The Psycho Ex Wife

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I notice one interesting phenomenon when I deal with folks who are going through divorce, or a modification of their existing divorce order, and one of the parties is “psycho”. Now, I put that label in quotes, because there are actually three kinds:

1. The one where both parties are still in the “divorce crazy” phase; and sometimes one is more noticeably in that phase than the other;
2. The one where the party being called “psycho” really is not – it’s merely one more disparaging term used by an exasperated ex-spouse, or their attorney;
3. The one where one of the parties truly is mentally ill, whether actually diagnosed, treated, or not.

In this particular post, I’m going to address that third type.

I’m going to start with my own personal experience. My children’s father was not a high-conflict personality – but he was indeed (diagnosed) mentally ill. His behavior during our marriage became verifiably dangerous, especially toward the children. I, meanwhile, was determined to be the long-suffering stick-together-through-it-all wife… even though my husband was clearly harming our children, and even though he was not receiving the mental health treatment he desperately needed.

Our divorce was inevitable. Also inevitable was my attitude of absolute innocence. The end of our marriage was clearly 100% his fault, if fault could be assigned anywhere at all. Clearly, there was nothing I could do to prevent the downfall of our marriage, and clearly, I was a victim. Of circumstance, of an insidious illness, of my violent husband. And so, as I journeyed through my post-divorce healing period, I saw no reason to stand up and take accountability for my own part in creating the current situation. From where I sat, I had no accountability to take. I hadn’t created this.

And with this mindset, I cheated myself. I robbed myself of valuable growth, I set myself up for repeated relationship failures (can you spell “jerk-magnet”?), and I inadvertently taught my children that it was better to avoid accountability than own up to their behavior.

I have noticed that in my Divorce Coach practice, a good many of my clients are inclined to do this same thing. It becomes very easy to blame the psycho ex-wife or psycho ex-husband for everything that subsequently goes wrong, without owning your part in the behaviors and the outcomes that result.

For example: do the kids fight? (more…)

My family often marvels about how much time I have to spend in court and doing court-related activities like conferences, evaluations, etc.  I often marvel, too.  One of my family members surmised that the amount of litigation that the psycho ex-wife puts us through is a new disease.  Thusly, he coined the name of the new disease as:

LITIGITOSIS

I still laugh at the way the word sounds as it rolls off of the tongue.  Litigitiosis.  Essentially, litigitosis is a disease of excessive frivolous and vexatious litigation.  PEW has severe litigitosis.  At this time, there is no cure and we’re not sure that there will ever be one because the Family Court players pay a lot of money to the pharmaceutical companies to not research and develop medication for this disease.  There is too much money to be made from excessive frivolous and vexatious litigation and personality disorders are the engine that powers the money making machine.

PEW would project, errr… I mean have other people believe, through her innate ability to spin a yarn, that I am the excessive litigant.  Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, that’s simply not true.

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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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Despite the psycho ex-wife’s repetitive complaints about the costs of all of the contentious litigation - it never stopped her from getting attorneys involved and spending a lot of money on wasteful motions, proceedings, letters, and phone calls.  This post is a follow-up to: Spending a Lot to Get a Little.

I took a shot in May of 2005 to get it resolved, but the never-ending sense of entitlement prevailed and I just let it drop.  Out of nowhere, during a phone call in mid-August of that year, she had made mention of the $1,000 escrow that still existed from the settlement of the marital household.  I replied via email:

PEW:

With regard to that escrow acct. It is currently in [first attorney's] name. If you want to have it transferred to D-Mac’s, I’ll sign a release so we can split it up.

And suddenly, without hesitation, she gives the go-ahead to release it, probably because there was something else she wanted to buy.

LM:

That would be fine with me.

PEW:

Well I don’t know how to go about doing that. So can you find out?

LM:

Send a letter to D-Mac agreeing to release the escrow account, splitting the proceeds between you and I 50/50. She will call [first attorney] and he will disburse the checks accordingly.

About a month would go by before I heard anything more, about mid-September when she wrote:

PEW:

Any word on this?

It was shortly thereafter that the checks were cut and the last of the “equitable distribution” matters from our horrendous marital relationship was completed.