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.”