The Psycho Ex Wife

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LM & DW,

I found your website late one night when I was completely desperate, and typed “psycho ex wife” into Google.

You’re dealing with someone I think substantially crazier than my psycho ex wife; but the whole scenario was horribly familiar. I got a book you recommended–“Stop Walking on Eggshells”–and . . . it was kind of like the scales falling from my eyes. It was a weird feeling–the description of how borderlines think was so exactly my ex wife . . . it was like the author actually had been in the room for my entire marriage and divorce. And the book has kind of helped–there are a couple of techniques recommended in there that sometimes can defuse the bomb before it goes off. Highly recommended.

So, I’m really grateful to you for doing the website. This stuff that psycho ex wives throw up is so grindingly petty, so beneath human dignity, and yet so potentially catastrophic for the ex husband and the kids . . . it’s just a really, really sick combination, and it’s just a relief to know that other people are going through the same thing, that I’m not alone.

So . . . with that last comment in mind, I have a question. This is something I don’t want to admit to thinking, and it’s not something I actually could do, because I love my five year old daughter more than my life, but . . . I hear the pain of some people who send in comments, grieving over the fact that this is hurting them and hurting the kids and they can’t stop it and it’s NEVER over . . . and listen, I feel that pain, that grief. And so I’m just asking: do you ever have that thought, like, if I just walked away from my kids, I would never have to deal with this again? Look, life is short, this has eaten up most of my energy for six years now, I don’t have an infinite number of years to build a good life, and dealing with this for the next thirteen years is not going to make that easy. It’s not even the cost of lawyers, or even the time, it’s the psychic energy.

So, I’m not saying this is actually an option, because, like some of the people who’ve sent comments to you, I think really the sickest thing about it all is that you actually CAN’T just walk out on it. Anyway not until your kids are 18. But if there’s anyone out there who’s feeling bad about having had that thought, I just want you to know that I have too.

One other thing: apparently about 80 percent of borderlines are women, so I think it’s basically appropriate that this website is called “thepsychoexWIFE,” but I just want to underline the fact that there are women out there who really are capable of being a man’s friend, partner, and wife. What’s more, I was recently talking to a female friend of mine, 30 years older than me, about her divorce many years ago, and lo and behold, she told stories that could have been taken verbatim from my account of MY divorce. The guy was a classic borderline personality, still is. So I guess technically I’d be in favor of “www.theborderlineexspouse.com”. (And this is anything but political correctness, believe me–I’m anything but a feminist, after my own marriage, and those of about two dozen friends and acquaintances, I’ve come–against all my training–to the simple conclusion that every family needs a head of household, and every head of household needs to be a man. It may not be pretty, and it’s not easy for men, and it’s not easy for women, but that’s just the way it is, it’s the only thing that actually works.)

Hang in there,
“One Day at a Time in CA

OneDay,

Your thoughts are not at all unusual. The body & mind can only take so much stress, pressure, anxiety, and I believe that most, if not all, people going through such a caustic situation have had at least a fleeting thought. “If I just let it all go and try to start over, my life will stabilize.” When you toss into the mix that many psycho ex-wives do this with the aid of the family court cartels in this country, when a father is ground-up in the system - it’s only that much worse.

Then reality sets in. Unless you have the resources to effectively vanish off of the face of the earth and start over somewhere else, mindful of your past mistakes - walking away doesn’t end it. It’s quite the contrary in my view. You put yourself in the worst possible position where the psycho-ex is constantly using the children as a weapon. They are constantly attempting to remind you of your failures as a parent. You have given them the ultimate weapon for continuing their mindless assault - you walked away. You “abandoned” your children. No one who hasn’t lived through it with you will ever be able to fathom just how miserable the psycho-ex can make your life and the toll it takes on you physically and mentally. If having that fleeting thought isn’t enough to convince them, nothing will.

