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When you say "narcissist", "MAJOR issues" and "comes off as normal" I think of borderline personality disorder.  Do a little research on this, find a listing of the criteria and see if she meets them and if she does it may help you learn how better to deal with her (though there is no easy way).

We are currently undergoing a custody eval and feel that it is going great (I can let you know for sure in a couple months).  We had wanted to do it for awhile, but it is expensive ($10,000+) and our lawyer didn't feel the time was right (child was too young).  Then, BM decided to accuse us of abuse and ask for a custody eval.  Luckily, since she had NO proof and her accusations were clearly insane, she was forced to pay for the entire eval.  Now we get the eval AND she gets to pay for it.  I am sure that your BM won't be as brilliant as ours, but I think that you can always get one if you are willing to pay.  But first, talk to your lawyer, or someone else who knows, if it is the right time for you.

If you are even considering this, start preparing now....keep immaculate records and logs, save evrything and be on your best behavior.  Involve yourself in everything you can related to the kids, take parenting classes and do everything you can to be the best parent possible.

As far as GALs, I know nothing.  Hope this helps.

Do whatever it takes to get a lawyer now.  I know that you think that you can't afford one, but I think you can't afford not to have one.

My husband and I sat in court 1 day (to learn what our judge was like) and watched everyone who came in without a lawyer lose big.

As you may guess from my name I am not a huge fan of lawyers, but this is too important to go into without help.

Perhaps someone out there can give some advice about how to get legal help cheap?

I think you misunderstood...I was not referring to the appointment for the interview, just the play session.

Any tips on how to handle the play session from anyone?

Well, our custody eval finally started and things went well with the first interview.  Now we are looking forward to the next step...the parent/child play session.

I was wondering if anyone who had been through this before could give me any tips or insights.  I read everything I could find on this site, but couldn't find much related to this.

I read that you should try and do your session after the other parent...but it didn't work that way for us.  Also, my husband let the evaluator know that he would rather not do the session the morning after our exchange as child is exchanged half-asleep, is often disoriented and upset by the change that occurred while sleeping and is a little extra tired due to the interuption in his bedtime and sleep.  Truly we were being overconservative, as the chhild is usually pretty well adjusted and happy by breakfast time but just a little sleepy later in the day.  Anyway, the evaluator thought it would be good to see how the child does right after an exchange.

I would really appreciate any tips anyone can provide.  Are there any relevant articles or webpages out there?

Thanks!

My husband has his first appointment with the evaluator in a few weeks.

We weren't given any forms to fill out, so we put together our own packet of info.  We put together our ideal parenting plan, our hopes for future schooling, what our house/schedule/discipline/activities are like and also included her declaration to the court asking for the eval and our reply.  We have a lot more info about all of her bad actions, but we are saving these for later...we want to be really positive and focus on us in the beginning as we are sure her poor behavior will come up soon enough.

We are in California. We currently have 25% time-we continually ask for more but our always denied and some of our court ordered time has been removed by her.  We are hoping to go for 50/50 custody for a short transition period, then go to primary custody before child reaches school age.  My husband began working from home to spend as much time as possible with the family and CP sticks child in daycare 10+ hours a day when she has custody.

Between all this and her absolute reluctance to encourage our time at all (along with the lie about our "abusive" behavior) we are hoping that we may have a shot at this.

Please keep in touch about how things are going for you (and any tips you may come up with) and I'll let you know how we do.

Wow, I can't believe how similar your story is to ours (except CP owns a Mercedes).

Child's CP accused us of abuse with no grounds and is being forced to pay for the entire eval herself...we are pretty sure that she is going to drop the ball though.  We have been advised to step up to the plate and pay for it ourselves if she backs out as it shows commitment on our part.  The evaluator will figure out what is going on.  It sounds like an eval may be helpful for you.

We think CP has borderline personality disorder.  Yours sounds similar.  You may want to read up on it as it gave us a lot of insight.

Good luck!

DH just found out today that BM may soon be arrested for some illegal activity.  BM  has primary custody right now.  We made some calls and cound not find any info on the case he was tipped off about (maybe it is too recent), but did learn of a previous arrest on a restraining order violation.

1. Does anyone know how to get this type of info?  Is there any way to do it online?  We are in CA.

2. How do we make sure SD stays safe?  She is a toddler and we are sure BM would never inform us if she was arrested.

I would appreciate any help.

Here was the reply I sent to him.  I love the ad, but it doesn't seem smart (especially with his picture on it):

A little insight for you...hope this helps.  I saw a link to your ad on a father's right website: //www.deltabravo.net.  Check it out and read and learn everything you can.  Someone mentioned they gave you the name of a good attorney in your area.  Scrape together the money and contact them now (your and your children's future depends on it).  Pull this ad off E-bay (especially your picture).  My husband and I posted an ad on Ebay selling XXXXXXX his ex gave him and claimed XXXXX.  We did this because we knew she was stalking him, watching his account and harrassing his buyers.  We were right, but it blew up in our face big time.  Some day when you are fighting for custody some judge will ask you how you could do such an evil vindictive thing to the mother of your children and say how this shows you could obviously never support her relationship with them.  Do you want to defend your actions?

Good Luck!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/2020/Primetime_email_form.html

I just wanted to say thanks for an incredible program on the Bridget Marks case.  A few weeks ago I watched the morning news programs where she orchestrated the media circus to further her cause.  The biased stories I saw on TV and in the newspaper were heartbreaking.

I know that Ms. Marks invited you into her home and I must say "BRAVO!" in providing the public with an unbiased story regardless of who initiated the interview.

Your story did a great job of giving facts that everyone else wanted to ignore.  It also showed well how those poor little girls seemed fine and happy until Mom got them whipped up into a frenzy.

The point blank questioning of Mom about the effects her actions would have on her "Warrior Princesses" were great and just proved her narcissism and lack of insight.

I only hope that your story will help quell the hate mail being sent to the judge, quiet the rumors of payoffs and help bring to light what is becoming an epidemic of Mothers trying to remove Fathers from their children's lives at any cost.

I am currently a non-custodial StepMom going through a custody evaluation with my husband in hopes of becoming custodial parents.  We find it eerie the traits, comments and actions that seem to be continually repeated in cases such as these.

Once again, thank you for your strenth...thousands of non-custodial parents thank you.

Also, I find it interesting that she misspelled diabetes (diabeties).  You think an intelligent person (such as someone possessing a pilot's license) with a chronic disease might just be aware of how that disease is spelled.  Intelligent person...maybe I made a wrong assumption?