GIF89a GIF89a Malfeasance https://www.malfeasance.io A Cautionary Tale from the Family Court System Sat, 18 Mar 2023 00:31:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 Mindy Misleads Court Re: Final Parenting Plan https://www.malfeasance.io/attorneys/1044/ Fri, 02 Dec 2022 18:21:59 +0000 https://malfeasance.divorce.paynefamily.io/?p=1044 Mindy goes back and forth with edits on the parenting plan with me all week, not responding for a day and a half at one point. Once the edit to specify “public” schools goes in, she is creating a lot of chaos and urgency. At the last minute, she said she had accepted all edits,…

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]]> Mindy goes back and forth with edits on the parenting plan with me all week, not responding for a day and a half at one point. Once the edit to specify “public” schools goes in, she is creating a lot of chaos and urgency. At the last minute, she said she had accepted all edits, with an immediate follow-up with one that “failed to save.” This follow-up omits the “public” designation for school selection, and she then sends it to the court and represents it as though it is the result of both parents input.

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]]> Engaging an Education Consultant https://www.malfeasance.io/attorneys/lindsay/1195/ Sat, 16 Jul 2022 00:27:42 +0000 https://www.malfeasance.io/?p=1195 Issuing Subpoenas for Final Hearing https://www.malfeasance.io/attorneys/lindsay/1205/ Thu, 16 Jun 2022 00:30:36 +0000 https://www.malfeasance.io/?p=1205 Post-Mediation Preparation https://www.malfeasance.io/attorneys/lindsay/1202/ Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:29:37 +0000 https://www.malfeasance.io/?p=1202 Mediation in Atlanta https://www.malfeasance.io/attorneys/lindsay/1199/ Sun, 29 May 2022 00:28:23 +0000 https://www.malfeasance.io/?p=1199 Hearing to Move Custody to Minnesota / Assign Guardian ad Litem https://www.malfeasance.io/attorneys/lindsay/1183/ Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:39:29 +0000 https://www.malfeasance.io/?p=1183 Brad Learns of Kim’s Secret Plans for Taking a Job in Alabama https://www.malfeasance.io/uncategorized/900/ Wed, 17 Nov 2021 04:12:53 +0000 https://doc.bradpayne.org/?p=900 I learned of Kim communicating her intention to “surprise me,” with plans that she’d already have solidified for moving to Alabama for a job, despite no mention of this to me, and continuing to openly communicate our agreed upon plan for moving to Minnesota. Which, included Kim telling neighbors and friends before we had agreed…

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]]> I learned of Kim communicating her intention to “surprise me,” with plans that she’d already have solidified for moving to Alabama for a job, despite no mention of this to me, and continuing to openly communicate our agreed upon plan for moving to Minnesota. Which, included Kim telling neighbors and friends before we had agreed that we would make this public, which jeopardized my job because I had colleagues in the neighborhood, and she started using my dad’s health as the rationale for why we were moving back to Minnesota, which she was in no position to be speaking about in any capacity.

As an aside, I confronted her about both of these issues, but in particular using my dad’s health as the rationale, in a session with Dr. James. She learned of my dad’s health issues from her friend (my sister-in-law), not from me. We hadn’t discussed it, and we had absolutely no personal connection at all at this point. Kim taking this liberty would be offensive to anyone, and a dramatic overstepping of boundaries (as definitively confirmed by Dr. James). Kim’s response to my confrontation of her behavior was to defend herself, with the stance that if I didn’t want her to discuss it, I should have told her ahead of time, despite the fact that we were not on speaking terms to discuss anything other than what was necessary for the planning of the post-divorce impact to the children, a point that she noted in the same conversation which she took the liberty to share this information with close friends (who audibly were surprised by the news).

 

Note: Why do I even bring this up? This is an example of something that people in the legal realm dismiss as being insignificant (which it is to legal proceedings), but the lack of self-awareness, guilt, and/or shame in that scenario is out-of-the ordinary. On its own, maybe no big deal. When there are hundreds of examples of similar scenarios, there are far more meaningful concerns than social awkwardness.

I’ve come to believe that Kim lacks the following characteristics that have formed my opinion that she’s wholly unqualified to be making decisions for another human being (let alone herself):

