The Psycho Ex Wife

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Keeping Kids Out of the Middle: Child-Centered Parenting in the Midst of Conflict, Separation, and Divorce

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After reading this book in its entirety and then re-reading many portions over again, I’m convinced that this is a very good book that is worthy of recommendation to some, but not to others. It’s taken me a full three days to wrap my thoughts up regarding this book. It’s always difficult to find a way to set aside one’s own personal experience, in order to think of others who may find this book extremely beneficial, where I find it might fall short for others. I have also concluded that there are parts of this book that will prove beneficial to some, while other parts won’t. That said, this book makes it very clear from the outset that it is not the be-all, end-all of co-parenting post-divorce.

I found the preface to be very powerful, very informative, and very unsettling. “Keeping Kids Out of the Middle of What?” I nodded in agreement and understanding as Garber covers a lot of different aspects of life rather effectively without being too wordy. It sets up the rest of the book rather nicely.

In the introduction section, Garber sets your expectations. What this book is… and what this book is not - gives an appropriate level of warning that this book is a guide. It’s full of appropriate information that truly is child-centered and focuses on the roles of co-parents. Some of it many will find they already know and understand. You will undoubtedly discover new points-of-view, as I did.

What is a Co-Parent? I found my first surprise of sorts. I believe that many of us really never became familiar with the term co-parent or co-parenting until our own divorces (or someone else’s). We connect the terms to a divorce without any consideration for the reality that co-parenting exists in all states of marriage and relationships that involve children. Garber does a fine job of explaining the dynamics of co-parenting and reshaped my opinion of the term co-parenting to understand that we’re all in a position to be co-parents to our children. He provides all sorts of examples and guides to quality co-parenting, the teamwork involved, the rest, recharge, tag-team cycles, the support mechanisms that many of us have in place that all co-mingle to provide an effective upbringing of children.

Not All Parents are Created Equal, Dr. Garber describes the roles of parents and how they have evolved over time from 50s rigid roles of mom and dad to where those lines are often not today. Gender, in many cases, no longer defines the roles, participation, and contributions of the parent. Further effectively described are how the courts often view the roles of parents in today’s divorce climate and the difficulties courts often face when two divorcing parents can’t set aside their differences and ultimately put the court in a position to decide matters.

What If You’re a Single Parent?, Garber strictly describes “the single parent” as someone without a co-parent, a distinction that sets them apart from the “unmarried parent.” A true single parent, as defined in the book, is “…an adult who shares caregiving responsibilities for a child with no one at all.” I understand this distinction to be made in order to show the reader the additional difficulties faced by someone with substantially fewer support resources than those who are unmarried parents. Still, this chapter disturbed me in that Garber is a believer in the thought that “Raising a child does, indeed, take a village.” It’s an undertone I sense through the balance of the book and one with which I don’t necessarily agree. While he takes the time to support his beliefs, what he describes are support personnel from which we draw on when we feel we need guidance or assistance. I’ve never been a big believer in “it takes a village” because I think the village starts imposing their thoughts, methods, beliefs, and biases on you, which almost always ends badly. It doesn’t take a village, it takes strong, committed parents (divorced or otherwise) with good support from family, and perhaps trusted friends. The “village” should be taking care of their own children.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat and The Essentials of Co-parenting delve more deeply into the hard work and potential pitfalls of the co-parenting experience. This is particularly true of separated co-parents. Garber does a fine job of describing the processes required to “weave a safety net” under the children during these rather substantial changes in the child(ren)’s lives.

The Child’s Experience of Adult Conflict and A Quick Word About Promises, while decidedly different topics, mesh in important ways, both describing the impact on the children (the parental interpersonal conflicts) and the inevitable overcompensation that results in promises to children that aren’t or otherwise can’t possibly be kept. Even the best of parents can get caught up in their own drama and fail to consider the deep impact their actions and reactions will have on the kids.

