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Topics - jgaff78

#1
Custody Issues / Prepping for custody hearing
Aug 07, 2012, 01:26:09 PM
We are gathering all our documentation to submit for our court hearing & need to know if anyone has ever prepared their own evidence for their cases. We know we have to take the documents in to the court clerk to serve BM & her attorney but we are unclear on how it is to be presented. Do the documents need to be labeled? In any specific order? Or do we just take copies of everything we have, shove them in an envelope, & send them out? Yes, we are appearing pro se & we know we would be better off with an attorney, but unlike BM, we can't stop paying our rent & lose our apartment just to pay for a lawyer. Besides, we think we have enough evidence to prove our case & we have received absolutely nothing from BM so apparently she has no evidence to support her. We think she only hired a lawyer to avoid flying up here to appear in court herself.
#2
Custody Issues / BM moved & didn't tell us
Aug 02, 2012, 07:19:08 AM
For a little background info: DH & I were given temporary custody of SD(10) in April 2011 because BM couldn't handle her & voluntarily agreed to a change of custody for a year. According to the court, we still retain custody until the next custody hearing in a couple weeks. That is scheduled 2 days after school starts here & 9 days after school begins in BM's state. BM claims that she has custody of SD since temp custody expired & claims that SD wants to live there so she is registering her for school there. When I was speaking to SD on the phone last Friday, she mentioned that they were staying with a family they previously lived with & not living at the apartment anymore where BM told us they were living.

Ok, so my question is how do we handle this? I used to have the address where they are staying now, but I can't find it. BM never told us she was moving & didn't give us the address where they are now, so technically we have no idea where SD is. We previously sent a certified letter restricted delivery regarding the custody hearing to the last address she had given us & of course it has not been picked up. So do we wait until the court date & tell the judge she has moved or do we go now & file contempt or something since she moved without notification? Our court date was already delayed once earlier this summer because BM claimed she had back surgery & couldn't travel & there was a typo in the court papers. The judge told us to resend the paperwork & make sure it was sent certified so they could be certain she received it. Will it cause a problem if she has moved & claims she didn't receive the court notice? Can we ask for an emergency custody order since BM technically kidnapped SD?
#3
Custody Issues / End of temporary custody order
Apr 09, 2012, 11:07:08 AM
About a year ago we were granted a temporary order of custody for my SD(10). That order will expire at the end of this school year. She wants to stay with us but doesn't want to tell her mom because she feels like she is choosing one parent over the other. The temporary order was mutually agreed to by both parents, now BM may or may not agree to letting her stay. So who gets custody after the temporary order expires? Does she automatically go back to BM or does she stay with us since that is where she currently resides (there is a 1000 mile distance between the 2 homes)? Who has to file to change custody if it's contested?
#4
Custody Issues / What is a significant change?
Jan 04, 2010, 07:01:05 AM
I can't seem to find the documents today, but I believe the guidelines for warranting a change in custody state that there must be a significant change in circumstances and the move must significantly improve the child's well-being . . . so what exactly is a significant change in circumstances?

The current custody arrangement was established when BM and my husband divorced about 6 years ago. SD was only 2 and so BM got custody due to SD's age and the work schedule of my husband at the time. Neither parent had a lawyer for the divorce proceeding and my husband thought BM had to be given full custody due to the distance (she moved back to her mother's home in another state before the divorce was filed) and so he did not push for joint custody. He has taken advantage of every visitation period since the divorce and we petitioned to have visitation increased last year. The judge granted the increased visitation schedule despite BM's arguments that it would greatly inconvenience her to arrange travel for SD that often. SD now comes to our home for every spring break, the entire summer vacation every summer, 5 days at Thanksgiving, and the entire Christmas break every other year (SD comes from 12/26 to the end of Christmas break on the other years). BM has been complaining that she does not get to see SD enough and her family is missing out on holidays with SD because she is always with us for every major holiday. BM has been asking for us to allow her to keep SD for spring break this year and that we stop taking our Thanksgiving visits on the years when we get her for the entire Christmas vacation. However, BM is required to work on Thanksgiving every year so she would not be spending the holiday with SD anyway. That is why the judge ordered that we get every Thanksgiving in the first place.

