To me, this whole topic is related to common sense and maturity. I simply analyze a situation and use my common sense to conclude that it’s not a good idea to provide excuses for my bad behaviour and bad decisions. It’s better to own up to my stupid acts and make changes so that I don’t repeat the same bad behaviour in the future.
But, what happens when someone sets up impossible situations, manipulates people, tells different stories to different groups and then, lies to cover it up. This is bad behaviour and bad beliefs to a degree that is only understandable after assessing the fallout.
The situation
The diva meets a new guy about a year after her separation from her ex-husband. The separation was difficult. The kids were not left out of it. The kids were young (under the age of 12) and heard plenty of bad mouthing. They were caught in a tug-a-war.
In the divorce settlement, the diva got what she asked for - the house, the ocean front vacation home, all three children, significant spousal support payments. The idea was that she would be happy if she was treated above the normal standard of fairness. She insisted and James eventually complied. She had adequate resources, along with child support payments, to live an upper-middle class standard of living.
The diva finds a new boyfriend and falls quickly and madly in love with him. He lives in a town about 20-km away from her town. They decide to live together but don’t tell James until she buys a house in the new town.
The children are in joint custody of both parents but the diva doesn’t let her ex-husband know of her plans.
One day, the diva asks her ex to come and get a saw out of her Quonset hut in the backyard. He picks up his saw.
Shortly thereafter, the RCMP (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) knock on James' door. They tell him that his ex-wife has accused him of breaking in to her Quonset hut. She stored the back seat to her mini-van in the Quonset. There were small holes in it. The diva had told the RCMP her ex-husband had broken in and punctured the holes.
The RCMP took a statement from James. Several days later, he was told to go to the station for further investigation. He called me and was frantic.
James is a respected professional in the oil and gas industry and is a member of the APEGGA – the professionals association for engineery and geoscience in Alberta. He complies with the professional standards of conduct and was surprised that he would be accused of doing something so trivial, as he could lose his associaton membership for midsconduct. This could potentially hurt his reputation.
The RCMP continued to investigate for a short while. The diva continued to insist that he broke into the Quonset.
At some point, RCMP discovered that the youngest daughter admitted to being mad at mommy and putting holes in the seat of the car.
The cost of this incident in terms of money, time, energy and anxiety were significant. There was little consideration for tax payer dollars in this situation.
The diva neither apologized nor accepted responsibility for this event. She now denies that it happened, even though it’s documented in the police records.
The diva moves
The diva purchased a new house and moved to the new town leaving the children’s father over 20-km away from the children. James was being distracted by the RCMP and does not know that his ex-wife had moved. After he discovered that she had moved, he went to court to try to reverse the move, but the judge ruled that she has already invested her money and sanctioned the move.
James now lives over 20-km away from his kids. The town is located in the opposite direction of the city he works in. The hours that he must drive to see his children are significant. He’s not able to spend much time with them and he slowly becomes depressed. He called me on many occassions, after dropping his children off, from his weekends with him. He cried. He felt defeated.
I hadn't been dating James for too long at this point of this story. I had met his children and we’d done a few things like go ice skating. His eldest daughter (Jenn) was nine years old at the time and I was struck by her maturity. She paid a considerable amount of attention to her younger sister (Ashley). However, she seemed stressed. After skating for awhile, we sat on the benches and watched the boys play hockey.
Jenn said to me that her father didn’t love her. I was caught completely by surprise and asked her why she thought this. The daughter replied that there was no particular reason but she got the idea from her mother he didn't love her or at least he didn't love her as much as her mother did.
Jenn, the oldest daughter, is left on the doorstep of her father's house
The diva had been living in her new home for several months and the new boyfriend was over frequently.
One day, the oldest daughter accidently walks in on the couple while they are engaging in intercourse. The daughter phoned her father and stated that she accidently saw them and that Jim (the mother’s boyfriend/a pseudo name) and her mother pinned her to the bed and spanked her.
The details of why the diva and Jim spanked the daughter are difficult to unravel, as the diva denied that it happened.
The following day was Thanksgiving, I got a call from James. He was in shock. He told me that he had come home from Thanksgiving dinner to find his daughter Jenn sitting on his doorstep.