  1. Lack of impulse control, as demonstrated with her finances and weight. She would always attempt to rationalize these impulses: “This super expensive thing will last forever, we’ll never need to buy another one,” followed by very shortly wanting to replace that thing, or while trying to lose weight “we can cheat a few times a week — you can’t completely deprive yourself!” followed by the complaint that “I just can’t lose weight,” and if/when I did “It’s not fair (a common refrain) that you can lose weight, while I can’t!”
  2. Lack of self-awareness/social norms: numerous examples, of etiquette, manners, being crude, using profanity in inappropriate situations (including with children)
  3. Lack of Guilt/Shame/Pride: numerous examples in these proceedings, she and her lawyer have used “mortgage fraud” as evidence of me somehow being “nasty,” and have brought it up, un-pressed more than I have.
  4. Disregard for the safety/welfare of kids: She knows (or has a feeling) that something is unnecessarily dangerous, and will pick up on even the “wrong look,” questioning of what she’s doing with the kids, or a simple “Hey, heads up” kind of comment, things that she could just ignore, if she wanted to. Instead, every single time I can remember, she doubled down…and for no apparent benefit for doing so:
    1. Spraying roundup while 7 mo’s pregnant with no protection
    2. Drinking wine while pregnant
    3. In teaching a three year-old child about “sharp things,” she started with a 7″ Japanese chef’s knife, and when she got “the look” for letting her hold it on her own, Kim doubled down by having her walk around the kitchen with it (double-clutched, point-up), to prove that it was “just fine.” Meanwhile, Kim walked behind her, not in a position to definitively do any should the 3-yr old tripped, or even waved this razor sharp knife wrong.
    4. Letting a 2yr old walk on an un-protected sidewalk out of sight, out of arms reach, as cars traveling at 30+ mph were occasionally passing from behind about 6ft off the curb. A non-threatening call out to “Hey, keep an eye on Rowan,” (akin to a “heads up”) resulted in Kim throwing a tantrum, and doubling down that it was perfectly fine, because she had taught the 2yr old to listen, and not wander.
    5. Instructing 4 yr old to pick up trash with bare hands on March 13th 2020, when the fear was that COVID was living on surfaces and cardboard. My gentle instruction to Rowan that “we’re not picking up garbage right now…” resulted in Kim doubling down, getting telling Rowan to disobey me, and provided resources (a plastic bag) and led by example on doing so.
    6. on and on and on …..

Kim is good at disguising these things as “differences in parenting style,” which could be given the benefit of the doubt, if it were not paired with her reaction. It is has become quite obvious to me that she takes any difference of opinion as a critique of her as a mother, and immediately reacts with defending the action, regardless of whether she  had a “handle on the situation,” or was even aware of the situation. Not only does she double down in the moment, but she carries it with her. The example of both the knife and the sidewalk were issues that SHE  brought into Dr. James’ sessions as examples of my undermining behavior… a “questioning glance (trying to not escalate in the moment)” and a very intentionally neutral “heads up,” in situations that could have led to a dead toddler, were enough for her to double-down on in the moment, harbor the resentment from, and then bring up as examples of how “insulting I am to her.”

 

 

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]]> Kim Starts Looking for Jobs in Alabama https://www.malfeasance.io/moving/881/ Tue, 16 Nov 2021 22:03:34 +0000 https://doc.bradpayne.org/?p=881 While communicating to me that we are pressing forward with our plans for moving to Minnesota, she was secretly trying to get a job in Alabama. She communicated this to a number of people, including neighbors, and my own family members, all with the same either sentiment or explicit statement to “fuck Brad, because it was…

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]]> While communicating to me that we are pressing forward with our plans for moving to Minnesota, she was secretly trying to get a job in Alabama. She communicated this to a number of people, including neighbors, and my own family members, all with the same either sentiment or explicit statement to “fuck Brad, because it was her turn to do what she wanted.”

What is so outrageous about this behavior is not just the deception, the impact to the children, and the implications of the kind of person who would go into weekly sessions with a therapist to work on co-parenting and planning our post-divorce relationship (for the interest of the children), but this notion that “it was her turn,” was based on this narrative that she’d made conscious decisions to sacrifice her career for mine.

This narrative was not only factually inaccurate, but she had already admitted to not even believing it herself. This narrative was based around the moves around the country that had taken place during our relationship, and she had built a narrative that she was the victim of these moves (willing or not), only after the fact. She even testified in the emergency hearing that “we moved several times for Brad’s job.” Well, here are the moves that took place:

  1. New York: I had already taken a job in NYC when I met Kim at my brother’s wedding in June of 2007. I moved to NYC shortly after we started dating, in August of 2007. and we started a  a long-distance dating relationship. Kim loved coming to NYC, and said that ever since her father moved to upstate New York and she started visiting NYC with him, it had been a dream of hers to someday live in NYC. By the end of 2007, Kim expressed an interest in moving to NYC, but made it very clear that this move was not for me, in fact, she would never make such a decision for anyone else, but especially for a man. Her company had an office in the financial district, and she could move without a significant impact to her job. My roommate’s girlfriend at the time was spending a lot of time at our place, and offered to split the rent of her apartment with her, if she wanted to do that. Kim moved to NYC, but instead of moving into my roommates’ girlfriends’ apartment and splitting her rent, just stayed at my apartment (which I later learned, she never communicated to the woman she had made the agreement with).
  2. Minnesota: After a couple of years in NYC, Kim started to communicate that she was unable to continue living in NYC. We were having frequent disagreements, and although living together in a small apartment, had begun to drift apart a bit. She would always blame her moodiness, and any ensuing arguments on the fact that she suffers from major-depressive disorder, and either the cocktail of drugs she was taking to cope with that, or non-sensical reasons like “not being around water,” like in Minnesota. So when our lease was up in April of 2009, Kim moved back to Minnesota, and I stayed in NYC. We continued a long-distance relationship, until it became clear that if we were going to continue our relationship, we needed to be in the same location, and take the next step in our relationship. In July of 2010, I moved to St. Paul from NYC, and started looking for jobs in Minnesota while continuing to temporarily work for the same company.
  3. Georgia: While looking for jobs in Minnesota, and finding that the job market was 2-3yrs behind what I had been working on in NYC, my manager left the company and our CIO asked me to take over his position. The caveat being that I would have to move back to NYC, or the Georgia, because the company did not support remote workers, and this role would require that I be in the same location as the team of engineers that I was leading. I told Kim that that I was being asked to assume this position, and that it would mean significantly more money and responsibility, but I’d have to be back in NYC or GA. We scheduled a trip to NYC in December of 2011 for me to meet with the CIO to discuss the position. I rented a room at one of the classic NYC hotels on the upper west side, and went to the meeting with the CIO, where he offered me the job. I told him that I like the sound of the offer, I just have a decision to make because my girlfriend didn’t take to NYC, and I didn’t imagine she’d love the idea of Georgia (given her progressive outlook, and open disdain for the south). When I got out of the meeting, I told Kim that I was offered the job – and her response was “I guess we’re moving to Georgia!” There was no conversation, which was pretty surprising to me. I was going to move, with or without Kim, and if it was without, that would be the end of our relationship. But, at that point, I was OK with that, as moving to Minnesota to take the “next step” in our relationship had not been a convincingly correct decision. I was told that the continued lack of happiness, mood swings, lack of physical relationship, and outbursts (such as the one in front of my brother as a house guest), were the result of a change of the drugs that she was taking to combat her depression, and that it would level off when she and her psychiatrist found the right dosage, but it was an ongoing struggle to find the drug that worked without severe side-effects. Part of me was cautiously optimistic that this “perfect cocktail” was coming soon, part of me would have felt guilty for not “standing by” her as she said she was struggling to find this pharmacological balance that would even out her personality. Those combined were enough for me to just “go with it,” to see how this worked out in Georgia. Despite her very vocal opinion of the south, and southerners, she said that she had contacts at the CDC and it was an opportunity of a lifetime to work work at the “Gold Standard,” of public health, and she had already started conversations with a woman (“Beth”, or “Betsy”), who would likely be able to get her a job there.