The Myth of the Nuclear Family was the most difficult chapter of them all to read and seemed quite out of place. Despite Garber’s contention at the beginning of this book about not being political, not being pro- or anti- marriage, homosexuality, heterosexuality, co-habitation, etc., etc. - he still manages to drop a few “bombs” throughout the book. This chapter was a tough read, and while I would agree that the classically defined Nuclear Family is headed for extinction barring a dramatic shift in public policy and societal expectations, I found Garber’s opinions in this chapter nearly offensive. Aside from reiterating his position that “it takes a village” to raise our children, he misses the mark completely with the following quote:

“The myth of the nuclear family is just that: a myth. It’s a story that once validated the lives of a majority of white, middle-class Americans and gave them reason to disparage all other varieties of families.

Huh? Like a splash of ice-cold water on an unexpecting face, I simply couldn’t shake this portion of the book and it tainted most of the rest of the read. In the world I’ve been living in for a mighty long time, prejudice, intolerance, and abuse knows no bounds - be it race, color, creed, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, etc. This out-of-the-blue, let’s disparage white, middle-class families as predominantly intolerant of all other varieties of families is not only inaccurate, it really has no place in what this book “is” as described in the first dozen or so pages. Too bad, Dr. Garber. My suggestion is that the reader simply skip this chapter. It’s completely out of place in the book.

Scripting the Change offers excellent advice and suggestions for preparing for the changes that come along with the breaking up of the family unit. From the split, to home transitions, to therapy appointments, essentially anything can be planned to mitigate both being caught off guard or saying something that you hadn’t planned to say (and wish you didn’t say).

Through How to Answer the Kids’ Questions and Child-Centered Parenting Plans Dr. Garber continues to focus on the needs of the children, offering checklists and quizzes to test just how in tuned to the children you are versus your own needs and desires.

Chapter 14 - How Children React is a definite must-read and covers all of the important issues that face children and how all of the many negative consequences of our adult behaviors create in our children personality traits that they shouldn’t have at such tender ages. This one you should read twice.

Yes, I’ve covered a lot of minutia and my intent is to give you a really strong flavor for the approach Dr. Garber takes in explaining a lot of what he suggests throughout the book.

My overall synopsis is this - it has it’s good, it’s bad, and it’s ugly - and I’ve touched on all of them in some capacity quite fairly.

What This Book Is:

The book is, overall, a quality read, especially if you just skip Chapter 8. It is an excellent guidebook to prepare people for the best possible co-parenting relationship between the adults and the adults & children.

What This Book Is Not:

It is not a “radically new perspective on co-parenting in the midst of relationship conflict” as quoted from the back cover. Some might read this and find it to be the utopia of co-parenting, conflict or not, and completely unattainable unless the two co-parents (divorcing or otherwise) are completely in tune with one another and the children. Finding that in a divorce situation is probably rarer than a sighting of Bigfoot. However, I do believe after reading this book that if you are able to achieve half or more of what Garber brings to the table - you’re very likely doing an excellent job of co-parenting. I found myself often thinking that I know and understand most of this stuff - I wish my ex-spouse would read and understand any of it.

I would recommend this book to:

• Anyone interested in having children but don’t yet have them, even if you’re not currently in a relationship. If you want a great guide for co-parenting in a happy relationship - this is a winner (except Chapter 8).
• Couples with children who are on the verge of divorce who are managing their way through in a reasonably amicable manner. They are committed to cultivating and maintaining relationships with their children and the co-parent.
• Anyone in a high-conflict divorce who wants to read a book that makes them say to themselves, “I wish my psycho ex-spouse would do these things with me.”
• Any psycho ex-spouse who wishes to find out all of the right things to do in the post-divorce co-parenting relationship - so that they can do the opposite and make everyone’s life as miserable as possible.

I would not recommend this book to:

• Anyone dealing with a person with a high-conflict divorce and custody situation. It reads like a classic counseling session and while the information and suggestions throughout most of this book are outstanding, it’s unreasonable to expect that two warring parents will read this book, suddenly have an epiphany, and start down the road to cooperation and child-centered co-parenting.