I’m aware of people who have given up by choice or by attrition. Psycho-exs have a knack for litigating you into submission. I know that I had thoughts about it prior to the hearing for contempt when PEW failed to show up for the exchange for my Christmas 2006 with the boys. I literally sat crying in the days before that hearing and said to myself and DW, “If Judge Contempt doesn’t do something to her this time, then I will be fully convinced that there is nothing I will ever be able to do to overcome PEW’s madness and criminal activity.” I was lucky. Judge Contempt really started to see PEW for the person causing the primary problems in the situation and took action. My faith that I had the power to do something about the problems had been restored to a degree and so I kept pressing on. I doubt I would have given up regardless, but it was at that moment that I was lower than I had ever been regarding my situation and past court experiences. I was avoiding any contact unrelated to the children. I was following the order to the letter. And PEW still found ways to engage in her crazymaking. Up to that point, she hadn’t received even the slightest rebuke from any authority for her petitions that were based on lies, false accusations of all sorts, repeated instances of custodial interference, varying methods of harassment (emails, texts, voice mails, stalking activities).

I can only suggest that you fight as hard and as long as you possibly can so that someday you *might* have the opportunity to explain to your children that your really did try. Then pray that they turn out okay. If you’re really fortunate, things may even turn in your favor. They have for me.

~LM

LM & DW,

Tomorrow is the big day… we hope! We go back to court, again, to hopefully win custody of my husband’s kids. We’ve been going every other month it seems since January, a full month after CPS took my husband’s daughter from his PEW (and gave her to the PEW’s mother, per the PEW’s request), and three months since he’d seen his daughter last. His son elected to come live with us nearly a year ago exactly, due to struggles at home with both his mother and his older half brother, so we have had custody of him at least. Between the PEW and CPS both, it has been an uphill battle.

The PEW has talked his son into lying about his father(my husband), promised him a life full of doing what ever he wants(to include drug use, hanging out with old friends that got him into trouble before) in exchange for coming back to live with her. Now that the PEW has the daughter back from CPS, she is trying to turn the little girl(just turned 6) against her father like she has his son. It is disgusting, to be honest. The woman has tested positive for drugs multiple times in the last nearly year, has flown off the coop at counselor’s visits (all documented), and my husband has never come up positive, never thrown a fit… and still, there is a chance that she could get the boy back, and keep his daughter as well.

The last time we were at court, a ’social study’ was agreed upon. It has cost us nearly three times as much money as it was supposed to, but hopefully, will be worth it. When my husband’s son spoke to the social worker yesterday (the one conducting said ’social study’, he admitted to her freely that he’d lied to CPS about his dad for his mom and that he’d done drugs under the care of (but not in sight of) his mother during her supervised visitation with him. He told the social worker that his dad wouldn’t let him talk to his old friends (yes, the ones he’d gotten into trouble for shoplifting with and the ones he’d been doing drugs with), made him do his homework and go to school. With Mom, he’d already been on probation for shoplifting, been held back a year at school for truancy, and failing all his classes as well as regular marijuana use with his friends. As the social worker said… ‘No wonder he wants to go live with his mom!’

Now, our primary goal is to keep custody of the boy, as mom treats boy (verbally, mentally abusive) far differently than girl (’normal’, for now at least); however, per our attorney, we are in fact fighting for custody of both. It is our hope that with this ’social study’ report, they will not be able to justify keeping daughter with mom if son shouldn’t be with mom. And tomorrow, we will see.

Wish us luck!
Lora

Lora wrote this letter on September 23rd, 2008 and then followed up with us regarding the outcome of their court hearing…

LM & DW,

Court, for now, is over and done with. Per the social worker’s recommendations, my husband’s son will be staying with us, period. His daughter will stay with Mom. Visitation will remain the way it currently is, weekend wise, but holidays will be modified (we only had temporary orders that didn’t include holidays). We also managed to get it stipulated that his ex-wife will have to follow through with all and any recommendations from the psychological testing done by CPS within 30 days, and we also got in a requirement of random drug testing (this is our major concern, as well as the psychological stuff).

