximize the child support number.  It’s especially nice for her when her fictional figures get rolled into the equation by the courts, because when she doesn’t actually incur those expenses, that’s cash-money directly into her pocket.

Dateline, early 2006. As discussed in general many times in the past, I had grown tired of being “ripped off” by PEW’s magical math.  I also had grown tired of “taking the (bullshit) high road” and simply sacrificing substantial credits due me when things were to be righted, just to avoid going to court.  While I wasn’t particularly smart and certainly not in low-contact mode, I was definitely trying to rattle the cage by calling her on her fuzzy math, even when it was just blowing smoke to expose her lies.

It was tax time and I was foolishly relying on PEW for some information I needed to do taxes.  I requested the tax ID numbers of the school, the church (for S2’s pre-k), and the babysitter she reportedly was paying $165/week to watch S2 for three half-days per week.  This was not good for either PEW or “Janice” because I was blustering about claiming my percentage of childcare costs that were part of the CS figure.

PEW wasn’t giving it, not only because she flat-out didn’t pay Janice what she had told the court, but Janice would also have to report the amount PEW told the court, every single week, as income… did I mention every single week for the school year?  Looks like this was a serious catch-22.  While ultimately I let it drop, her lies to compound her lies might make for great reading.  At the same time, you can have a chuckle about how ridiculous high-contact continued to make me look.  We’ll pick it up after the initial requests and back-and-forth…  I had called her on the figures she gave to the court and she replied:

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In Part 2 of the 2005 Christmas and Thanksgiving mess, things started to spiral out of control.  In today’s segment, the fallout will see a “double-reverse” and, as usual, we’ll make due with what we managed to obtain.

PEW,

I’m not “bargaining” with you, either. This is a simple matter of finding out if I can follow through with already arranged Thanksgiving plans without you using the children as pawns to prevent me from picking up S2.

Since you still cannot do that, I say again, I am left with no choice. I will no longer continue to knuckle-under under your threats. Sorry if that “breaks S1’s heart” - but I will explain to him that unfortunately, you and I were not able to work out the schedule.

Since I cannot plan for Thanksgiving holiday time nor Christmas week time, I will simply follow through on my usual weekend time because that’s the way you want it. That’s what’s really sad - your desire to be a ‘hard-ass’ again is what is ultimately breaking S1’s heart.

~LM

Of course I will continue to avoid bad-mouthing PEW to the children at all costs. It’s not good for them and it’s not good for me. Anytime any truths need to be shared, they should be shared carefully and in an age-appropriate way - a word of advice all normal parents should follow, even in situations such as these.

LM,

Why can’t you just come up here, stay and take him to the party? Or you leave them both here for the weekend and keep your Thanksgiving plans the way they were?? This is insane.

~PEW

Well, she got one thing right. It was certainly insane. One thing she never got through her thick head is her belief that I could just impose on other friends or family members to house me and the children whenever I asked. These are people with lives, children of their own (some very new additions), and plans of their own that weren’t going to be simply dropped whenever I wanted them to host me and the children for several days.

PEW,

1) Because I can’t afford a hotel room for the weekend.

2) Because you won’t keep a story straight on either my Thanksgiving weekend plans or what I have in mind for Christmas (either the morning of the 26th thru the 3rd or the morning of the 26th thru the 30th).

If you can commit to making sure I can keep my plans for Thanksgiving and let me spend Christmas week with them, I won’t risk losing any time with them.

It’s only “insane” because you’ve said “no” to both Thanksgiving and Christmas. And since I can’t count on you not to “revoke” your agreements once plans are set, I’d just as soon keep the schedule the way it is.

If something should change on the “housing front” for the forthcoming weekend, I would do it. If it doesn’t, I can’t. But you need to stop this “yes” and then “no” BS so that we can BOTH plan accordingly.

~LM

I couldn’t make it anymore clear. I also couldn’t understand that it wasn’t possible to make it clear because clarity isn’t a PEW strong suit. It’s always all about the engagement and nothing more.

In her next follow-up, she’d write, “You mean to tell me you can’t stay with…” …and she made a list of family and friends that I should be able to stay with, over the holidays, simply because I asked. Maybe this is also part of the borderline’s lofty sense of entitlement. Perhaps in her mind, no one else’s family plans during the holidays should take a back seat to her expectations of them.

