Dear DSO: "Should I fill out mental health forms for my ex?"

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person, real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. All right, everyone, we have another Dear DSO entry on the website. You can submit your own question to dadstartingover.com/dear-dso. And if it's a good one, I will answer it here for the world to see. This one comes from Jimmy in Scotland. Cool. He says the subject line is, do I help with my ex-wife's mental health diagnosis? Interesting. He says, hi DSO. Well, hi Jimmy. He says, I'm writing to you off the back of your recent Dear DSO about doing family things post-separation. My ex-wife is also a lot like this, and while I am starting to put up boundaries to protect my own mental health, she has recently reached out to me and asked if I could fill out forms that she has been given by her psychologist as she seeks a diagnosis for possible bipolar slash borderline personality disorder. Both of them in one person? Oof. Obviously this is a little different to just doing things as a family, as there is a medical diagnosis at stake here. I'm in two minds whether to help her out for the good of the kids or telling her, no, it was your mental health problem that destroyed our marriage. And I'm also worried about the painful memories that some of the questions may bring up. What are your thoughts? Thanks, Jimmy and Scotland. Well, that's an interesting one, Jimmy. Not one I've heard before, to be honest with you. So, um, what Jimmy's referring to here is that I did a previous, uh, uh, Dear DSO where a guy was, uh, divorced from his wife, but the, the ex-wife, and but the ex-wife sure liked to do a lot of kind of still married together family type stuff together, to the point where he's like, it was getting uncomfortable and I don't like doing it. To which I say, well, then you have to you know, put the old boundaries up or tell the other person like, no, I don't really feel comfortable doing this. I'm sorry. Um, this is husband behavior and I'm no longer that person. Sorry. And, but your situation is a little different. So I'm going to make some assumptions here because you weren't too clear on one thing, which is what's the form all about? Is this something that the psychologist said, give this to a family member or a loved one that lived with you? Lives with you, whatever, and see what they, you know, have them fill this out. This is for the, you know, family member. It's not for you. Like, does she have a separate forms, or why would you be filling out forms for her? I guess if that's the case, if, you know, healthcare provider says this is for a family member to fill out and she's looking around and you're basically the only one that's been— that lived with her for so many years before and would be able to possibly answer these things effectively, then Yeah, I'd go ahead and fill it out. Um, what's— again, what is the purpose here? The purpose is to fill out forms to give the healthcare practitioner a better idea of this person's symptoms and what the patient is dealing with or dealt with in the past so that they can properly diagnose and prescribe certain treatments, medications potentially, to get them better. So the more you can help out to get your ex better— here's one way looking at it, um, presuming you have kids here. Did you mention kids? I don't know. Presuming you have kids, yeah, you say, uh, good to the kids. Um, don't you want your kids to have the best mom possible? I guess we'll look at it this way. If somebody said, look, here, here's a deal, dude, you have a chance for your kids to have a good, healthy, mentally healthy mom that that will minimize the chaos in their life and, you know, potential future mental health problems of their own down the line, but all you gotta do is fill out this series of forms. I would be like, just give me the forms, of course. Why would I not do that? Well, the reason you would not do that is because it's coming from the ex who hurt you. And it also, in going through this, you're gonna see questions that are gonna be like, has this bipolar spouse ever done the following to you? And you're going to sit there and go, yeah, and it's going to bring back memories of that time in January 2022 when she hit you or when she did something terrible to you. And you're gonna like, I gotta relive all these memories. Well, yeah, not every day is going to be wine and roses, dude. There's going to be days that things are going to hurt. And, uh, you know, I can hear you now saying, yeah, but this is a voluntary thing. I'm— this is just life happening to me. I'm volunteering to dig into the past and write stuff down. Yes, but in essence, it's for the best for the future, for your family, for your children. Um, one way to look at it, and this sounds kind of weak probably to a lot of people, but there's still a portion of you that loves this woman. You spent so many time— so much time with her, so many years presumably, and you have children with her. There's still a, a, a piece of your heart there that she still resides, right? Obviously, or else you, you wouldn't be a human being. And you still want to— it sounds like you're not at that point yet, but you will eventually get to the point where you say, I do wish her the best, because the alternative is just one more person hurting in this world. Why would I want that? Why? Because they did you wrong. Okay, cool. Um, but you make amends and you forgive and you move on. Without them— this doesn't mean go back to them. No, no, no. They stay over there, you over here. But you still say, you're over there, but I, I wish you all the best. I hope things go well, well for you, but I'm not going to get involved in your world. I've learned my lesson there. That's a no-no. So, but you still wish them the best. And this is one step towards that. If you got to put up with 10 minutes of pain, painful memories, filling out a form describing, you know, her past bad behavior for the healthcare practitioner, the doctors and so forth, therapists, that I think it's worth it. Because what if your form, your answers to the form, to the questionnaire, leads her to a diagnosis, leads her to a medication which causes her to be 100 times healthier, causes her to be a productive citizen and an effective mom, an effective friend, and a future effective romantic partner for somebody down, somebody else down the line. And you had a hand in that. That's a positive. That's the way I would look at it. Maybe I'm just being, as the kids call it, a simp. Maybe you want to say, hell no, to hell with you, go away, crazy woman, hope you rot in hell. There's probably a portion of you that wants to do that, but to me, there's nothing, nothing effective. There's, there's nothing positive to come from that. You'll just end up hurting worse. She'll be in worse off shape. The kids will be hurt. I know it wouldn't be— in that, in that fake scenario, I know it wouldn't be all your fault necessarily, but you had a hand potentially turning that around, and you looked the other way. You turned your nose up at it. I wouldn't do that. I, I take the high road here. Yeah, fill out the form, give it back to her. Best luck, and no contact beyond that. All right, brother, thanks for reaching out. It was a good one. Appreciate it.