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This new law of including the custodial parent's income in determining child support.....does it work if the mother moved out of state a few years ago? The CS order is still enforced thru MN, and the orders show that mother moved without dad's consent or permission from the court. Would the CS office just be able to say "we cannot obtain the income of the mother as she lives out of state."  ??

My husband and his ex were ordered to use a Parenting Time Expeditor also. Ramsey County courts.

Parenting time expeditors are the courts way of delegating little arguments to someone else. They are to help interpret the order in place, and help the parents come to an agreement. If your ex is not very cooperative (as is my husband's) the expeditor probably won't be much help. If she is the one with full custody, then she has the upper hand until the order is clarified. You wouldn't be able to file contempt if she refuses. Even though its been only a few weeks since the order was signed, you could still file a motion to clarify, to have the order more specific. Like, the order could say mom gets the kids 1st half of the vacations, and dad gets the 2nd half, or vice versa.

 You should probably try using the expeditor first though, otherwise the courts will think you didn't even try what they ordered. Then you will have some leverage, saying you tried to work with the expeditor and your ex....and it was your ex who was being uncooperative, hence the need for clarification of the orders.

Oh, and in our case, the expeditor fees are to be split 50/50 between the parties. Sometimes the expeditor will charge whoever he needed to contact to resolve the issue. In this case, it would your ex.

Good Luck!

Sounds like BM really shouldn't be a mom at all. Your BF is going to have to hurry up and get paternity established. In MN, an unwed mother usually gets custody of the child. Since paternity is not established yet, the dad has NO rights whatsoever. Once paternity is established, your BF will have a child support order established and he'll need to make sure to request a specific parenting time schedule to go along with it. Then if mother doesn't abide by the court order, you can file a contempt motion or change of custody based on mother not keeping the best interests of the child, or endangering the child, or denying dad his parenting time, etc.  

Just keep the SS informed of anything that you think might be harmful for the child...and hurry up the process of getting paternity established and a hearing to set up child support/parenting time schedule.

Updates.....I sent a 2nd request to BM re: the interrogatory request and said that if she doesn't reply within 15 days that I was going to file a Motion to Compel and for sanctions. Well, a week later she sent me a response....but it was unresponsive....I asked questions like....what is the name of your employer, address and work schedule...A: This is not your concern.....How many hours a week does my son spend at your father's house....A: This is not your concern......How many different jobs have you had in the past 2 yrs....A: this is not your concern.....What school does our son go to?...A: will be discussed in court. What is the name of our son's doctor and therapist?....no answer given. What health insurance is our son covered under since you refuse to use my insurance? A: will be discussed in court. You get the drift. So anyhow, I am still filing a Motion to Compel tomorrow because the majority of her answers were un-response, and she is obligated to answer those questions. Also, I am sending in a supplemental affidavit to my change of custody so the Referee can read my interrogatories and her response before we even get there. The BM just totally ruined her credibility now and I am SURE the judge will have questions for her.

But now I have a new problem. Ever since the BM received the custody motion, my son has been acting differently toward me on the phone. He doesn't seem excited to come see me anymoew. I ask him things like how school went, what did he study, and he says "why do you keep asking me all those questions?!" When I told him last night that I bought his ticket and mailed it to his mom already and that he is supposed to get on the plane on April Fools Day...all he said was "I think I have school that day". I believe the pbfh is now badmouthing me to our son, turning him against me. His whole attitude has changed.

Update.....pbfh sent a letter to the judge, requesting a later court date as plane tickets are over $1000 since there is less than 21 day notice and she cannot drive to MN as she would miss too many days from work and could possibly lose her health benefits for not working X amount of hours per week.  Judge just sent my husband a letter stating she rescheduled from 2/14 to 3/13 on the request of the custodial mother. UGH! Now she has another month to manipulate her case. I am furious. But she does have to appear in person, cannot do a phone conference.

I guess this will just give us more time to get more evidence. Such as pbfh's 30 day response time to the Interrogatories Request is up, getting ready to send a letter to her saying if she doesn't reply within 15 days, that we will file a motion to Compel Discovery...in which case she will have to come to court again!

Our next parenting time is April 1st, one week after the court hearing date. So hopefully we can get an evaluator to meet with the son during that week.

I did some more reading about BPD....and I do believe the custodial mother definately falls under the high conflict personality disorders...no doubt. I always thought she was unrealistic, and carried her anger for FAR too long.