 

At some point, Kim had started this narrative that “she had sacrificed her career for mine.” And, as it was allowed to linger in the background for some unknown amount of time, due to a confluence of things relating to how interactions with Kim go:

  1. She distorts what you are staying in real-time, trying to shame/guilt you into conceding an argument, not for what you said, but for her reaction to what you said, regardless of whether or not her reaction to what was said was rational or justified.
  2. She bombards each interaction with so many things that require correction, that it is impossible to respond to every one.
  3. Anything that IS confronted is met with arguments without basic rationale, accompanied with either a guard of a disingenuous accusation (e.g. you’re essentially calling me stupid), or dramatic personal insults of her own, focused on things geared at shaming/guilting:
    1. (e.g. Last argument: Kim: “You have no care for me, because you’re a heartless prick”; (also Kim)”I don’t know how to say this delicately…I don’t like you, I don’t care about your feelings…”), but my use of the word “stupidity” for her previous actions regarding COVID precautions and our daughter was used as a weapon for the entirety of the argument, because I don’t stoop to the level of personal insults.
  4. Anything that is NOT immediately confronted immediately gets folded into her inventory of “agreed upon history” and she uses repetition to make those points stick.

 

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]]> Guardian ad Litem https://www.malfeasance.io/motions/868/ Fri, 20 Aug 2021 01:36:30 +0000 https://doc.bradpayne.org/?p=868 Justification for needing GAL: Opinions of Dr. Thomas and Dr. James Kim’s demonstrated willingness to use children for her leverage, w/o regard for their welfare: Motion for GaL came out – threaten to take kids to MN (Mindy’s response) Newman COVID Questionable Parenting Oliver in girls’ clothes General Mental Health concerns TBI Constant dishonesty and…

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]]> Justification for needing GAL:

  • Opinions of Dr. Thomas and Dr. James
  • Kim’s demonstrated willingness to use children for her leverage, w/o regard for their welfare:
    • Motion for GaL came out – threaten to take kids to MN (Mindy’s response)
    • Newman
    • COVID
  • Questionable Parenting
    • Oliver in girls’ clothes
  • General Mental Health concerns
    • TBI
    • Constant dishonesty and manipulation:
      • Moving
      • Leslie
      • Termination from Dr. James
    • Financial incompetence
    • Questionable adherence to treatment

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]]> Narrative (outlline) of Events Leading up To Divorce https://www.malfeasance.io/overviews/585/ Wed, 11 Aug 2021 05:24:37 +0000 https://doc.bradpayne.org/?p=585 Leading into Divorce Starting in late 2018, early 2019 Kim starts “I don’t know if I want to continue this marriage…” Feb sale of house Cancer scare in march April start new job May beach vacation issue The sale of the MN house, and discovery that she had “walked away” with the money from the…