We could have gone daggers for his daughter as well, but, given circumstances, we really feel this is in his daughter’s best interests for now. That could change in the coming weeks, months, years. Who’s to know? My husband and his ex split up when his daughter was still an infant, she has never had Dad around full time and Mommy is her constant. There is an undeniable bond between mother and daughter that we cannot find fault with. At this time, while his ex is clean and drug free, we aren’t sure that pulling his daughter from her ’safety line’ is the best thing to do. If, however, the situation deteriorates or she starts testing dirty, then we will go back to court.

We are incredibly thankful. It went better than the worst case scenario, but not as well as the best case scenario, but we can work with this.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, and know that we will be continuing to read your blogs, something tells me that our journey is not nearly complete (we’ll be dealing with the ex until his daughter turns 18, at least!).

-Lora

Lora and Husband,

Success in the family court arena is often counted in the small steps forward. While you didn’t achieve all of your goals, it’s very nice to see that you’ve managed to gain some ground in protecting the kids from their mother’s issues. Hopefully, some of the steps you’ve taken will ultimately help your PEW in the long-run, too.

Continued best wishes to you and yours!

Sincerely,
LM & DW

Hi,

I ran across your site/blog while looking for information to help my fiance. We’ve been together for about 8 years now and have had nothing but hell from his ex wife, and recently she has nearly ruined our lives for the 2nd time, 3rd for my fiance. It’s horrible what she’s allowed to do, the things she gets away with, while the children have spent the bulk of their lives living with relatives…. while she collects welfare and child support, without the children benefiting from what she gets.

Sorry to ramble on. The whole story is a nightmare, something you would see in a movie and think… “That could never REALLY happen.. not in REAL life.” We have a very modest income, I’ve not been able to work myself for several years now due to severe fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. It’s such a long story, and I won’t bore you with the details. I guess in a way I’m rambling because we are STILL in the middle of this hell and finding no way out. But I wanted to write and tell you how much your site is appreciated. It’s so frightening facing losing what little we have because she supports a drug habit rather than her kids and pulls us back into court each time she gets desperate and needs more cash. Reading the entries and responses on your blog titled “Child support or state windfall” at least let me see that, as suspected, this problem is huge, an epidemic in this country, and the children suffer because of it….and the father suffers, and the only one in a winning position (at least in our case) is a woman who dares call herself ‘mother’ while stealing from her kids.

Anyway, thank you for your site and the stories and information therein.

Sincerely,
A.W.

You’re very welcome, A.W. Thanks also to the readers and contributors to the site, stories, and articles. Without them, I’m sure that our place would be a bit less helpful.

~LM & DW

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PEOPLE!!! They deal with these types of issues, too! WhatEVER were you thinking?

Good afternoon,

Wow. I’m nowhere near being in your shoes, but I can strongly identify with many of the situations you describe. My PEH is less destructive, but equally selfish, clueless and wrapped up in his bubble of mememememememe. He’s certainly not BPD, but narcissistic? Oh yes. Passive aggressive? Yes. And his on/off ex-for-now girlfriend? She’s just psycho.

I’ve been devouring the blog with the kind of fascination that happens when watching a spectacular train wreck. I kinda want to look away. I’m happy it’s not me. There’s nothing I can do about it. … but wow, it’s impressive. And it so could almost be me.

DW must be a very strong person. My own DH has some difficulty with PEH…

I started implementing my own version of low-contact. Obviously, it can’t be no-contact because we have kids. And he’s not usually abusive or nasty or hostile enough for that to be a problem — although we did go through a spell — but the low contact is definitely achieving what I want. He’ll call me at work with some kind of inane request or comment about the kids. Silly stuff, that really? Didn’t need to call me for that… and then turn it into a moaning self-pitying rant about life, his friends, or mostly, his psycho GF/not-GF.

