Sad tonight...

[mdegol]

I wanted to thank goodness for this board for so many things.  But I am so sad tonight, since my son is now 3 1/2 and I was thinking things might be better by now.  Before, I could comfort myself knowing that he was too young to understand and that there was still time for things to get better.  I can protect him one my side of it, and I hope that they will protect him on their side of it, but if it stay like this there's no way it is good for my son. 

I have been practicing low contact for about a year and a half and trying to compromise without being a pushover.  I am in the process of doing the proud to parent website that Gemini suggested.  I would like to invite BF to do the site, but is that a good idea with someone that you are practicing low contact with?  I feel that it is a transformative site, but it is hard to imagine how the situation is ever going to get better. 

We were just in court yesterday.  Again it got thrown out.  Right when the judge stated that she would dismiss the case, I felt relieved (again) but it was immediately followed by despair since I believe that it will not stop.  I disengaged emotionally quite some time ago from the conflict, but if one party is fighting I don't see how it will stop.  his last court date was trying to modify a stipulation that we signed four months ago!  Judge just said, this was settled, more or less.  The last stipulation was just that we would accept the old custody agreement.  I also agreed to modify child support, thinking that resentment about child support might be some of the cause.  It was recommended to be lowered over two months ago, but at the court date yesterday he didn't even ask to have it entered as a judgement.  He was asking for parenting time changes, same ones as at the last court date and yet before that. 

I believe that the reason is not coming directly from my co-parent.  His partner seems to be deliberately sabotaging all attempts to reconcile the situation.  I can tell that it is not him writing most emails to me, especially the high conflict ones due to dramatically different writing styles.  Most of the conflict is manufactured, often in the form of making requests that are, I believe, anticipated to cause problems. 

One good example to demonstrate this is for my child's last birthday.  They hadn't been to visit in 4 months.  I was contacted a week and a half before the birthday to let me know that he was going to visit.  He has never given me less than 3-4 weeks notice in the past, due to the cost of plane tickets.  Because of past patterns, I made sure that I had scheduled the birthday party for the weekend further from my son's actual birthday just in case his father wanted to visit.  To be honest, by the time he contacted me I had assumed he was not coming.  In any case, I said ok, go ahead and come.  I did state that I would appreciate more notice in the future.  It seemed manufactured to cause conflict, either to ruin a party or to cause me to say something like "I have plans" and then call it a denial of visitation.  In his answer, even though I didn't mention anything about a party, it was stated "If you wanted to plan a party for that weekend you should have contacted us about it."  That kind of confirmed the motivation I thought. 

Court was just yesterday, and even if I "won", there was no satisfaction in it.


Here's the weird part:  I have noticed that the engagement from the other side has INCREASED since I have been practicing low contact.  Is that something typically seen?  I am thinking that his partner has some kind of emotional problem, like BPD.  I know that several regulars on here practice low contact.  Did the behavior of the other side diminish quickly?  How long did it take to work?  With these manufactured situations I have either ignored it, or tried to work around it.  Seems like it just makes them do more.  What makes me nervous is that the behaviors are escalating, or at least have move from direct conflict with me to court dates.  If that isn't working, I don't know what will come next.

[Remi2]

I am very new here but I wanted to say that your situation is almost exactly like mine.  Our children seem to be very close in age and I too thought the very same thing that after awhile things would settle down after we went to court and we can just get along.  Nope.  The child's father was always filing something or threatening me to agree or he would take me back to court again.  Last year the NCP filed again and the judge dismissed his action.  My attorney explained to me that he is the type of individual that will argue and litigate every single thing and unfortunately that is the way it is going to be until the child reaches legal age. 

I also went low contact and yes that did ratch up the "crazy" or engagement from the other side.  Eventually, the engagement sub-sided after it was apparent that I was not going engage him any further and stuck only to the facts/issues that related to the child.  Don't get me wrong the what I call "crazy" emails still came just not as often.  I currently have a good news/bad news situation.  My situation has escalated to more court dates.  The good news is that because of the false allegations of the NCP.  A GAL has been assigned to investigate the matter.  Now an outside individual, the GAL has seen in their words the "acriminious tone" of the numerous emails and has met (i.e. read if you know what I mean) the other parent.  This is the best thing that could have happened in my opinion because I could not state all of the emails and stories in court the court doesn't care about all of that and there's no time for it.  Now, the bad news is that there is outside individual looking into my affairs but this is not bad at all because I have nothing to hide and some one can see the situation and the type of individual that I have been dealing with for the past couple of years.   

The NCP is now on his best behavior.  I don't know if this will change after the hearing but at least he is aware that court is also looking at him too.  If he thinks about reverting back to his old ways he may think twice about it.

I know how you feel.  I can totally sympthasize and empathize with what you going through and having to deal with.  What really makes me sad sometimes is that the NCP would use the child to seek revenge.  Like you I try to shield the child as much as possible and realize that no matter what I have to be the bigger parent/person and remember that the child loves both of her parents.   Don't worry about malicious litigation because as the GAL told me that it is going to get to a point where the Judge has had it up to here.