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]]> Leading into Divorce
  • Starting in late 2018, early 2019 Kim starts “I don’t know if I want to continue this marriage…”
    • Feb sale of house
    • Cancer scare in march
    • April start new job
    • May beach vacation issue
  • The sale of the MN house, and discovery that she had “walked away” with the money from the sale of the house was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”
    • Not because of the money, but with everything else going on, and the state of our relationship, it was absolutely clear that her actions were intentional, pre-planned, and there was absolutely no possibility of recovering the level of trust required to have a healthy relationship.
  • Therapy made a deliberate shift from working on our personal relationship to separating amicably
  • Part of a healthy split, was to start dealing with the bases for the “grudges” that she’d always fall back on as the justification (if not her debilitating depression) for the off-shoot issues that we’d been bringing into therapy
  • Without the fear of the power she’d been wielding with threats of breaking up a two-parent household, I started challenging the very basis of these grievances on a factual basis, and asking for her justification, given the agreed upon and objective facts of the matter.
    • Grievance 1: She had moved around the country “for me” repeatedly, putting her life and aspirations “on-hold”
    • Grievance 2: Stemming from grievance 1, she had repeatedly sacrificed her career “for me”
    • Grievance 3: I valued her career (and therefore her) much less than mine, and that was a selfish thing to do, and contrary to an “unspoken agreement” to shift the focus from my career to hers at some point.
  • As I objectively laid out the facts of how irrational these stances were (believing them to be honestly held), on grievance 1, when confronted, she admitted that “oh, that was just a lie, I wasn’t really upset about that” almost as if it were accidental. Apparently upon realizing what she had done, and the seriousness of this admission, she started to recoil and wanted to “take a break” from therapy. (I still don’t know if this was simply an avoidance tactic from being confronted with her lies, or if it were an attempt to hide/prolong the lie by providing it some shelter)
  • Grievance 2 was outlined with timeline of events, which succinctly details the steps in our lives,  and the decisions that were made together. After which, I asked at what point she sacrificed her career “for me,” including when I got laid off and was without a job for 4 months. Instead of her stepping up and paying any additional bills or taking more responsibility of the financial burden, I used the generous severance package that I received to continue paying the bills as if nothing had changed, and she went on spending whimsically without discussion or consultation, or apparently any ability (or at least concern) for planning on how to address this accrued debt
    • When discussing her debt, she’d use a number of ingenious rhetorical tactics:
      • “I need help in managing my finances, no one ever taught me how to manage money” / “Don’t treat me like a child, you’re not my father, you don’t need to control MY finances.” or “Don’t you even DARE (facial expression) suggest that I could quit my job if I wanted to, because that implies that you already pay all of my bills and I don’t contribute financially.”
      • Lied about changing our agreed upon division of financial obligations, so that she could focus on paying down her debt, for the sake of the family (that we were about to have). Months later – “I’ve not paid down my debt, but actually accrued $30k in MORE debt…’I’m so ashamed.'” Then later, using recurring tactics of shame/guilt/pride, tried over and over again to coerce me into taking financial responsibility for paying down her credit card debt
    • Grievance 3, she tied a number of things to both in financial nature, and just in terms of not having to “pull her weight” in contributions to the household:
      • Division of labor around the house
      • Saying a “focus on my career” was devaluing of her as a person
      • Acknowledging that my tectonic shift in priorities after having children from any career aspirations to focusing on raising children was not present in her, and that I should not have assumed that raising children was above all else the highest priority in her life.
        • When I said that I would gladly stay home with the kids, all she had to do was focus on her career, and pay the bills. She fell back on disingenuous claims for why that was not an option:
          • You make more money than I do
          • I’ll never make as much money as you do because I’m a woman. When I pointed out that there were many women in my organization that make a lot more money than I did, including women that I reported to, she shifted the conversation (without missing a beat) to “you’re saying I’m worthless because I don’t make as much money as the women you see I your company.”
  • After some break in therapy (because while I knew the importance of this work, it was exhausting to me, and I was trying to become competent in a new job…again…I conceded small breaks by not aggressively ensuring regular attendance), she sprung the “I’m going to move to Alabama, if I can get a job there, whether you like it or not.  And since I’m the primary care-giver (which I still strongly contest), I can do whatever I want (I now realize was the result of months of consultation with a lawyer).”
  • In the ensuing sessions, she did a few telling things:
    • Started forecasting her upcoming actions with “guards” like: “you’re calling me a gold-digger,” out of the blue, when nothing of the sort had been stated or even alluded to.  When challenged, she would use a very flimsy justification for “feeling like she’d been looked at like a gold-digger.” By this time, I had recognized the pattern of the “guard” that she’d throw out as a defense to then do exactly what she’d been saying that I had already been “accusing her of.”
      • “I’m afraid that you’re going to do something to limit my time with the kids because of your advantage in the courts, and I’d NEVER do anything like that to you.” This was so blatantly obvious that I spawned my need to document everything in as much detail as I could, because she had now telegraphed that she had no intention of an amicable split, nor co-parenting or respecting my time as a father with the children. Clues continue to fall that give insight into just how long this had been  a plan of hers.
    • In the very few days or weeks following, Kim came forward with  the presentation of this scheme to move to Alabama. She did so by stating that she was pursuing multiple jobs in Alabama, and that she was going to take one of multiple if she could, and that her attorney (first mention of having retained one) would be filing papers at the end f the month (two weeks later). She did so with a new hair-do, bright red lipstick, and a huge smile she couldn’t keep off of her face while she was telling me. I asked how she could be so happy at turmoil that the children were about the thrown into. Without the slightest impact to her smile, her response was “because I’m no longer beholden to your timeline.”
      • Simply asking “what timeline are you talking about? I’ve never dictated any timeline – and the timing that we had discussed was starting from when the kids would start a new daycare, and backing out the dates for milestones that we should be tracking with so that the kids have time to get acclimated to a split household, new state (Minnesota), and new parent/child dynamic before also starting a new daycare/pre-k. Kim simply re-iterated with her huge smile that “I’m no longer beholden to your timeline.”
    •  She also started throwing out more and more seemingly random “guards.” One of them, I didn’t even catch, because I’d been trained to disregard the hyperbolic language that she’d use: “When you were abusing me….”
      • In this same Feb 14th therapy session,
    • Dr. James caught that language, and sent a msg in a “wellness check” text to us to not let this new “abuse narrative” take hold until he had a chance to clinically diagnose it. (taking it as face value, the introduction of ‘abuse’ for the first time at this stage in our relationship shook me to my core, realizing the power that a dishonest woman wields, if so willing).
