Divorcing a Narcissist: Contempt of Court Hearing and Very Muddy Water
In just 12 hours, I will know the outcome of the Contempt of Court charges as we have court tomorrow morning at 8:30am. Someone on a national mom's website made a comment about my blog yesterday that really stuck with me. She said something to the effect of, "I am reading (the blog) and I'm only on 2010 but I'm thinking, with all of the stuff Tina went through, and no one did anything about it, what chance does anyone have?"My response to her was this: I hope that my blog isn't discouraging to anyone in this battle-- that wasn't what I intended. I am in the dark about the final direction that my case will take. I hope that my struggles end on a happy note and I hope the same for your struggles. It's been an incredible journey and I am still swinging. TinaThere has been a lot of bad but there has been more good. Taking on a Narcissist and the court system is a daunting task but with any daunting task, it is better to break it up in small pieces. I take a breather in between court dates and pat myself on the back. I celebrate the victories- however small they may be. I allow myself to grieve for the bad days but then I pick myself up and embrace a new day. I believe in the power of positive thinking and while I am not perfect, I am learning. The best part of life is that tomorrow is always a new day!I received my X's response to the contempt paperwork in the mail today. Talk about muddying the waters. Half of what he wrote sounded like the manifesto of a mad man and the other half wasn't even relevant to the case at hand. I put a few pieces of his response into the Narc De-Coder:1. It's my fault that he can't keep a job because he finds it hard to focus when we are always in court.My advice: don't sleep while my daughters are swimming unsupervised in a swimming pool and don't drive them on a suspended license which are just the first two things out of 200 that popped into my head. Don't endanger my daughters and we can stay out of court. Cross that line and I will put you in front of a Judge every time.2. According to the X, I have lived with my fiance since June of 2011 which means that we are married (common law) and therefore, his income should be included with mine.My question: when did the laws change? Who knew that "common law marriage" had moved from 7 years to 1? Yes, he really put that in the paperwork as an argument.3. He cited old orders about how much time he should have.My response: Yes. Those orders did allow him much more time with our daughters. That was before the courts saw through him.4. He added all of his recent payments to show how diligent he is on his child support. Ironically, those payments were all made after he knew that I filed for contempt.5. He did screen prints of my company bio which lists my qualifications and then (out of the kindness of his heart) performed local job searches for me showing my "income potential" based on my bio.My response: I am confused. This isn't about me. I take care of my responsibilities. I have held the same job for three years. The job that allows me to be home when my daughters when needed and gives me the flexibility to be the parent 98 percent of the time.One question- is your head spinning? Mine is.I'm sure the Commissioner's head will be spinning also because his approach is clearly one of a Narcissist: muddy the waters to cause confusion on the topic at hand. By the time I finished reading his 26-page rant, I wondered if he was really that delusional about tomorrow's proceedings. This has nothing to do with me and whether or not common-law marriage laws changed drastically while I was sleeping last night...this is about the X and his obvious disregard for laws and court orders."Like" One Mom's Battle on Facebook or Follow me on Twitter @onemomsbattle.comTo Purchase “Tina’s Tips”, click here.[wp_ad_camp_1]