I used to — yes, I admit it — actually try to lend a caring ear and talk him out of his loathing or self-pity, figuring helping him be happy would benefit the kids — and I’m just that kind of person. I’d give him a pep-talk at least once a week, and other days, just listen to him vent. But it was like being a kleenex. Wouldn’t ask me how I was — and if he did, it was with the “oh, yes, I must not forget to be polite” tone of voice, and he wouldn’t listen to the answer anyway, and generally cut me off. When things were good with the GF, I was worthless and evil, and we ought to be more independent of each other. When things were bad with the GF, I was a convenient shoulder to cry on. So I started training him. Very slowly, he’s learning. Complaining and carrying on about himself and his problems is met with the kind of stony silence he can hear. No “mmhm.” Nothing. Then he feels awkward and switches back to the topic at hand, or trying to find a topic. Yes, all he wants is attention.

We recently went through a real upheaval, and this is really where I realized how firm I needed to be about the ways I let him speak to me. I decided to move — one hour out of the downtown core. Yes, that makes me the big evil woman. I’m not. Quite frankly, I have the right to have a life, and it isn’t going to be by continuing to live in the shit-poor area of town within 5 blocks of his cat-piss smelling apartment building that I will build one. And since I can provide something better than inner-city welfare area housing, I will. But oh he wasn’t pleased. It was an insult. The kids don’t need better than that. It was horrendously selfish of me to not make my life plans around his wants and needs. Suddenly, the kids were his life, and he wasn’t going to accept any change at all to our custody agreement (informal and adjusted over the years as needed.) Whereas before? He was bugging me frequently to take the kids on his days so he could go out or spend more time with GF. His main complaint was that he resented me “doing this to him.” Hell, I wasn’t DOING anything to him, I was doing something FANTASTIC for the kids, namely providing them with a house in a safe, healthy, fantastic neighbourhood, and offering the option of a school they could walk to without the need for after school day care. He had options, I was open to negotiation. His position was “you’re not allowed to move. I won’t let you.” No words about what would be better or worse for the kids. Nope. Only about how it would affect his schedule. His attempt at “negotiation” started and ended with his suggestion that rather than DH and I buying the house we’d put an offer on, we should buy a duplex downtown with PEH, so that we could live in the same building (and, *shhh* he could mooch off our income and profit from owning a house that he would never be able to afford on his own.)

Well, we made it through that. We’re working with the new custody arrangement, which sees me getting the kids every weekend except one a month during the school year, and 50/50 in the summer. And it’s ok, but I think his parenting is poor, and letting him have them more than 50% of the time concerns me. Oh he’s not mean or nasty or violent. He’s subtle and baby-talks them, and puts all kind of health fears into their little heads. He actually wanted to include in the agreement that if the kids “expressed a need to attend an activity” we were both obliged to take them because “the kids’ needs come before our own” — this in reference to him scheduling weekend activities that I would then have to take them to, regardless of our (DH and I) plans. I clarified that activities like gymnastics are not NEEDS, but that is how he parents. If the kids want something it is a need and he bends over backwards to provide it thinking this will earn their love and devotion. Damn straight, but only for as long as the catering to their every whim lasts. And I become the nasty mean parent because I don’t let them get away with it. But every time they go back to his place they re-learn that whining gets them stuff, and I end up un-training them all over again. It’s crazy-making. He doesn’t see how this is harmful.

For the time being, he’s off again with his psycho GF. And you know what? She wants to maintain contact with the kids by writing letters to them. Previously, the last time the split, they had a “visitation” day. She would come over on Tuesdays to spend time with them, as if she had any right to maintain a relationship with them. Now, she wants to continue contact by letter. I told him sternly what I thought, but he actually was considering it because maybe it would be good for the kids; they like her.

So all this ranting to say I’m reading the blog everyday. Your experience is bolstering and fortifying my own position and opinions… thank you for sharing and exposing so clearly the nitty gritty details of what it’s like to deal with a nutty ex…

Good luck!