I do not know what the kid thinks of his mother, we haven't had him in our possession long enough to find out, and my husband can't get him to discuss anything important on the phone cuz his mother monitors the calls and if he disobeys or makes his mom mad at all, he gets punished. The kid has told us though, that he is a hard-headed boy...and I asked him why he thinks that and he said "cuz I AM a hard-headed boy." I heard his mom call him that on the phone on the 1st day we had him last summer, she was mad at him for playing with a noisey toy on the plane. Well why the heck did she send the toy with him in his ccarry on backpack if she didn't want him to play with it? That was just setting him up. Obviously this kid has low self esteem issues already.

Oh, and when the two times we had him (one week in Dec 04 for the parenting evaluator to meet him) and this past summer.....the mother only sent him with ONE backpack of clothes! No toothbrush, no hairbrush, no medicine. After Xmas of 04, we bought him a BIG suitcase and had sent it back with him with over $500 worth of clothes and toys. Mother claims the airlines lost it. Then a week later she said they found it. There is still discrepany on whether the child actually got that stuff or not....since when we asked him about certain gifts, he says the airlines lost that stuff. He said his mother took his photobook (of us in MN) and hid it in HER room...but that he sneaks in there sometimes to look at it. Just sad.

THe child lives with his (step) grandpa more than his mother. She claims the child is only there when she works the night shift. Well she works full time night shift and sleeps during the day. How much time does that leave for attention for the kid? hmmmm.... and the grandpa refuses to give us his phone number so my husband can't talk to the kid...saying his number is private and he can just call for the kid when he is at his mom's house. Well we all know that is cuz the mom wants to be able to monitor the calls. And she also tells the kid NOT to discuss school or medical stuff with dad either.

The step-grandpa just got married last month (the mom's birth mother died a few years ago). And the kid told my husband that he only has one granny now. So my husband says "what about Grandma Olivia and Grandma Jo?" and the kids says "oh yea". Olivia is my husband's mother (who talks to the kid every week and has had him for visitation in NY almost every year for his first 5 or 6 yrs of life) and Jo is my mother.

It says in the stuff I have been reading, that people with BPD are very convincing in court, trying to make themselves look like the victim with their emotions...and that courts are more fair with written documents vs. actual testimony....so I am thinking we'll go for the affidabvit submittal verses the evidentiary hearing. I am SURE the pbfh will go for that cuz she won't want to spend the money or time to come to MN again. LOL

So how far along are you in your case? Are you the one with custody or trying to get custody?

Yes, it is very nice to have someone to discuss this with....it's hard even discussing with my husband because he gets so stressed so stressed about it and then doesn't want to talk about it anymore. So I really appreciate you listening....ya know whats funny...the custodial mother's name is Lisa....and she used to live in St Paul....lol

Yep, I see more traits of the BPD....she moved that kid around THIRTEEN times in 7 years. She has changed jobs a lot, and then went to school for LPN, and once she got her certificate for that (last year) she has changed jobs 3 times now. Plus she has moved the kid to 3 or 4 schools, and he is only in 1st grade! Plus she is always complaining, and everything is about her...about how she had to pay a fee at court when she needs to pay for HER schooling, and how she had to pay for travel to come to court when she supports two kids "all by herself". Oh, so I suppose my husband's child support is nothing? And her step-father watches the son more than she does. Then she says "I don't have time for all this bickering thru letters wasting all my time in the library typing up responses to you, when I should be spending quality time with my children." And when we had the kid over summer...she sent some school work for him to work on....we even asked her to send some stuff. My other kids helped the kid with spelling, and writing legibly, etc...and that pbfh writes in her letter to us that she asked the kid what he worked on and he said writing his dad and siblings names, etc...and that if that was true we just wasted her time. Well I didnt realize ANY form of education was a waste of time! ugh!

My husband said she is a very strict disciplinarian too, that he gets the belt for every little infraction, even back when he was like 2 yrs old.

And she doesn't take responsibility for herself at all....I suppose she blames my husband for the kid being a year behind in school and all his behavior problems, cuz as she puts it "all because his father is not a constant in his life." and "that the only reason the kid has loved his father all these years is because I have never talked bad about "dad" to him."

We have been in front of Leppanen before, she did our parenting time order. She seems very level headed and fair and obviously saw thru the custodial mom's BS.

We did write up a big 4 page affidavit with the motion for parenting time, and the pbfh never even submitted a response to it, nor did she deny anything in particular in it when we were at the hearing. But then we got to submit affidavits instead of that evidentiary hearing, and she submitted her letter late....cuz she was waiting to see what my husband wrote first...and in her letter it was just her trying to defend herself, saying she was being falsely accused and was trying to defend herself as a mother. She is a VERY defensive person...when this whole case is not about her, it's about the KID! She didn't even hardly mention the kid in her 2 page letter. It was just her trying to mudsling my husband. Judge didnt consider her letter anyhow since it was not timely. LOL ha ha ha.