We would like, at the very least, to have the custody order changed to joint custody but we do think it would be in SD's best interest if we were granted full custody. BM has not been providing a stable environment for SD. She moves at least once per year with very little planning or thought put into the moves. For the last two years she has lived with "friends" and has not had her name on the lease. Last year she lived with a woman who had two children. This woman watched SD very often while BM was at work or out at "dart club" (we still don't know what "dart club" is, SD told us BM went every Monday and left her with the other woman). SD reported to us that this woman would take the kids over to her boyfriend's home and drink beer then drive them home. SD said BM had argued with the woman about drinking and driving but of course BM never mentioned any of this to us. In November, BM suddenly announced that she would be moving because the lease was up on that house (the other woman's lease) and she wasn't going to stay in that "dump" another year. Basically I think the other woman either moved when her lease was up or threw BM out because they were not getting along. Now BM has moved in with a newly married couple, their three children, and the children's aunt. SD is required to share a room with the three kids, an 11 year old girl, a 3 year old girl, and a boy who is the same age as SD and in her grade at school. We feel that it is not a good idea for SD to share a room with a boy of this age whom she is not even related to. SD is not even allowed to keep her belongings in the bedroom and is forced to store everything in BM's bedroom. SD has no privacy and does not feel like she has any space of her own. Essentially she is a guest in someone else's home. 

BM has also not been providing basic care to SD as she should. Every time SD comes for a visit she is in desperate need of a haircut with her bangs hanging over her eyes but BM has her nails professionally manicured. We asked BM several times this year to make sure SD got both the seasonal and H1N1 flu shots due to the amount of traveling she would be doing, but BM never followed through. We even sent her information about a free H1N1 flu shot clinic near her and she still would not take SD. SD has yet to see a dentist even though she complains of sensitive teeth. BM also told us she was going to have SD get allergy tests because she breaks out in a rash occasionally and we can't figure out what is causing it, but that has not been scheduled either (the allergy tests are important because both parents have significant food and drug allergies). BM claims that she cannot afford the co-pays for the dentist (around $20 per visit) and that she can't get a doctor's appointment because she doesn't have a car to get there. But yet she is able to get to the nail salon and she could buy the pet bird a huge new cage. She receives plenty of child support to pay for SD's expenses and we cover SD under our medical insurance so we know the co-pays are reasonable. There simply is no excuse other than laziness and neglect for not taking care of SD's medical and dental needs.


SD has been moved to three different schools since kindergarten and she is only in 2nd grade. BM moved while SD was in kindergarten but let her finish out the last couple months of the school year at the same school. SD started first grade at a second school but BM moved two months into the school year and forced SD to move back to the first school. SD finished first grade at that school and started 2nd grade at that school this year, but BM moved in November and forced SD to move to another new school. BM never gives us advance notice of these moves and we are not able to object to the move because SD has already moved and been enrolled in a new school before we receive the information.  BM never checks what school district the new home is in before making the decision to move. She does not take SD's needs into consideration when making a move.

For the past 2 1/2 years, we have lived in the same apartment in our town. We moved this winter to another apartment a few blocks away. This apartment is owned by the same landlord and he offered it to us because it is bigger than our old apartment and allows SD to have her own room with plenty of space for her things. There was also a small fire at the old apartment and we (along with the landlord) are almost certain that it was caused by the downstairs neighbor. The landlord cannot legally evict that neighbor without proof he started the fire so he asked us if we wanted to move to another apartment since he knew we did not feel safe there. We plan on staying in this apartment for another two years until we buy our own home.

My husband has a good, stable job where he has worked for 5 years. I am back in school completing my degree to become a social worker (which will be completed in another 1 1/2 to 2 years). Before I went back to school, I worked at a local factory for 2 years before it shut down. BM works from home as a telemarketer. This is the first job she has kept for more than a few months since the divorce. If the family she is currently living with wants her to move out, she could potentially lose her job because she will not have the phone and internet connection she needs.