“MommaFish”

Great site. I’ve been through an exhausting and terrifying four years myself. Just won sole custody of my son from my second wife, who was formally diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Depression. She is allowed only supervised parenting time. And the court is allowing my son and I to relocate to another state, to escape her and her family’s continual attacks. This after she and her Legal Aid attorney initially manipulated the court into upholding a fraudulent restraining order against me which granted her temporary custody of my son for one year, and control of my home, which she and her family then stripped of all belongings. In all, a resounding victory for our 3 y.o. son. But at a cost of almost $100,000 in legal fees for a trial that lasted over 7 months and consumed over 40 hours of court testimony.

I’m a physician — I should have known better. But I fell prey to her charms and her beauty. And there is a part of me that still cares for her, still loves her, and still wishes she could be “normal”, so that our son could have a healthy mother. Fortunately, she is now on psychotropic medications, and says she is in behavioral management therapy — I hope she means Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. On the other hand, my son tells me that she’s dating a new “victim” — I wish there were a way I could warn him.

My first marriage was to a sane woman, and the two of us ended our marriage amicably, always putting our child’s needs ahead of our own. But my second marriage…

My second wife, the BPD/NPD mother of my son, is a high-functioning, charming, intelligent, slender, tall, long-haired, beautiful woman, and 22 years younger than me. She was able to convince two Ph.D. psychologists that she has no mental illness. But she is a highly-skilled manipulator, and her comfort with deceit is terrifying. She plays the victim effortlessly. My fight was with her, her bipolar/BPD mother, and her true-believer, radical feminist, man-hating, racially-biased Legal Aid attorney. Here are some of the things that she, with the assistance of her mother and attorney, did:

– abducted my son across state lines, twice, once at 6 months of age, a second time when he was 2 y.o.;

– forwarded my personal US mail, including correspondence from my attorney, to her parent’s PO Box, then refused to return my mail;

– stripped my home of over $100,000 in belongings — art work, Persian rugs, etc., going so far as to remove light and shower fixtures;

– hacked into my web-based email accounts;

– intercepted privileged emails between myself and my attorney;

– fabricated threatening emails to her from me, after hacking into my email account;

– submitted fabricated evidence to the court;

– suppressed out-of-state police reports during the restraining order hearing;

– filed false police reports against me;

– filed false reports of child abuse with CPS and the police against me;

– had a girlfriend of hers send a letter to the custody evaluator accusing me of being an ex-felon and running an internet child pornography ring;

– hacked into my (formerly) secure FTP site where I stored all my case notes;

– and the worst: she and her mom programmed my son’s 8-y.o. maternal half-sister into making false allegations that I had sexually abused her, the little girl, by using a recording device to help her practice her sex abuse “story”, a story containing explicit, graphic descriptions of deviant sexual acts.

We were fortunate to have an incredibly insightful and committed jurist as our trier of fact. She found my ex to be not credible, to have made false allegations of abuse against her and the children, and to have committed child abuse by sponsoring her daughter to make false allegations of sex abuse against me. The judge ruled from the bench, and also wrote out detailed findings of fact, providing me hard copy documentation to provide to authorities the next time this unhealthy woman and her family make false allegations against me. We also had a very professional and unbiased custody evaluator.

I’m writing a detailed analysis of my experience, including my view of what seemed to contribute to our success in court. It’s in part a case study of [BPD] across three generations of women — the ex-wife, her mother, and her 8-y.o. daughter, and in part a case study of a successful legal strategy for litigating against an ill-intentioned BPD family and their true-believer attorney.

~SingleHWNDad

SingleHWNDad,

What an incredible, but believable story. I hope that when you complete your analysis, you write a book or publish your findings… and send me a copy!

We hope and pray that you and your son can heal and grow after the experiences. Always remain on guard.

Sincerely,
DW & LM