If you would like to have a copy of this book, post your thoughts and let me know in your comment. I have two to give away. Arrangements can be made via email. Then you can read it for yourself and stop back here with your opinions on the book and my review. I will pick two commenters at random, so please don’t be offended if you don’t hear from me. Those who do receive the book - pay it forward! Give another a chance to benefit from Dr. Garber’s suggestions.

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About Benjamin

Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D., is a New Hampshire licensed child psychologist, a state certified Guardian ad litem and a practicing Parenting Coordinator. Dr. Garber has a Bachelor of Arts degree in developmental psychology and psycholinguistics from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science and a Doctorate in child clinical and developmental psychology from the Pennsylvania State University.

Hey Nons, DW here, I’m taking over the blog for a day Having dealt with a PEW for over 4 years now, I sometimes feel as if I’m losing my mind, and I’m sure many of you can relate. I begged LM to do this blog for quite some time before he finally agreed, and I’ve had a few ideas for creating a business around this whole mess for awhile now in order to change the system from the outside. Some of you may know that I work in Search Engine Marketing, so I’ve been thinking of creating software that will help high conflict divorcees get through the situation without losing their mind, and with the ability to track everything going on. I have a legal background so we had an advantage with documenting everything in a manner that was useful to our attorney (and should have been to custody evaluators if they took the time to read everything), so we want to put this experience into use for everyone else, while at the same time hopefully getting attorneys and evaluators that aren’t aware of high conflict personalities to understand what is going on.

What that means is we are currently developing a web application that will allow you to sign in and keep a private journal of events, custody calendar, track phone calls, custody time and interferences, save files and emails, track child support sent or received, track other expenses, among other things. The software will allow you to give access to certain areas (like the calendar) to your ex-spouse with the ability to message back and forth without giving them your normal email account, as well as access for attorneys, counselors, evaluators, and teachers so that all information pertaining to custody and children will be stored in one place that will be accessible from anywhere. (All with the ability to keep sections private when needed, or allow access to read only such as for your attorney.)

If you can, imagine going to one place to update the fact that your ex-husband or wife didn’t return calls with your children for 10 days in a row. When your attorney needs proof of this, you simply run a report and print a handy table that shows the court that 75% of your phone calls that are court ordered have been denied. Or imagine being able to do a search for every email that contains foul language, false accusations, or some other issue, and being able to print them with one click and hand them to your attorney.

Without going into too much detail, since this is obviously a work in progress, we are interested in hearing what you would like to see in software that would help you stay organized through court battles. Once we have a first edition of the application we will be asking for beta users to test everything and give us feedback about problems or suggestions to improve it, and if you send us ideas you will be the first on the list to have free access - so shoot us an e-mail with your ideas to thepsychoexwife@gmail.com, we would especially love to hear views from attorneys/counselors/evaluators on what would help you with clients. We will also be creating an affiliate program for the software once it launches, so if you have a blog of your own or website, you will be able to sign up and sell the software earning commissions and helping others at the same time.

“Corrupt, Inefficient, Lazy, and Stupid” is how Alec Baldwin describes the lawyers, judges, and others who are part of the Divorce and Custody Industry. Yes, it’s an industry which generates billions of dollars of revenue and income for the states and all of the players within the system.

And so opened the story featured on ABC’s program 20/20 on September 19th, 2008.

Alec Baldwin is stepping up to the plate and is making a concerted effort to do something about what he calls the “delays and manipulations” that serve to destroy and divide divorcing families more than the circumstances at hand often do. I believe that this is something that we all want to see happen in our lifetimes. Baldwin’s struggles were apparently so bad that he had even contemplated suicide. When one stops to consider that more the 25,000 men in this country commit suicide each year, you have to wonder how many of those men were in the midst of a bitter divorce and custody battle that saw them marginalized as a parent, stripped of their right to be a parent, and relegated to little more than a wallet, from which states strive daily to extract the maximum amount of money “in the best interests of the children.” Men commit suicide at a rate that is 4-times greater than women.

