PippiLngstockng

We worked out a complicated summer visitation/camp schedule without lawyers. It took easily 60 emails, but we got to the point he was buying tickets today. In most of his communications he throws in unrelated insults, lashes out, fights and snarls and drags his heels but I was saving paying a lawyer by dealing without the support staff for once.

And suddenly he wants to go back to the drawing board. And redo everything.

Divorce pre-trial put off today until late September. Trying to mediate but he won't send in the necessary documents.

My bills have piled up horribly and everyone wants money I was hoping to give them once the divorce was settled.

Why does he draw everything out like this? Can't we get on with matters?

The lawyers love him. The more things drag on the more money they get.

Want my life back. All of it.

hopeful4

Awe sweetie, it's cause he is crazy. You cannot rationalize or try to figure out crazy.

I am sorry Pippi!

XXX

Hammer

He must have been having the time of his life.

Well, sure. Otherwise the game is over. Keeping you engaged is the object of this exercise.

Probably all he wants, too.

Rosiepetal

OMG I relate your thread to my life & same scenarios.
Someone recently told me on here on SR to stop trying to accommodate his plans in the hope he would treat me better.
They were right but I hadn't seen myself like that before.
I think we need to accept that any communication with these men is never going to change.
I wish for the day when I don't have to communicate with him anymore so I can move on with life & you sound a bit the same.
I also wish that lawyers would put things in black & white in a way we rarely have to communicate instead of trying roundtable meetings, mediation etc etc.
HELLO don't put us in the same room or let us talk to each other because it clearly doesn't work.
Of course on these days they are sweet as pie but in reality they are narcissists.
I'm so sorry you're having to go through this.
I think I am slowly getting harder (after 7 years of BS) If it doesn't work for me , its not happening.
Got my court date today, 24th June.
Hugs

PippiLngstockng

I am the mouse and he is the cat, Hammer?

I miss my no contact days.

Why can't he find another mouse to play with? Why me?

If I don't agree to more email exchanges, the summer visitation question will wind up in court or something, won't it? I don't have time for this. I have to study for my exams and care for my home and children. And myself. Enough already!

Btw, the first attempt at coming to an agreement re: support/assetts? He offered nothing.

Someone mentioned that he is referring to our house on Facebook as his 'manor'.

So anyway, can I return to no contact? I think I will tell him that I won't be available for any more email exchanges until the end of the month. I have my life to attend to. If he can't figure out plane tix, he will have to complain to the judge.

inpieces314

Do you have a lawyer? If not, try to find one who will do pro bono or allow you to pay them when the divorce is final.

That way, they can worry about this, and you can worry about your life. Anything he wants to say can go from his lawyer to yours.

In legalese, this is known as litigating on the margins. He is trying to exhaust you so he ends up with a really good settlement, much less than what you would have pushed for if he wasn't exhausting you. Don't let him win. Seriously-this is it. After this is done, there will be a permanent visitation order in effect, and he will have to abide by it. Just hang in there until it's done.

Florence

His manor! LOL

Keep your boundaries strong. Don't agree to stupid arrangements in order to avoid a fight or a hassle. Have an audience and do everything in writing. That's all my experience with negotiating with a narcissist, and other than that, keep a wide berth.

You're doing just fine.

Wahine

Go to bpdfamily.com. then to the family, law, divorce section. You might also read the book Splitting. I got a new credit card. Maxed it out in a large retainer to lawyer, sold my wedding ring to make first monthly payment. Nothing will stop me from leaving my marriage. Just think outside the box.

PippiLngstockng

Inpieces,

I have spent so much on lawyers trying to keep distant from his madness that I have nothing much left. And it keeps coming. Lots of lawyers respect him because of his successful career. They yell at me and try to get me to accept being trampled by him. They haven't helped much if at all and they cost a fortune. They are no where near as smart as Stbxah.

I have no choice but to deal with him and Hammer is right. He loves forcing me to interact with him.

I wrote to him this morning that I will have no further interactions with him this month. I want to add - and for the rest of my life.

I am so plagued by bills and debt in the meantime. I can't think straight.

Maybe I have to go no contact again. Come what may. The lawyers want me to deal with him directly and come to agreements. I also needed money for the children's dental, eyecare, etc. I feel like these interactions are taking me back down the rabbit hole I just barely clawed my way out of.

So I have to block him after today. Maybe until we do the mediation. And for the mediation, I don't think I need to be in the same room with him, do I?

I haven't felt this weak in a long time.

Thanks for being there, folks. Really and truly, thank you.

wanttobehealthy

I don't have any advice pippi other than that I can relate 100% to your conundrum. Pay lawyers endlessly and stbxah plays games and drags it out endlessly or attempt to communicate with him directly (email here too) and do it for "free" but the cost to my mental health is great.

