Binding arbitration coming up?
Today I got an email from the arbitrator's office inquiring about setting a date for binding arbitration to settle the question of custody between me and ex. I can't commit to a date just yet because my lawyer is away until next week and I want to consult with him first. But just the appearance of the email set off a whole wave of anxiety/fear/stress overload reactions. It's amazing how embodied this is - I feel physically ill from seeing our two names together in the same sentence.
Currently my biggest worry about arbitration is that I will cave in. I know I am susceptible to ex in his earnest and reasonable guise. I'm still working on undoing 25 years of conditioning to believe (or act as if I believed) that he is always right. I need to keep reminding myself that he is not a normal person, at best he is very sick and one of the symptoms of his disease is that he lies and distorts things to suit his interests, and his overriding interest is to get his own way in everything without having to change his drinking behavior.
So instead of fretting about this, I am making talking points that I can return to repeatedly and fall back on. I find it's helpful to write out my thought processes, and it's good to know that people out there can read them, and if I'm way off base, can let me know. Here we go, reasons for why sole custody to me and reasonable access to him is the way it should be, based on what I know are going to be his minimizing and denying counter-arguments:
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1. Once the line has been crossed into drunk driving, there’s no going back. This is what I worried about the most as a potential danger. Now it’s no longer potential, it’s real, which means I have to take extra measures for Kid’s safety
2. [social worker friend say] : Drunk driving incidents are like cockroaches, for every one you see there are nine or ten you don’t. it is not plausible to believe that this was the only time Dad drove drunk with Kid in the car and it will never happen again.
3. Because Dad has lied about abstaining from drinking in the past, and because he’s told [my lawyer] in a letter that he doesn’t intend to abstain, I can no longer believe his own accounts of his drinking. If he wants to convince me that Kid is safe with him, he will have to find a method to do that other than just repeatedly asserting it, getting louder each time
4. Since [date], Dad has done nothing to address my concerns about Kid’s safety. Telling me he wants more time with Kid is not the same as showing me that Kid would be safe with him. To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that the child protection investigation is closed or that he is doing anything about his drinking problem.
5. It’s not my responsibility to catch him drinking, it’s his responsibility to prove to me that he’s sober, if he wants more time with Kid.
6. The drunk-driving incident on [date] was not a stand-alone mistake. It was the culmination of a series of incidents which I have logged since [early 2016] in which Dad’s drinking created disturbing, frightening and/or dangerous situations for Kid. He knew the stakes were high but he still kept drinking.
7. “Recovery looks like recovery” [poster on SR]. Dad’s behavior since [date]– human rights complaints about Kid's child care staff, long emails to me and [my lawyer], allegations about vandalism, claiming he’s being “emotionally honest” by telling Kid I’m an a***** – do not look like the actions of someone who is taking responsibility for the damage caused by his drinking.
8. Dad doesn’t have to moderate his drinking if he doesn’t want to. But if he chooses to keep drinking, there are implications for the role he will play in Kid’s life.
9. I’ve had de facto sole custody for nearly a year and have gone out of my way to ensure that Kid sees her father. I have established a solid track record and there is no reason to think I would abuse my legal status as the parent with sole custody.
10. Kid isn’t here and neither of us can speak to what she feels or what she thinks. We can agree that what she needs is safety, stability, and the opportunity to develop a strong relationship with both parents. Sole custody to me with generous access to her father, while waiting to see whether Dad will sustain a commitment to sobriety, is the best way to achieve this.