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If you thought the stories about phone call interference ended, mercifully, with the Phone Call Series: Lies, Manipulation, Custodial Interference, Parental Alienation, you were horribly mistaken.  At least today we’ll call it what it is - maternal gatekeeping.  Maternal gatekeeping is often brought up in the context of normal marriages and is a situation where a mother is subtly sabotaging the interrelationship between the father and the children by interfering in their participation in normal parental activities.  Those who don’t believe in maternal gatekeeping will simply argue that craptastic husbands are lazy sloths who choose not to do work around the house, particularly when it comes to babies and children.  The most vociferous of those are likely the maternal gatekeeping mothers who just don’t like the way dad does things and, after a while, a father just gets fed up with her shit and withdraws rather than persist in doing something his way.  It’s very hard for these mothers to realize that there is very likely more than one way to accomplish many of these tasks, particularly as it pertains to children…

• If dad wants to use 40 wipes to change a diaper, while mom uses two, that’s okay.  If mom gets pissed off that dad uses 40 wipes, that doesn’t mean he didn’t perform a successful diaper change.  Rather than deal with her bitching, he no longer changes diapers, mom figures he one of “those” dads and the cycle is complete.
• Also, if the father has a competitive streak, he may want to see if he can a diaper using the fewest wipes possible.  Dad is competing against no one but himself - he just wants to see if it can be done.  I could fold a frigging’ baby wipe to the size of a postage stamp and have those babies spic-an’-span using only one wipe.  Some mothers may scoff at that idea and there is some specific amount to use… blah, blah, blah… the cycle continues.
• A smart father won’t allow himself to be shut out of child rearing duties, tell mom to take a frigging hike, and change the baby however he sees fit.  Remember, dad does play a role in allowing the maternal gatekeeping mother to operate with uncanny effectiveness.

But I digress… the true point I wanted to make is like most fathers - I was originally relegated to non-custodial status, and when divorce and child custody came to darken my door.  When you’re a non-custodial father, maternal gatekeeping activities are a favorite pastime for the malicious ex-wife.  One of the most common and effective ways is interfering with phone contact.  Such was the case near constantly with PEW in the early years.  2005 was a particularly gruesome year for all kinds of bullshit, but we’re pretty close to wrapping up the pertinent parts of that year.  It starts with the phone.  One night, my call went unanswered and given that I was keeping a log “just in case” it became a frequent habit, she would get paranoid.  Early November 2005 was one of those times and I received an email the following morning, unsolicited.

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Well, it’s obviously no secret that I wasn’t thrilled about the report and recommendations.  In terms of the parenting aspects and relationship I have with the children - I was quite happy.  However, after everything that was discussed about with both PEW and me, everything that was supposed to be in the report but wasn’t, and everything that was in the report - how could I be anything but thoroughly disappointed overall?

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

One of the biggest issues I had was the glaring omission from the report of Psycho-SIL residing with PEW and the children.  The report didn’t reflect the significant level of concern Gloria expressed in the sessions with her.  I don’t overstate it when I say that she was adamant that it was going to end up being a problem and insisted openly that PEW’s lying about the living arrangements would be part of the report.  It didn’t happen as I detailed in Part 1.

Things really get exasperating in Part II where the overall impressions and observations are documented.

Gloria, about PEW:

She feels alone in parenting the children and overwhelmed when either of the children exhibit any aggression. Her parenting effectiveness has therefore been diminished since the loss of the co-parenting arrangement that the parties enjoyed throughout their marriage, and their separation, prior to LM’s move.

Interesting.  And completely false. PEW’s style of parenting was quite different from mine. She didn’t like being the bad guy. She didn’t like being a disciplinarian. She didn’t like doing anything that involved something other than being fun and friends with the children even at the youngest ages.

From my preparation for the hearing:

Gloria’s report contends that PEW’s issues with controlling the boy’s outbursts are due to the loss of co-parenting that was in place when LM lived in [custody-state]. LM would contend that PEW has always had issues when alone with the boys, even when they were married and living together, as evidenced by the instant messages previously attached in this section. LM has consistently tried to help PEW be more consistent with the boys, but he would be no more successful in this endeavor if he lived next door than if he lived across the country, as it is up to PEW to change her behavior.

Gloria’s contention that the “void” LM’s absence creates has been caused by his move is simply unrealistic. His absence was caused by the divorce and PEW’s wish to maintain primary physical custody. This same absence would exist even if he lived in [custody state] and PEW maintained primary physical custody. He simply can’t be there all the time if he is to move on with his own life. If PEW needed him there all the time she should have and could have considered working harder on her own issues and the marital issues and not filed for divorce. It is unfortunate that PEW can’t handle the responsibility of her two children on her own, but these are the realities of being a single parent. These are the same realities LM faces when parenting the boys on his own, and yet he has been able to handle them, both in the year before the move and since.