      • Kim emphatically denied having use that language, and assured me that nothing like that, was going to go down. (as later emails and texts show, she continues to press making exactly that go down).
      • Kim tells me that “we don’t need to see him any more…” and tries to pull away from Dr. James, having been caught and confronted in what I later realized was something he was on the lookout for, and seeing for what it was
      • I needed desperately to get to the bottom of what he was talking about, and scheduled his first availability to talk through what was going on. I invited Kim, but she declined to participate.
      • Kim declined to participate in joint or single sessions to address the issue
      • (I later found out) She later did meet again with Dr. James for individual therapy, admit to using the language that she’d denied, and admitted that it was not accurate.
      • Meanwhile, she declined to have future couple-focused sessions with Dr. James, citing “he allows you to verbally abuse me.”
      • As a way of succinctly telling Dr. James that we’d not be participating in couples therapy (and why), I forwarded him an email from Kim in which she re-iterates this claim of  “Dr. James allowing you to verbally abuse me,” and that she had started seeing another therapist.
      • By this time, Kim had denied to me that she had used that language, or that she intended anything like that to “go down,”  she had already admitted to Dr. James that she HAD used that language and that it wasn’t accurate (and presumable “took accountability” for having used such charged and inaccurate language).
      • When Dr. James saw that she was continuing this narrative with me, and seeing another therapist at the same time (I must presume starting anew with an intricate web of lies that capitalize on stereotypes of domineering male figures), he terminated her from his care, citing her dishonesty and making the professional recommendation that she continue therapy with a few named clinics and specifying that it must be joint therapy, in order to have someone there to hold her accountable to tell the truth.
    • Even with all of this having transpired, I knew that we were (unfortunately) going to need to have at least a functional/business-like relationship in order to co-parent effectively and provide a healthy environment for the children:
      • I suggested that we continue with what we had started with Dr. James recently, which was building a foundation and framework for a healthy co-parenting relationship. I offered to go to her therapist, or that we go to someone that neither of us had seen.
        • I emphasized the importance of this, not for our personal/romantic relationship, but in order to have a health co-parenting relationship for the welfare of the children.
        • Kim declined participation in this effort, citing that “I’ve been given license to verbally abuse her in those settings” (implying that any therapist would do the same), and that the trust that I openly stated was rightfully not present in our interpersonal relationship would not allow for a functional co-parenting model.
          • Kim explicitly stated that “trust was not required for a co-parenting relationship,” and that I should refer to the co-parenting models that come from literature and the state-mandated co-parenting course that we’d need to take.
    • I start interviewing lawyers, and doing some research about her stated intention to move without agreement, and general proceedings given what Kim had been telling me. I  asked about the “primary care-giver” status that Kim had been referring to, and was informed of an approximately 15-point list of what the GA courts use to determine custody. One of them being “primary care-giver.” The other thing that caught my eye was interviews with neighbors and school employees, etc. I noted that this explains:
      •  the very conspicuous ways in which Kim had initiated new relationships with our neighbors that she’d otherwise ignored for 7 yrs,
      • She started being protective about babysitters, and initiating and including me at the last minute
        • I not only participated in all of the previous babysitting decisions, but I sourced the woman who took care of our first child as a newborn through until after Oliver was born.
        • After one of Kim’s babysitters had started regularly sitting for us, I noted some strange behavior at the time, but didn’t realize the significance until the emergency hearing:
          • This babysitter responded to Kim (not joint) when I reached out to coordinate
          • Kim started an argument for me having arranged for her to sit while Kim was out-of-town (which she frequently was) and I had something come up that required me to work in the evening. Kim got unjustifiably angry that I had not consulted her in getting a sitter while she was out of town, which might have been a reasonable position, except that Kim had just done the exact same thing a few weeks prior.
          • This particular babysitter demonstrably lied in an affidavit – stating that:
            • only Kim coordinated with her, that I paid little or no attention to the kids
            • That I’d just come home and “go downstairs” – this was during a living together-separation in which we agreed to create some distance, beginning in early 2019. At this time, I have emails that note the fact that Kim started fights because I was not “separate enough” and was not essentially living in complete isolation in the basement.  This complaint aligns with the timeframe of the babysitter’s statements – although inaccurate about my involvement, interaction, etc. the “basement seclusion” thing was something that Kim was pushing, creating fights about “not being separate, secluded enough” and then the babysitter exaggerates the existence of this paradigm in which she could have only witnessed “something like it” once or twice. Absolutely in no-way was she even around enough to have noted this as a pattern even if it were true, without coaching/instruction from Kim.
            • A dishonest representation of a conversation that did take place, in an effort to support Kim’s false narrative that “we were always planning on moving to MN,” despite quite a large number of people (including disinterested 3rd parties)  recalling Kim’s plan for forcing this Alabama move (without exception, all them cite being taken by the unusual callousness, and either an explicitly stated motivation to spite me, or a shocking lack of regard for what this would mean for the kids). This babysitter states that as an example, I suggested that she nanny for us in MN.
              • There was a conversation that took place about her potentially moving to MN that she was having with Kim that I came into, amidst Kim strongly encouraging her to do so, and how awesome it would be if she could open a daycare and watch our kids. I engaged in the conversation, somewhat prodding at what exactly prompted this idea that she’d be considering moving to MN and be motivated or have the skillset to run a daycare.
              • I was apart of this conversation, but in no way was it my idea, nor was I encouraging of it. This is contemporaneously noted in my notes following the conversation for two reasons:
                • Kim stated at the end of it “that would be so great! I need to do something about these daycare costs, because they’re driving me into debt!” which I found crass, inaccurate, and inline with her complete lack of social grace. We were a household making over $300k/per, she was making $120k per her mortgage application, and she was stating that the $800/mth that she was contributing to daycare costs were “driving her into debt.”  This WAS a statement about our/my household finances, as opposed to the later example of her flying off the handle at me after a friend asked her if/when she was also going to quit her job (because his wife had and “Brad could afford it.”)
                • I noted with some anger that Kim was willing to put our child into a daycare run by someone who has no experience, is not a child educator, during her would-be pre-k year(s), so that she could save a tiny amount of money in the long-run.