Throughout his lengthy struggles in family court and the years he lost with his daughter, Ireland, he struggled with depression and despair. These types of feelings and experiences are repeated tens-of-thousands of times over in this country and abroad.

Diane Sawyer, even at the very outset of the interview, sought to label Baldwin’s rather low opinion of the divorce & family court system as a “scorched earth” attitude. Baldwin wisely countered that such an attitude defines one who actively seeks the negative in a particular situation. This is not what he did, but in reality, the situation was “thrust” into his face. It is his experience that brought him to these realizations. Again, this is a point with which I agree. My own attitudes, for reasons even unknown to me, led me to believe that things had changed in divorce & family court for the better for fathers since my own parents split up. I would soon learn that nothing could be further from the truth.

He describes his feelings for the love of his love, daughter Ireland - “When I’m with her, I am happy.” Aren’t we all when in the company of our children who we love unconditionally? His marriage to Kim Basinger began to fall apart when Ireland was 5-years old.

When asked about the warning signs that signaled the end of his marriage was near, he refused to divulge details, laughing at one point when telling Sawyer that Basinger would probably be a lot more “chatty” about warning signals about him manifested themselves to her. Then, Baldwin made a statement that I suspect will ring true throughout the overwhelming majority of divorced men in high-conflict situations.

“The harshest thing I could say is I was married to someone for whom all dissent was abuse. If you had your own opinion, you were abusive.”

This describes my psycho ex-wife in a nutshell. It encapsulates her attitude about everything and like many other words that serve as lightning-rods for those with an agenda, the definition of what is “abuse” has been so bastardized today as to make it’s true definition completely meaningless. If you are divorcing someone who takes this attitude - you’re in for a long and difficult divorce and custody process that will be rife with accusations that you probably think are unimaginable to be attributed to you.

While asserting that he and Basinger did not argue all the time and, when they did, it was his belief that nothing he ever argued about was over something that was insignificant, he maintains that nothing occurred in the marriage that was deserving of anything that took place in its aftermath. The dreaded high-profile custody battle lasting 8-years… 365 documents… 91 court proceedings… 8 lawyers… 4 judges… 3-million dollars.

It started, as many do, with the mother removing the child from the marital home and moving some long distance away, in this case, from Los Angeles to New York, with Basinger citing Ireland’s “health” as the reason. Once a “court sponsored mediator” began to analyze a custody arrangement, Alec Baldwin didn’t see Ireland for 2-years (except for very infrequent arrangements during the process) and, Baldwin asserts, he had done absolutely nothing wrong. He did what he could to remain in her life, volunteering at school and being local to her as often as possible. This type of story is played out every day an untold number of times by people with far less financial resources than Alec Baldwin. So, we can see where thousands of fathers fail where Baldwin, thus far, has been able to succeed, assuming you can call his mess a “success” at this point. Of course, the more involved he tried to be, the more Basinger, he alleges, began to turn Ireland against him and he spoke of parental alienation syndrome.

His forthcoming book, A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce chronicles his experiences and provides details of the horrifying and sad stories of the impact of parental alienation on his daughter and himself. “Mommy says you’re sick” is an exact phrase I’ve heard come from my own children and unlike Baldwin who told Sawyer that he said absolutely nothing to Ireland when she told him this, I would simply tell my children that what mom said simply wasn’t true and that I was sorry that they had to hear that.

Unsurprisingly, Baldwin was ordered into “anger management” classes, like so many fathers are on the simple accusations of the mother, and he followed the order to attend. And while being a public figure, Baldwin’s occasional outburst become tabloid fodder, for many low-profile fathers, that’s not necessarily the case and yet - they’ll be ordered into them just the same. The problem that arises with this situation is that once ordered into one, there is a perception that you have anger problems or are an abuser and that impacts the attitudes of those charged with making the life-affecting decisions regarding your parenthood. The typical anger-management class is predicated on the shameful “Duluth Model” which is a feminist-driven agenda item that blames all of the evils of society on men. (Perhaps a post for another day.)