This line of thinking has always frustrated the ever-loving shit out of me.  I have a tendency to be all about root-cause and effect.  To this day, I can find no one who can attribute anything that has occurred in the aftermath of the separation and divorce - to the fucking separation and divorce!!! I’m not convinced that you, the reader, can understand just how exasperating that is.  Not only PEW, but others, in this case Gloria, lay the blame at my feet despite the documented struggles PEW had with parenting on her own, even when we were married!  Further, the situation is not caused by my relocation.  The situation is caused by PEW filing for divorce, leaving the marital home, and fighting tooth-and-nail for sole/primary custody of the children!  That’s the reality!!!  So, why does everyone have such hard time acknowledging the true root-cause of the situation?

I know!  Because it would mean putting the blame and/or responsibility on the mother!

Here’s the reality - if I have 6 days per month with the children in Russia or I have 6 days per month with the children across town - WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?!?!?!  To normal people - there is none, so my relocation has absolutely NO bearing on PEW’s inability to parent.  PEW is totally responsible for that, but you won’t find it in the report.  More bothersome - is that Gloria’s language actually validates PEW’s thoughts - that my relocation is the root of everything bad that has happened… since the relocation.

We didn’t “enjoy” any co-parenting arrangement post-separation, and it was strained during the marriage.  It was clear in the sessions.  It was supported by ample documentation and even PEW’s own words, but you won’t find that in the report.

Gloria, about LM: (more…)

Continuing from the prior installment, the observations of DW, the children, and the overall observations and impressions, comes the recommendation by Gloria, Custody Evaluator #2.

RECOMMENDATION:

With the permission of the Court to make recommendations in this matter, and based upon the available clinical data, it is my professional opinion, within a reasonable degree of certainty, that the best psychological interests of S1 and S2 are served as follows…

What exactly does that mean, anyway?  It’s a lot of really big, cool sounding professional words that don’t mean shit.  What does “available clinical data” mean?  What amounted to a couple of hours, at most, with any one of us?  She does so with a “reasonable degree of certainty?”  How does one measure that?  It’s so blatantly misleading and unprofessional that it should be illegal to have it as boilerplate language on these reports.  At least they could try to be somewhat honest about it and say, “Based upon the very limited interaction that I had with this family and collateral contacts, and with absolutely no real certainty other than my opinion about myself and the report I’ve decided to throw together at the last minute… and absent any hard-and-fast true clinical data… and with a caseload that is making our files burst at the seams - I make the following recommendations to the court and thank them for referring the thousands of families that go through the Family Court Room like an assembly line to our organization to the tune of several thousand dollars a pop monthly:”

Too much?

LEGAL CUSTODY: The parties should retain joint legal custody.

RESIDENTIAL PLAN: Primary physical custody of both children should remain with the mother and partial physical custody should be with the father.  The children should share time with their parents as follows:

1. Father should have partial custody of the children on alternate weekends during the school year.  The school year should be as defined in the school calendar.  The weekends should alternate where the children will spend one weekend in the Father’s home in [home-state] and the second weekend spent locally to reduce the amount of time the children are traveling.
2. Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas should be alternated by the parents each year.
3. The children should spend ALL of the other school holidays and breaks in which there is a three day weekend, exclusive of the holidays noted above, with the father in [home state].
4. Father should continue with providing all of the transfers of the children when they will be in [home state].  Mother should retrieve the children at the start of her custody periods when they are with their father locally.  Father should provide Mother with the location for the next custody period in writing two weeks in advance.

SUMMER SCHEDULE: Commencing the Sunday following the last day of school until the Sunday prior to the last full week before school restarts, the custody schedule should be as follows:

1. The children should spend three (3) weeks with father in [home-state] followed by one week with mother in [custody state] for the entire summer schedule as defined above.
2. During the summer schedule, the parties should meet at [the half-way exchange location] for all exchanges of the children.
3. The parties should vacation with the children during their respective custody periods.
4. The children should spend a 24-hour period with mother on Mother’s Day and her birthday and a 24-hour period with father on Father’s Day and his birthday.
5. Each party should celebrate the children’s birthdays on that party’s respective weekend either before or after the actual birthday.

I don’t even know where to begin with picking apart these specific recommendations, so I’ll save it for the Custody Evaluation 2 Post-Mortem.

CLINICAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

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