There are a few other issues that cause us concern and make us feel that SD would be better off living with us. SD also has made comments to indicate that she wants to live here instead of with BM but she will not come right out and tell BM (and we would not expect her to). But I was just wondering whether any of this would constitute a significant impact to warrant a change in custody. I know custody battles are long and stressful, for the parents and the children, so we don't want to put SD through that unless there is a good chance something will change.
#5
Shrink Rap / Should we request a psych eval?
Dec 30, 2009, 11:02:45 AM
I am just wondering if we should request a psychiatric evaluation for BM and how we would do that if we wanted to. BM has custody of SD and lives 1000 miles away. We know that BM's BM (not who she was raised by) had a psychiatric problem and was institutionalized because of it. We believe the issue is with a bipolar disorder, but don't know for sure because we only know information from stories that were told to my husband while he was married to BM. Obviously BM is not just going to hand over personal info about her or her mother's mental health, so if we have concerns we would need to have her tested and have things court ordered.

I know that people who have relatives with bipolar disorder have a stronger likelihood of being diagnosed with the disorder and BM tends to meet some of the symptoms of the disorder. I never know what to expect when I speak to her. Sometimes she will be extremely pleasant and very cooperative and the next she will be ranting about everything and refusing to cooperate at all. She is very moody and changes her mind about things constantly. I can't really describe the issue, but I have worked with people with mental disorders before and I just get that "vibe" from her behaviors.

I have been keeping an eye on SD to see if she has any of the same types of symptoms and working to teach her to control her moods. She tends to get extremely upset over little things so we have been working to teach her how to keep things in perspective and not over react or fly off the handle. I'm just worried that she may develop the disorder in time and it would be helpful to know early on if she has any signs of the disorder.

We are also wanting to know if BM has the disorder or has any other psychiatric issues in case it is relevant to custody issues. If she is not stable, we will file for a custody change so SD can live with us unless BM gets treatment. I don't think BM realizes that she has any issues. Basically I think a court ordered psychiatric evaluation may point out the issues to BM and possibly help her to get treatment that would help her be a better mother to SD and be less argumentative with us. Is it possible to get a court ordered evaluation when you are not in the middle of a custody battle?
#6
Visitation Issues / Need legal advice
Dec 30, 2009, 06:55:00 AM
BM refused to pay for her half of visitation for Christmas this year. She claimed that she had purchased the round trip ticket for the summer visit so she had fulfilled her obligation for the year. That is not exactly correct, but we are not able to fix that issue right now and we have to get SD back home to go to school. We will deal with the cost issue in court later.

The problem now is that I tried to purchase return tickets to get SD back in time to go to a friend's birthday party this weekend. We have had to wait until the last minute to purchase tickets because we don't have that extra money laying around. We had not planned on having to purchase these tickets. BM said we needed to give her over 48 hours notice so she could arrange to get to the airport. I let her know this morning when I was trying to buy the tickets that she would need to be at the airport Friday evening. That is more than 48 hours notice. But BM started throwing a fit and said we had not given her enough notice and she will not be able to come because she has to work. She gets off at 4pm and does not need to be at the airport until 5:30. That is plenty of time to drive to the airport. She claims she can't do it and is refusing to send someone else. She is demanding that we send her home on Saturday instead. The cost of tickets is nearly 2-3 times as high on Saturday as on Friday. When I told her we could not send her on Saturday, she began insulting me and calling me cheap and saying it was not her fault we waited until the last minute to buy tickets. I responded by telling her I would not argue with her and that she could speak to my husband about the arrangements if she was going to be that argumentative.

What I need advice about is whether we can get in trouble if we are forced to wait to fly SD back until the tickets are cheaper. BM says she can't take time off work and her only days off are Thursdays and Sundays. We cannot afford to fly SD back this Sunday, the tickets are too expensive. If we have to wait until next Thursday to fly her back (she would miss 3 days of school), can we get into any legal trouble for waiting? It is not written in our court order exactly who is responsible for what cost of transportation. We had just always gone with a 50/50 arrangement since the last visitation modification. BM essentially tricked us into this situation. She volunteered to pay for the round trip ticket this summer saying that she wanted to control when SD flew. We explained at that time that she would be in control of when SD came home since she was buying that ticket anyway, but she insisted on buying the round trip ticket saying it would be "easier." Little did we know that she meant it would be easier for her since she was not planning on paying her share of the Christmas ticket.