Just as the court sponsored mediator was preparing to award joint-custody after these first two years of limited contact, the Basinger attorneys exercised their right to FIRE the mediator. They did this the day before she was to make her recommendation. The problem with this? It sets them back to the very beginning. The classic delay tactic of a vindictive, malicious mother. Off to court they go! When describing his feelings about the court experience Baldwin said:

“The lawyers are there to make money. It’s an industry. It’s a racket. Judges are like pit bosses in Vegas casinos. Their job is to make sure every one stays at the table and keeps gambling.”

Folks, there exists no better description of the family court system at-large.

8-months later, the judge awards joint custody in his case. He would fly across the country every other weekend to spend his “court authorized time” with his daughter. He even went so far as to have phone calls scheduled right into the order. The incessant interference with these calls is what would lead to the now famous voice mail that Baldwin left to his daughter in a moment of frustration. Alec Baldwin even rented a home 9-doors away from Ireland. However, Basinger was allegedly already driving a wedge between he and his daughter.

A montage of father videos is shown with them speaking of the alienation from their children and Baldwin discusses this more in-depth. He calls the situation a “national crisis” and that fathers all over the country are paying a steep price, along with the children. His belief and the belief of many others, is that parental alienation is a form of child abuse. It is largely a woman-on-man “crime” and it’s furthered by the gender bias that exists in America’s family courts.

When normal male behavior is being characterized as abuse, even the slightest action demonstrated during a normal emotion can cost you custody of your children. He uses an example of having an argument with your wife and smashing your cellphone down in the driveway now being characterized as “abuse.” (There are actually worse examples of that and nowadays, just saying something that hurts your spouse’s feelings can be characterized as abuse.) On the flip side, Baldwin again validates the beliefs of most men who are involved in a custody dispute or close to some father involved in one, when he says:

“You gotta catch the mother, as I said in the book, with a crack pipe in one hand, in bed with her pimp, and the child chained to a radiator before they do anything.”

Much to my dismay, Joan Myer, professor of law at George Washington University claims, “Family courts are bending over backwards to bring fathers into their children’s lives.” Of course, she doesn’t substantiate that in the limited time given with any objective evidence of such. Further, my research, my experience, and the experiences of those with whom I interact on a daily basis and via this blog lead me to believe that nothing could be further from the truth. Further, she goes on to outright dismiss parental alienation syndrome and, much like the radical feminist that I imagine she is (and I will look into it) she further propagates the myth that parental alienation is claimed by people who are using it to “defeat abuse claims.” Sawyer cites the National Organization of Women’s cloak of defense with their (accurate, if misleading) claim that PAS is not a “recognized syndrome” and it’s not “legally child abuse” in terms of it being a chargeable offense. You’ll notice how neither denies that poisoning a child’s mind against the other parent is possible and easily achievable, especially when the target parent has been forced to the fringes or out of their children’s lives.

I concur with Baldwin’s statements and I’m certain that many fathers would echo the sentiment that fathers who wish to be fully involved in their children’s lives “loathe and despise” fathers who physically or sexually abuse their children… who have the means but willfully fail to pay reasonable support… who abandon women whom they’ve impregnated. However:

“It doesn’t change the fact that there are women who get divorced and in order to punish, out of this bitter, bitter hatred that some of these women have for their ex-husbands - they turn their children against them. Everybody knows that’s real.”

Still, the interference with Baldwin’s custodial time with Ireland was granted with the full support of the court, on the 2nd-hand claim that Ireland said that she “felt unsafe” around Alec. Another investigation, another extended period of no time with his daughter, charges dismissed, custodial time restored. I’ve experienced these same types of claims repeatedly from my own psycho ex-wife. The children don’t like spending time with me. They are afraid of me. They don’t want to come to be with me. They hate it with me. It’s indescribably disgusting.