 

  • She had a new-found interest in being involved in the daycare that she’d not only previously shown no interest in, but was the source of some arguments that while I commuted an hour each way to work outside the home, dropped off and picked up the children everyday, that I should also share the cooking of the dinner meals, “just because I work from home doesn’t mean that my job is less important than yours”
    • She was not only just starting to show some effort in involvement – but she was protective and defensive about it. She planned/arranged to make sure that I would be home to watch the kids, only after confirming that (of course) I had no other plans, that she “really wanted to go to a ‘conscientious parents’ meeting – not that we could get a babysitter and both go…that I would be sure to be home with the kids so that she could go.
      • The first of these meetings she came home from, and was super excited about “progressive parenting” discussion, and said that there was one thing, that I’m sure that I’ll need time to come to agreement with (but there was no question about whether I’d agree to) – that it’s perfectly fine for us to plan on dressing Oliver in both boys and girls clothes; that dresses weren’t just for girls to wear. She was sooo happy that Donna (one of my softball friends, and a lesbian) gave this presentation from the course content that she teaches at Emory, and how another lesbian couple added that their son started wearing high-heels around the house as a play-time dress up game, and that they encouraged this, so much so that by the time he was 16 he wanted to wear the high-heels to school and in public. Kim loved this so much, and started to joyfully go into the discussion that the parents had with their son about “well, you just have to be prepared for how people will react.”
        • My reaction was that well … it’s not a matter of time. I’m not going to ever be in agreement that it’s appropriate for to proactively start dressing children non-congruous gender clothing. First of all, what’s the point? The child doesn’t have a preference, you’re imposing the preference, to what end? To make a fashion statement that dresses are gender neutral?  You’re setting up a situation wherein a child who’s learning the difference between the sexes, what their sex and gender is, they’ll be learning “what girls where” and “what boys where” from everywhere around them associating dresses with girls, and then realize that although a boy, he’s been wearing dresses which are “for girls.” This is intentionally inserted split-personality type triggers into the child’s psyche for no good reason, other than to make a rebellious statement of the parent using their child as a tool.
          • Kim was uncharacteristically unshaken by my immediate opposition to her firm stance. Her most defining trait is that she is immovable in her opinions – which I let go for too long, not wanting to have fights over inconsequential things. It wasn’t until we had kids that I realized that there was no limit to this immobility from a position. She will go to absurdity to defend her position, at times you can see/hear when she knows that she’s crossed the line that she knows she’s not in a defensible position, but she’ll continue on without hesitation, escalating to raised voices, or ad hominem attacks if necessary to end the discussion “in a draw” because her opponent is unwilling to “stoop to her level” over something that started out as just a discussion containing differences of opinion. I soon realized why she showed no regard for a difference in parenting ideas; she had no intention of respecting my ideas, input, or like always, being moved from her position.
            • Soon books started showing up in Oliver’s  book collection like “Maurice and the Amazing Tangerine Dress,” that was all about how great it was for this elementary school boy to wear his dress to school.
            • She posted on Facebook “how happy she was that Oliver had ‘picked out’ the same costume for halloween as his sister” along with a picture of them both in frilly tutus and female which ensemble in each of their sizes (2yrs and 4yrs)
            • Examples of Kim’s engagement in absurdity, that I’ve later come to realize have been because her unwillingness to have a rational conversation of a topic has been because she’s concealing a lie about that topic:
              • Before the talks of moving, we had no plans of moving out of our neighborhood (because Kim refuses to live in any suburb), but the public schools were/are pretty bad. There is a good charter school 1 block from us. There is a lottery to get in, or if you are in a feeder daycare you automatically get in.  We didn’t get our first into a feeder immediately, and took her to one where I had friends taking their children. After Oliver was born, I went to re-apply them both for the wait list (2018). Kim objected to me, taking the initiative and time to put them on the waitlist, because it was futile. Then I said “well, it can’t hurt. I’m going to do it anyway.” She then pushed back saying that the $100 application fee wasn’t worth it, if nothing would come of it. When I said “it’s $200 – we spend 4x that eating out each month, it’s nothing compared to getting into a good elementary school, then high school, and being prepared for college.” Her response was “We don’t even know if they’re going to want to go to college!” At that point, I brought it back, “You’re saying that you don’t want ME to spend my time, or my money (separate finances), in order to put our kids on a waitlist so we have our options open should we get the opportunity…because in 18yrs, we don’t know if they’re going to want to go to college. That is nonsense, I’m putting them on the waitlist.”
                • Later, a spot did come up for Rowan, which would have also grandfathered in Oliver as a sibling even if he didn’t get his own spot in the next 2yrs.  Kim declined it within minutes of it coming in, without consulting to me.  I had to email the school, asking them to put them back on the waitlist, and that Kim had no authority to make that decision without consulting me as we were in the process of getting a divorce.
                • In the emergency hearing, Kim stated that she was the only person who was involved in schools, their selection, and that the schools in Atlanta were poor compared to the schools in MN. Yet, the house she purchased is in St. Paul, a comparatively terrible school district for the metro area, and refuses both daycares and schools that I suggest in the best school district in the state, simply because it’s not St. Paul (or aligning with her agenda to alienate me from the children).
              • The alluded to “Beach vacation incident” we were in regular therapy sessions in spring of 2019 when Kim said nonchalantly as we were driving somewhere, that a lot of “our issues” were stemming from her depression, and not being around water. She thinks that it would be really good for our relationship if she could just get some time to “recharge, and be around some water. Even just like a weekend at a beach.” We do not go to beaches, so this is not a routine suggestion, or a common vacation destination, nor had we gone on vacations