I'm horrified by lawyers who are happy to let a narcissist sociopath A drag a divorce out to pad their pockets. My lawyer has every cent of my credit and money I could borrow from family and I have virtually nothing to show for it.

So, I guess my point is just to sympathize with you.... So sorry

inpieces314

Go to the nearest DV shelter and tell them what is going on. They may be able to refer you to someone. You don't have to do this alone, and they can either help you or at least be in the room with you if you have to be there with him doing the mediation.

Or Social Services. Or legal aid. I don't know where you live but we have legal aid in my state, and they help you do everything you need to do for free. They just won't go to court with you.

PippiLngstockng

You have all my sympathies, too, wttb! It is helpful though sad when others habe been through similar catastrophies. I didn't know anything about lawyers, alcoholics, divorce, or narcisists before getting in this mess. I did know about DV, but it was often so subtle and I so naive. Learning the hard way, eh?

The lawyers and judges seem to like getting money an awful lot more than they care about helping a family through a disaster.

I wish I had come into this stronger and wiser. But then I wouldn't have married Stbxah in the first place, right?

Want to bang my head against the wall. Where is that emoji when you need it?

Florence

It can be so frustrating. It's another day at work for them. We are one family of many.

But for us, this is our lives, our kids! Our livelihoods!

Like a true codie, I searched for that emoji for you. Instead I found this:

PippiLngstockng

Never seen that one before, Florence! LOL!!!

Does anyone else notice that you get so used to hard and bad news that you hardly react any more? Oh, another tornado over my house? Yeah, I thought that might happen. Now where did I out that dustpan, anyway?

One silver lining in communicating with Stbxah. I slightly enjoy the way he gets all accusatory and overwrought in his emails and I can reply in a grounded, matter-of-fact, actually remember what happened the day before way. He may make my life a mess, but I am not the spinning furiously cyclone that he is.

wanttobehealthy

I thoroughly "enjoy" this too as much as there can be enjoyment in this...

I have been reading this womans blog Tina Swithin-- onemomsbattle.com all about divorcing a narcissist and she ended up representing herself years into the process bc as we have discovered the courts and often the lawyers we hire are totally useless...

Rosiepetal

Love the cyclone pick
I have a legal aid lawyer but she is not overly helpful & sometimes I think she works for XH instead.
Although I get legal aid I still have to pay all of it back because I own half a house & work 30 hrs week.
Paying it off in advance at mo & when court process finalised I will be left with a debt & the debt dept take this over & then contact me to make arrangements. Dreading that bit.
What really annoys me is that what I offered to start off with is probably what he will get & that was before it started costing.
Actually in my country & only weeks ago the courts have changed their system so that a mediation meeting between the parties has to take place first before either parties can apply to the courts. Shame it came too late but should stop a lot of the BS that goes on for future scenarios.

inpieces314

Our legal aid is totally free. BUT you only get like, 15 minutes (or half an hour, I forget) with them, only certain hours per week, etc.

It's a great thing but the downside is, they aren't your lawyer, they aren't getting paid, they don't care what ends up happening in court.

When I got that protective order a while ago, they gave me a lawyer pro bono. I told him what I wanted and how I wanted it, completely the opposite of what normal people do, I guess, because he was shocked. I didn't care. He wasn't even getting paid, but he did it, not that it would have mattered, I didn't want a lawyer anyway, but oh well. And that was a wimpy protective order, nothing like a complicated divorce...

Maybe it is because I know the legal system better than the average person, although, admittedly, less than a lawyer does. But anyway, it's best to put your foot down, don't let them trample all over you.

And especially the judge. Respect is like, the key to everything in the courtroom, the judge hates seeing people being rude to each other. So at least there, you are safe.

Pippi, who are you taking with you when you go to court? Friends, family, etc.?

peaceofpi

Pippi, you asked about mediation. In the mediations I've attended, the parties are each in different rooms with their respective lawyers. The mediator shuffles back and forth between the rooms with the offers in hand. He tries to get each party to reach an agreement and may sometimes argue with each party in an effort to get it done.

My divorce settled through mediation. Simply, I needed to get rid of the eternal filings and pilings-on of lawyers fees with a dwindling amount to pay fees and the constant crush of angst and anger and evaded alcohol tests and surprise-attack untrue accusations.

Getting it finalized was great therapy. Some day, yours will be final too. Know that, and know that there is an end. When I was in all-day labor with no epidural, I thought about an extreme bike ride in the Alps up a steep mountain. I knew I could do it because there was an end. Not an end in sight, not an end I could prefer or control, but at some point there would be an end. And it was the same for divorce.

He still lashes out in angry emails etc., because that is who he is. A narcissistic, blamer, active alcoholic. Isn't going to change. My advice is to get as much nailed down in the mediation where it's black and white and you don't have to negotiate anything or have continuing need for legal fees in the future post-divorce.

Hugs to you.