She wasn’t dressed for the weather and was crying. She had been sitting there for an hour or more. At least this is what he could decipher from her teary tale. She was upset and crying.
James called the diva and she was frantic. She was screaming about their oldest daughter and claiming that Jenn was disrespectful. The diva said that this is what would happen if she continued to be behave like that.
James had to drive to the diva's new hometown, which was 20-km, in the wrong direction from work. He, then, drove to work each morning, which is about 35-km and repeated this at the end of the day. After six months of driving three hours per day, James finally sold his acreage and moved to the town where the diva resided.
When family members asked the diva about the details of this event, she denied that she did anything of the sort. She told people that she had pre-arranged the new living arrangements with her ex. When asked to provide documentation, she smiles and sweetly tells people that it was a verbal agreement.
The diva wrote a letter which stated that she would hand her two oldest children to her ex-husband
The diva writes a letter to her ex. She stated in the letter that she wants to give the son to her ex to care for, in addition to her daughter.
For a period of two years, the day-to-day events were running fairly smoothly until one day, the diva decides to start getting actively involved with her daughter again.
James thought this was a good sign. He thought that his ex-wife and daughter were going to heal their estranged relationship, he told me. I was sceptical. I noticed a pattern of self-centered behaviour. I was concerned that she might hurt Jenn again. We learned that she is no longer dating her boyfriend.
The amount of visitation between the older daughter, Jenn, and the diva increased. Jenn seemed happier and James was supportive and optimistic about the situation.
One day, James came home and discovered that his daughter was gone. Neither the diva or his daughter informed him of the daughter’s decision to return to her mother’s house. The move was permanent.
When James phoned his daughter, the diva stated that his daughter did not want to talk to him. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to talk to him. This became a frequent occurrence and the daughter rarely visited her father.
It's been several years, and Jeen rarely visits her father. It feels like the relationship is estranged. The diva phoned James to tell him that the reason their daughter is screwed up is because of him.
What goes on behind closed doors at the diva's house, no one knows. But, the actions of Jenn suggest that there is some sort of parental alienation happening.
The daughter shows signs of extreme stress and depression
The fist year after Jenn returned to the diva’s house was difficult. The daughter missed 40 days of school. James found out through his son that Jenn had missed so much school. Most of these were not excused absences. James phoned the school and had been greeted with hostility.
James explained to the school that he had joint custody and would like to be informed of such problems. He, later, learned that the diva had accused him of being violent and had informed the school of this.
When I learned this, I was dissappointed and puzzled. Is it possible to defame a person’s character without an ounce of thought about how this will impact the children? What about his reputation? Had she no standard of ethics or morals? Did she not think that there might not be evidence to substantiate her claim? At any rate, she has not filed such a claim in court.
The situation continued to deteriorate and the diva dropped her daughter at a home where children are taught how to correct their bad behaviour. The home is run by social services in Alberta. The daughter received intensive therapy and the entire family was asked to participate. James and his remaining children attended therapy with Jenn on several occasions.
The diva attended several sessions of therapy and quits. She outright refused to go back to the therapist. The diva also pulled her daughter out of therapy and out of the school.
James phoned the therapist to find out what the problem was. The answer was that they diagnosed the situation like this: there’s e extreme hostility between the parents and this is negatively impacting Jenn. James couldn’t understand why the diva quit therapy. He told me that Jenn was improving and was more enthusiastic about things.
By now, I’m getting suspicious that there is something seriously wrong with the diva. Her actions indicate that she is extremely self-centered. She often bullied James with phone calls and raging fits at his front door.
She had often phoned and left hostile messages. The messages defame and belittle him. She accused him of being the worst father in the world. She uses words that start with a* and f*. (We have recorded many tapes of these messages thinking to get a restraining order from her, but there's no time and not worth the effort). Her anger is excessive and irrational. Sometimes, she does this in front of the children. On one occassion, she behaved like this where my son heard her. My son was horrified and asked what was wrong with her. The children hear her phone calls.
At first, when James received these calls, he remained silent. Then, he developed a new habit and would hang up on her. Ocassionally, he would tell her to stop behaving so badly. At one point, he told her to drop dead. Now, he has returned to a position of silence.
