The Psycho Ex Wife

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Our situation has been high-conflict since it’s inception in January of 2004. PEW went through two attorneys before deciding she was, herself, an attorney. After firing her second attorney, she began representing herself. For someone engaged in such a war with a Borderline (BPD) this is not good news. Add abuse via the legal system to their arsenal. In the jurisdiction in where we live, it doesn’t cost anything to file petitions or have hearings. If the BPD doesn’t have an attorney to pay - the legal system becomes their personal playground.

At this point, I am beyond flat-broke. My attorney realizes this but I don’t want to lose her. We shift strategies and I have been paying close attention to how things develop in court over the years. Together we decide that I will not let her go, but instead will keep her and we will decide on an issue-by-issue basis if it is something that I can handle on my own. If not, I’ll pay her more retainer money. Otherwise, she will review the issues and, if she is convinced it’s something I can handle, will offer me some guidance on how to handle things. She believes I have a slam-dunk case for contempt and trusts I can handle the case on my own. I can afford phone conferences and petition filings, it’s just that hearings and conferences are costing between $1,000 and $2,000 per event and I just don’t have that anymore.

As detailed in Part III, I had my attorney file a contempt of court petition against PEW. Judge Contempt (JC) is beyond fed up with seeing us in front of her. At this point, between conferences and hearings, we’ve been before her court in the neighborhood of 2-dozen times.

The issues:

1. Custodial interference. She violated the court order regarding visitation/custody. The order clearly defines the schedule for the year. As the non-custodial parent, I have every Winter Break, which is typically the week of Christmas. The Christmas holiday itself is defined as 12/24 through 12/25. So, in alternating years that’s what each of us get. During my years, I have the children the entire week. During her years, I would get the children on the 26th for the balance of the week.
2. Childcare provision. PEW has always been very money-centered. Anything she can do to maximize her “take” - she’ll do it. When calculating the child-support figure, they factor in an amount for childcare which is allocated proportionate to income. In past years, we would agree to a licensed care facility and the childcare portion of the support figure was factored in. Then, PEW would withdraw them from the agreed-upon childcare after the support order was entered and place them with a friend of family member, claiming to be paying them as much as we were paying the childcare center.

I don’t think so. She did this in 2004. She did this in 2005. Effectively, she gets the child support figure set in stone and then pockets the difference between what we would be paying for the childcare center and what she was paying “friends and family” - substantially less, if anything at all.

In June of 2006, there was a support modification. In an effort to avoid litigation (and paying attorneys) I sacrificed more than $2,000 in credits that were due me (for her inflated childcare costs which I busted her on). My reasoning? I would have paid more than that to go to a hearing with my attorney to keep it. We agreed on the childcare center for the upcoming school year and the support was modified to include the new childcare arrangement.

In September, only one week into the school year, PEW withdrew S6 from “beforecare” and placed him with her neighbor, this time claiming to be paying more than we were paying for beforecare and how lucky “we” were for S6 to be with such a loving person and how convenient it was for her not to have to drive to the beforecare center. Oh bullshit, PEW.

This issue was bought up at the Custody Hearings in October of 2006 and reinforced by JC, but PEW walked out of the courtroom and simply did not return S6 to the agreed-upon childcare center.

Another recurring theme with the BPD:

• The BPD will never make a bonafide offer to settle anything. They live for the fight. They thrive on the engagement with their target.
• There is no offer you can make that a BPD will agree to. It will be the benchmark on which they will force you to give up more.
• There is no court order that the BPD will agree to. The BPD believes themselves a higher authority than anyone and no one can impose their will on them.
• If, by some strange shift in planetary alignment the BPD actually makes you an offer and you agree to its terms - she will “unagree” to it and/or withdraw it because you agreed to it. If you agree to their offer - you must have done something underhanded.

What do I want the court to do? I want the court to impose severe sanctions on her. At the very least I want reimbursement of legal fees preparing for the hearing. I want S6 re-enrolled in the agreed upon childcare facility. I want her to replace my Christmas week of 2006 with Christmas week of 2007 - the entire winter break.

I know it sounds crazy. It is. You will see countless examples of this as we continue to wreck the train.

To be continued… Part V