And I did a REAL good job on the change of custody affidavit...that was like 10 pages long.

I am thinking that if the judge allows us to just submit affidavits again in lieu of the hearing...that we might go that route....as I can write a hell-of-a affidavit. It's pretty apparent that the pbfm does not have a lawyer. We don't either, but I have one that I consult and just get charged for her time and advice. AND she happens to be an ex co-worker of Leppanen. :-)

We for SURE will tell the evaluater we want the pbfh mentally screened, and specifically for BPD. That will jsut add to our big list of reasons why the kid would be better off with us.

p.s... what exactly is a persuasive blamer? That sure sounds like the custodial mother in my mind. In some of her letters during the parenting time evaluation, she stated that the childs behavior was bad because his father wasnt a constant in his life. Well shyt, the reason he wasnt a constant is because the mother refused all contact, half the time, my husband didnt even know what their address was. SHe also in her letters tried to paint my husband as "running the streets" and that their relationship ended because of his unfaithfulness. My husband worked a lot of overtime at that time, and he says she always accused him of cheating, and would throw him out, and that last time she threw him out, he stayed out. Mind you there relationship only lasted less than 6 months....over the next 4 years, my husband would see her now and then, because that was the only way he was allowed to see his son. And yes, as bad as it sounds, she would want some "special favors" and him being a typical young male, figured oh well....and did it. He realizes now that was wrong to do, it probably just kept her hopes up. She had a few times over those 4 years asked to get back together with him. Even after I met my husband and she knew he was in a relationship with me, she would ask him for some luvin, and he would turn her down and then she wouldnt let him see his son. Then she moved out of state a month later.

Also in her letter to court, she said her son saw me and my husband in bed together and that we were making noises, and that the sons behaviors escalated.  That is SOOOOO untrue. And then she tried to write that she had told my husband not to have their son around his women out of respect for her and her son because this would severly affect their son in a bad way. OMG!

I have been with my husband for almost 4 years now, and she still acts like the jilted woman. I just dont get it. I am just so flabbergasted that someone could act this way.

It makes me feel really bad for this kid, and if something doesnt change, that kid is going to end up with severe emotional problems for life and probably end up on the street as a thug. By the way, he lives in a really bad high crime area of Dayton Ohio.

I am very confident that the judge will see that our home environment will be a MUCH needed improvement for this childs well being.

Yes, I did checkout the site....I really don't know if the custodial mother fits 5 of those traits, as I have never met her. But she DEFINATELY has SOME sort of personality or behavior disorder....I have always said I thought she had some real medical mental problem.

I guess we have to wait and see if the judge even considers her letter requesting to reschedule the date. It was just a basic letter, not a motion...and she sent us a copy of it via certified, return receipt....so I am assuming that means she did not have a 3rd party mail it and do an affidavit of mail service, which means we weren't legally served....but who knows what the judge will say. Hopefully that letter will just get sent back to the CM saying that is not the proper way to address the court. Which also means she is not intending to show up on 2/14.

My next big obstacle will be the custody evaluation....we don't have money for it....not sure how that is going to work. And then if we have the actual evidentiary hearing...I don't think a lot of the evidence we have is admissible. Such as all the school records, the therapist records etc. We won't have any real credible witnesses that come testify other than us family members here.

For the parenting time hearing....the judge allowed both parties to just submit affidavits in lieu of the evidentiary hearing. I am wondering if that would be our best course of action in this case...wouldn't have to worry about cross examination, etc without a lawyer. On the other hand, I seriously doubt the CM would be able to fly any of her witnesses to MN either.

She is real good at playing the poor single mother role and twisting everything around. But she really comes across as her agenda is more important than the best interests of the child....everthing is about how broke SHE is, how can't allow court ordered parenting time because of HER work schedule, etc.

Our judge obviously saw through all her BS as she awarded us way more parenting time than the investigator recommended. We have only had ONE visitation with the kid since we got the new order last April. That was for one month last summer. And she called every fricken day for him....leaving up to 5 voicemails in one day if she didnt reach him.

Then she would scold him, or ask him stuff like if he was doing his homework, if he brushed his teeth, if he was taking his baths, saying his prayers etc.....she was just trying to control that poor kid through the damn phone.

Thanks for listening