TL;DR: Borderline authoritarian narcissist paints herself into a corner, shoots herself in the foot, ties a noose around her own neck, digs a hole and jumps in, cuts her nose off to spite her face, and other cliches.

TL;DR: Don't give up. The only way to push back against someone with borderline personality disorder is to not engage them and let the law do its job. It's going to be expensive if you use lawyers. It will be bothersome when you have to use police and family court. It will be exhausting no matter what. But this is a battle you want to take on or you give up everything. And it will be worth it.

The trial was last week. My ex was pressing with a poorly thought out plenary action wherein she asked for

  1. Sole custody,
  2. Almost $15k in arrears, and
  3. Modification to a criminal restraining order I had against her.

This plenary was engineered and designed only to delay the divorce indefinitely and to bankrupt me. So far she's failed.

My ex's problems grew exponentially from there. She and her many attorneys have had their asses handed to them every time they've appeared in court (they also pulled no-shows at 2 trial dates). She's on her 7th or 8th lawyer at this point.

Problems with the motions in her plenary:

  1. Custody was already determined in the separation agreement she wrote while I was unrepresented. Kinda makes you look like a douchebag, contesting the terms of a divorce you wrote up. Judge dismissed this motion.
  2. It's not possible for me to be in arrears; I've paid through NYS for more than two years, and each time we go to court I'm $675 overpaid or $0 in arrears. Judge allowed this to move to trial, but this comes back to bite my ex in the ass, big time.
  3. The criminal restraining order was not permanent but I had no control over it. Criminal RO are no joke. If you fuck around with Family Court RO and get a district court RO, your next stop is the clink. But this RO expired before the announced court date. To add to this, my ex and I have no contact whatsoever except in email. Judge dismissed this motion as moot.

Essentially, my ex wants to rewrite the SA. But to rewrite a civil contract, you have to have the agreement of both parties and any money that has changed hands would have to be paid back. For my ex, this would mean somewhere in the vicinity of $50-70k in child support and reimbursements before the court could consider such a suit.

Trial date arrives, and of course my ex and her attorney aren't ready for trial in the 2nd motion of the plenary. I've been awake until 3am for a week, assembling Excel spreadsheets and printing out bank and credit card statements going back 4 years. The printouts alone were 8 inches thick. These assholes are dragging their feet again.

So our female judge, noticeably irritated by my ex's bullshit, insists that we continue with the divorce action. My attorney puts me on the stand for a total of maybe 90 seconds, asks me a couple of yes / no questions, and that's it. The divorce my ex so hotly contested is complete, without so much as a cross examination from her attorney and now I'm a free man.

Here's where it gets good: My ex tried to sue me for child support in 2015, though there were no arrears. That judge was equally incredulous, since the SA said we could only review child support and pro rata shares after three years (it had only been 9 months) and I'd been paying every expense on time and then some, and by that trial date my ex owed me $2k in auto payments and insurance along with hundreds in unreimbursed medical expenses and extracurriculars for the kids. The petition was dismissed with prejudice. We found out 2 weeks later that my ex was starting a new job making 3-4x what she was making previously, and the petition was her Hail Mary effort to delay recalculation of pro rata shares and lock in her sweet 30% responsibility. Stupid.

Historically, when I would notify my esteemed opposite-gendered coparent over and over that we had to recalculate pro rata shares due to her income changing by 15%, the exchanges would go like this (actual exchange below):

EOGCP: As I said, and I'm not going to repeat it a third time, your attorney should have advised you that until the agreement is changed by the court, the agreement stands.

Skepticynical: The agreement does stand. We pay pro rata shares of child care expenses. I cannot solve this equation to determine my share because I don't know how much your income has increased or decreased. I'll gladly request an emergency hearing at family court if you refuse to share the necessary information to help me determine my financial obligation.

To be clear, my ex has never, ever written me a check for anything. Ever. The money has always flowed in her direction only.

Here's where it gets really good: the judge noted that my counterclaim in the divorce wasn't even tied to any pro rata share (she now owes me $9k for the car she drove into the ground and never paid for, though she wrote into the SA that she would be responsible for all payments). Judge also noted that the largest items in my ex's complaint weren't even paid, so they don't fall under "arrears". That's right: my ex is trying to sue me for bills that haven't been paid by anyone, bills that I have paid, and bills that are billed to me, in my name. And whenever we go into court, I'm overpaid to NYS child support bureau. The judge urged us (but really, urged my ex) to settle. I'd already offered her $3k to go away. She really, really should have taken the money because the judge then ordered my ex to bring her tax returns for 2014, 2015 and 2016 so we can recalculate the pro rata shares for the years since the agreement was signed.

Because my ex wouldn't settle, wouldn't accept a generous payoff, and is wasting everyone's time and money, the judge is making her go back 3 years so she can pay back 10, 15 or 20% of every day care expense, doctor's bill and coinsurance bill I've paid toward. Not only will my arrogant, sociopathic ex not get any money from me, she's learning the meaning of "careful what you wish for". Oh, she's getting a court order recalculating those pro rata shares. And that order will apply retroactively for 3 years. And she's going to have to write me that fucking check.

Music to my ears. Everything my ex tried to do has spectacularly blown up in her face.

Follow-up trial date is January 2nd.