 

  • When Kim read that Dr. James (and later other psychiatrists that I consulted) shared in my concern for pushing this non-gender-conforming dress, she was sure to state in her description of the children that “Oliver is ‘all boy’ …” going to discuss and show pictures of his “boyishness” that he absolutely has….but completely distancing herself from the fact that she tried to make me take him trick-or-treating in a rainbow-colored tutu just two months prior.

 

  • COVID hits, and although we were definitely getting divorced, there was no progression in site.
  • Kim moved out of the house, and we had no communication other than weekly calls related to the caring for the children, and we were using a 2:2:3 schedule
  • Kim is continuing to cultivate this friendship with at least one neighbor (Leslie) who she’s talking about doing things with, going kayaking, being great pals. I know that this is intentional, but what little that I did know of Leslie, I believed her to be a warm-hearted, honest person who invited me to things while Kim was initiating this new friendship like a camping weekend (which Kim made sure to cut me out of – have texts).
  • Kim continued to provide updates as she continued pursuing her “dream job” in Alabama
    • I had to ask her to stop providing me these updates, because it could be construed as being complicit with her plans, which I was not.
  • Kim tells me a week AFTER she had done so, that her attorney had filed divorce papers, and that although the courts were closed and not processing anything, she had filed so that when they did re-open the case would be ready to go.
    • I received the papers, retained an attorney that I’d spoken to once in order to guide me through not only a new process for me, but a unique one, in which the courts were closed and not processing anything due to COVID.
    • I sent the papers to the attorney, who also informed me that there wasn’t anything urgent to do because the courts were closed and not processing anything.
  • I was in the midst of a make-or-break project at work, which would determine if the new job I had taken was going to result in me being fired for being an ill-fit, or not.
    • I had taken a position with a string of people who followed our CIO from Travelport to Freddie Mac. One of my peers at Travelport was my to-be boss at Freddie Mac. Through a series of miscommunications and first hand knowledge of my general competency, I was offered a position with very little time spent to determine if it was a good fit. In the first two weeks, I realized that I was way in over my head. I went from a managerial position to a individual contributor position. I quickly realized that my new role was to not only technically contribute to, but be a thought leader for, an emerging technology that I only tangentially touched at a high-level in my previous managerial position.
      • I had to brush off my technical skillset that was now 10yrs old, learn a completely new technology, become an expert in software development best-practices, and lead a team of 75 engineers in deploying these practices and technology into the organization for a strategic initiative that was important enough to be getting regular attention from both the CEO and the CIO in all-company meetings, and in public press.
    • I was juggling all of this at work, while daycares were closed, so also taking care of the children two or three days out of the work week. In order to do this, I had to work before the kids got up, juggle both during the day, and work many hours after putting the children to bed and ensuring they got plenty of time, attention, and love throughout these multiple life-defining events they were in the midst of.
    • I found out AFTER 5 months of this routine, that Kim had pre-arranged with her employer to work a 1/2 schedule so that when she had the kids, she didn’t have to work (and could manipulate their attachment by being the “fun parent” who took the kids to the park and played every day instead of having to juggle work, like every other responsible adult dealing with COVID and no daycare).
      • I learned of this 1/2 schedule as a result of trying to have a responsible parenting conversation and dealing with the changing COVID conditions. And because it was her day, to have the kids in mid-July when the daycares re-opened, the suggestion that I was not comfortable with the kids returning to daycare given the post-July 4th COVID spike in GA, after attempts to shift the burden to me for not having communicated my concern early enough, or that I just wasn’t “being brave enough” in dealing with the inevitability of the children returning to school – it finally came out that she was only insistent on the children returning to daycare, regardless of the COVID situation, because “she hadn’t been working while she had the kids until that point, and she had planned a full day of work on the planned return-to-daycare date.”
        • I offered to simply keep the kids with me, because by this time, juggling work and caring for the children was routine. I was a pro at setting up activities, maintaining flexibility in my schedule, and balancing kid-time/work-time.  She declined this offer, because “it was her day to have the kids,” and even though I offered to have the kids to her at exactly the same time that she would have had them if they were to attend daycare…she did not want them to be with me on her day, and insisted they go to daycare amidst the nation’s hotspot and highest ever spike daily new-cases of COVID.
  • Kim tells me that her lawyer tells her that my attorney has “quit responding to her,” but that courts are opening up and that she’s going to start getting things moving. I reach out to the attorney to see check-in again, and get no response. I learn via Kim and her lawyer that despite the courts being closed, we still needed to acknowledge receipt, respond to some things, etc.
    • I try to reach out a few more times, no response via email, the portal that I’d been responded to before, or phone calls.
    • I’ve never heard from that lawyer again
  • In September, while assuming that everything was in-limbo due to COVID, I get a few days’ notice that my lawyer’s been unresponsive, hasn’t responded as she said she would, and that Kim was going to have me served with papers.  I get served a few days later, and 3 days after that Kim tells me that she’s getting laid off at the end of November. She asks if I still thought that long-term Minnesota would be the best option for the family (what we had been discussion prior to her Alabama scheme that undoubtedly fell through during COVID). I agreed that being nearer to family would be better in the long term.
    • Two days later, she tells me that she has an offer on a house in MN, and that she no longer thinks that the 50/50 custody is a working model, because “I don’t even ask her how her day is going or make small talk with her when I drop the kids off”
      • Following her “trust is not required” and all other intentionally confrontational and abrasive behavior for many months, I still went out of my way to be cordial, respectful, and maintain a business-like relationship.
        • She locked her keys in her car in a Home Depot parking lot 30 min’s away from my house, on a workday while I had the kids. She called me, and I piled the kids in the car, adjusted my work obligations, and drove her spare keys to her
        • Her car battery died, and she was stranded at her house with the kids. Asking if we had any roadside assistance with the car insurance that I’m still paying for, I told her that I’d be over to jump-start her car so that she didn’t have to pay someone to come out.
        • When her air-conditioning stopped working while we were out-of-town, she was just going to wait for the unresponsive property manager to fix it, meanwhile creating a problem for the dogs at her house. I called my contacts and found someone who could come out to the her rental property and fix the air-conditioning for her rental property, as a favor to me, in the midst of a heatwave over the 4th of July weekend.
          • I later heard through the grapevine that the AC repairman was surprised by my effort to help in this way that he told a common friend, who was also surprised that I’d extend a helping hand in that situation giving the surrounding divorce context and Kim’s behavior