I decided to look up bully on Google and it returns information on narcissism. I was hoping to find some sort of strategy to learn how to deal with her. Only, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of advice.
I consulted my girlfriend, who is a psychologist, and she referred me to some reading materials, including “Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone you Care About has Borderline Personality Disorder” by Paul T. Manson. It’s difficult to determine if the diva is clinically ill or not.
She's a wizard at telling a specific version of a story, switching the story to suit her needs the next time she needs the story and then, denying that she ever told the story.
The best I can tell is this: personality disorders are dealt with by establishing boundaries. The diva doesn’t respect boundaries. She won’t admit that there is a problem, so it’s impossible to even have a discussion with her. We still haven't established a boundary with her.
The diva has said that she is not to blame for anything in this deteriorating situation. She states that James is at fault for everything that goes wrong, including the deteriorating mental health of Jenn.
I’ve never heard James bad-mouth the diva to the children. He refers to her as mommy when he talks to his children. He has remained silent about her long parade of new boyfriends and several fiancés. He does not criticize her.
I have complained about the diva to James and have asked why he is so tolerant and forgiving of her. He told me that the kids are screwed up enough without him adding to the devastation. He wants them to be able to love their mother and father freely without being influenced negative comments from him.
He said that this is required by the law. He attended a parenting course after his divorce, and the law does not allow for divorced parents to bad mouth the other parent. He said that it's hard for children to hear such things. He is a child of a divorced family and understands why these laws exist.
I used to understand this concept of bad-mouthing but since watching the diva, I had lost sight of this. I continue to try to think of the children.
The situation is getting worse. Jenn continues to miss school and is failing. (Documentation is provided in the right column).
The diva had her daughter write a letter to present to the courts stating that the daughter did not want to live with the father. It was signed by a commissioner of oath and James is not sure whether he can challenge this. He’s not sure if it’s worth rocking the boat, as his daughter is extremely stressed.
The daughter does not attend school, rarely attends extracurricular activities, doesn’t seem to have many friends, and sits around the house often. James' son often complains that his sister doesn't do anything and that she is verbally abusive of him.
The daughter has little motivation to pursue anything, including hobbies. Some would call this a bad teenage attitude. We think that there’s the issue of teenage development but the daughter is also likely depressed.
In my opinion, the daughter is chasing the unconditional love of her mother. The diva only seems to show affection to her children when they do as she tells them to do.
Jenn likely feels she was abandoned by the diva when she was left on her father's doorstep. The child was confused and embarassed by the events of that weekend. Not only did she witness her mother engaging in intercourse, she was spanked for what was deemed misbehaviour and then, left to wait, in the cold for her father.
The youngest daughter, Ashley, continued to live with the diva since the divorce. There must be some comparison by the children of how they fit into their parent’s lives.
Jenn suffers from extreme fear and anxiety about spiders. This is a topic that I have conducted a bit of research on. It will be a blog topic for another day.
Currently, Jenn refuses to go to therapy and the diva will not consider parenting classes or therapy. Joint therapy is not even to be mentioned. The situation is strenuous.
In addition, the diva has a new boyfriend. It’s a recently formed relationship. The children have experienced three boyfriends this year.
Ashley has indicated that she is not happy about how many boyfriends her mother has had. Although, the youngest daughter did say that the latest boyfriend was more normal than the old ones.
Most recently, the diva has suggested sending the oldest daughter to a private boarding school. Will the daughter feel like she is being abandoned? Is she mentally stable enough to be in a school far away from her family? Is there hope for her to recover, if she has no loved ones around? Could the daughter interpret this as unfair and unusual punishment for missing school? How will her siblings respond to this? Will they miss her? Will they, too, become depressed?
I thought that it might be a good idea to try to get full custody of James' daughter. James feels that the stress on Jenn will be too much.
I'm concerned that she is unhappy and I would consider her, more or less, dysfuncitonal. She does not go to school. She does not engage in extracurricular activities. She does not hang out often with friends. I'm having difficulty understanding what else it could be, but depression.
When Jenn lived with her father she went to school, played sports and was a straight A student. What has changed so much?
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