When speaking about the phone rant towards his daughter, he described the experiences and frustrations of the reality that less than 25% of his phone calls were getting through or returned or otherwise being facilitated by the other side. It is a moment he regrets. Still, in the face of hard questioning by Sawyer, he stood by his claim that there was an expectation of privacy and, that the bigger picture is that the voice mail was released to the tabloid website TMZ. While Kim Basinger denies being the source of the leaked tape, one can probably safely assume that Ireland wasn’t the one who sent it to TMZ and the larger tragedy is as regretful as his voice mail may have been, what kind of person/mother furthers the embarrassment suffered by her daughter by releasing it to TMZ to be broadcast all over the world?

I gotta say, I have to agree with him here. Why? Not that he was justified with his angry words towards his daughter. It’s because I am of the firm belief that there isn’t a mother or father alive (or dead, for that matter) who hasn’t said something inappropriate, unnecessary, or downright wrong to their children during the course of their lives. Let that person or persons (if they exist) be the ones to sit in righteous judgment of Baldwin’s message to Ireland on that fateful day.

A quote from Basinger along with her denial of releasing the tape to TMZ went something like this… and tell me if you haven’t seen these words in any number of emails I’ve posted from the PEW:

Her sincerest wish “is for him to finally address his unstable and irrational behavior so at some point he can potentially create a relationship with his daughter.”

It’s as if all of these women are operating from the same playbook with the same glossary of terms to use in court, in public, and in this case - on television. I’m certain Alec would read this blog as so many others have and write the same thing to me… “My story is almost exactly the same as yours. In some cases, it’s literally verbatim!” I’m sure when I read his book, I will say the same damned thing.

Alec Baldwin is launching a crusade to change the way the divorce process operates. As an example, he will push to see that if there is no evidence that the father has been abusive to the school-aged kids, he gets equal custody of the child right away. He would also like to see co-parenting coaching in an effort to prevent the types of alienation of children that he’s purported to have experienced with Ireland at the hands of Basinger.

One of his closing quotes during the segment is one that I repeat in some way, shape, or form at least 2- to 3-times per month:

“Everything with my daughter now is fine. Everything with my daughter is great, so long as the mother stays… out… of… the way.”

It’s my feeling exactly. Despite knowing the answer, and that is, I believe my PEW is truly ill, I often ask myself why she does and says the things she does. Why does she treat me the way she does, despite now having her divorce and distance between us? Why does she persist in the chaos and terror when all I want is the minimum contact necessary on matters of importance and relevant to the children? Why does she persist when I couldn’t care less what she does or is doing with her life provided it doesn’t negatively impact the children?

The bottom line is that if the psycho ex’s of the world would simply carry on with their lives and share custody of the children and limit contact to only what is absolutely necessary - life would be so much better for everyone, including them!

I’ve just heard through my email grapevine that last week, the organizers of the DC Rally (a great success in 2007) had to be scuttled this year due to financial reasons (among others). The original rally, slated to take place at The Lincoln Memorial is no more… HOWEVER… they have already shifted gears and are forging ahead with the DC Rally for 2009! From their website:

Our Mission Statement

Our mission is to secure and guarantee the continuation of the American Family with the passage of federal legislation that recognizes and protects our Fundamental Rights.

We are asking the Federal Congress and the State legislatures to support and implement public policies that promote familial preservation and reconciliation, hence civility, in all matters involving the family and all therein because that’s the best option for America.

But WAIT! There is even better news for 2008! The event has been revitalized under a new name - DC FESTIVAL 2008!

In the aftermath of the calls that resulted in the decision to scuttle the original version of this summer’s events, several leaders of “other aligned forces” came together and decide that the show must go on! An upgrade event location was chosen - directly in front of the Capitol Building. The location has plenty of trees for shade (Upper Senate Park), will include live musical entertainment, and even more guest speakers than originally planned.

Washington D.C. at the Upper Senate Park on August 15 - 16, 2008. Exhibition tables of various organizations open at 9:00 AM on August 15, 2008.

Live entertainment will be provided during the exhibition times and in between various speakers that begin later that day.

For more details and late-breaking news, visit their site by clicking on the link: DC FESTIVAL 2008