 

  • I later learned (through subpoena), that the day that she told me of her offer on a house, and the day that she was bold enough to make this proclamation of her intentions, was the same day that she was pre-approved for the mortgage.  I also learned that this was not the first mortgage application. She had applied for a mortgage in August – she still has made no mention of that.
    • Where was the mortgage for? She was still leading me to believe that she was trying to get a job in Alabama. She had stated in March that she could NOT move to MN with her current job.
    • She told me that she immediately told me when she learned of her impending job loss in September. So, where was the property that she was trying to get financed in August that I had no discussion of, and was at least a month prior to the conversation asking about MN being the long-term direction for the family, which she later explicitly stated was when I agreed that we should immediately move to MN and that “I COULD” with my current job.

 

  • ….  <break in timeline continuity as I went back to 2019 events>
  • Dr. James affidavit request
  • Kim response to GAL motion
  • Kim manipulation of kids on calls with “your forever home”

 

 

 

After Emergency Hearing

  • In the immediate days after the hearing, Leslie pulled me aside to ask me how the hearing went (I didn’t know she knew it had happened)
    • I told her the incomprehensible story of the recent events.
    • She told me that she felt the need to tell me something. She told me of the interactions she had with Kim over the past year, and had just come to realize that it was a year-long manipulation into trying to cultivate her as a witness for the emergency hearing.
      • Kim told her of the Alabama plans, which Leslie felt gross about
      • Kim ultimately pulled what Leslie believed to be a “bait and switch” on “writing a letter in support of her as a mother,” then “oh, by the way I need you to attach this affidavit coverletter to it.” Leslie objected because she didn’t “have that kind of knowledge of  Kim as a parent, and believes Brad to be a good dad from what she’s seen, which wasn’t much.”
      • At that point Kim got somewhat pushy and nasty, but finally just cut ties. She unfriended her on social media, wouldn’t pickup calls, or respond to txts offering emotional support “as her friend” through this situation.
    • Leslie told me that Kim did the same thing to at least one other neighbor, Rikki and when she also declined to provide the affidavit, Kim sent her a txt that said “I just hope that if you and your husband are ever in this situation, you have people around you with more courage than you have…”

 

 

 

  • I move to Minnesota, taking my dog and a suitcase
  • Incident at Newman
  • Kim clearly needs to establish the kids in St. Paul for her plans
  • Obvious attempts at alienation:

The post Narrative (outlline) of Events Leading up To Divorce first appeared on Malfeasance.

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