What are our legal options now? We really cannot afford to spend all this extra money on plane tickets right now. If we had been given advance notice, it would have been different. But since we were only told a couple weeks ago that BM would not be paying for the return ticket, we were not prepared for the expense.
#7
I was just wondering what most parents would consider to be excessive phone calls from the CP during visits with the NCP. We are in a long-distance situation so my SD (she's 8 now) only comes to see us 4 times a year (during the major breaks from school). BM insists on calling nearly every day when she is with us. These phone calls can sometimes last for a half hour to an hour at a time.

This Christmas, SD came with a prepaid cell phone with 120 minutes on it. Since Dec. 19 she has used up the entire 120 minutes plus used some time on her dad's cell phone when she couldn't get reception on her phone while we were at my parent's house for 3 days. BM calls almost daily and has other people she knows call often as well. We don't mind having her keep in touch with friends and family from home while she is with us, but it seems excessive and intrusive on our limited time with her. If SD was asking to call BM that often, we wouldn't interfere. But these phone calls are not SD's idea, it's BM's way of checking up on her and butting into our time with her. BM seems to feel like SD will forget her if she does not speak to her every day she is gone.

I know we are not allowed to interfere with SD's communication with BM, but is there a way to get BM to see that she is intruding on our time with SD? We have jokingly said that we would wait until SD is back home with BM and call her every day so BM might see things from our perspective. But we don't really want to be that petty and we don't feel that it is fair to SD to intrude on her life in that way. We feel she should be able to live a normal life without our constant interference, unfortunately BM does not feel the same way. If we can't get BM to see how intrusive she is being and agree to call less often in the future, is there any way to get it written into a visitation order that phone calls be limited? Are we over-reacting or would frequent calls truly be considered intrusive on our parenting time?
#8
Custody Issues / Medical care by NCP
Dec 07, 2009, 06:24:18 AM
I am not completely sure what the laws are when it comes to custody and providing medical care to the child. My stepdaughter's mom has full custody since she had moved 1000 miles away prior to their divorce. At the time, the court and both parents thought it was the only way to arrange custody due to the distance. We are interested in changing it to at least joint custody but have not filed any paperwork as of yet.

My question though is whether we can take SD to a doctor or counselor when she is with us for visitation or do we have to have BM's permission? The reason I ask is that SD is 8 and has not been to a dentist yet. She has a major gap between her two front teeth and she also has sensitive teeth. We want to take her to a dentist to start her regular checkups and make sure she doesn't have any cavities or anything. We also wanted to be able to take her to a doctor when she is with us in order to make sure she gets her flu shots and things like that. Plus we thought it might be a good idea to have her established with a doctor here in case she gets sick during her visitation times with us. I have been trying to figure out how to get her set up with a counselor for the last couple of years since I feel like BM causes a lot of stress for her when she argues with us or talks bad about us in front of SD. I just think SD would benefit from having someone neutral to talk to about how she feels without worrying that it will get back to either parent.


Do any other long-distance parents have doctors/dentists set up for their children? I would appreciate some advice on how to handle the situation if anybody has any experience with a similar scenario.
#9
Visitation Issues / Parenting Time Clarification
Dec 03, 2009, 11:32:29 AM
September 2008, my fiance and his ex went back to court to have the parenting time order modified since the child is older now (just turned 8) and should have more time with her father. This is a long distance situation, from Indiana to Florida, so transportation is a big issue. (Mom was the one who moved away when they separated)

The order does not specify who pays for which trip, only stating that dad must travel to Florida in order to get his daughter for Thanksgiving and he must pay for half of the spring break trip. He and I were under the assumption that the Christmas and summer trips would be split 50/50 with the mom, but she continually has other ideas. She now says that it has always been that she paid for the entire summer and we paid for Christmas, but that has not been the case, especially under the new order. She paid for half of Christmas visitation last year, half of spring break, and claims she paid round trip for their daughter for summer visitation. She may have paid for the daughter's round-trip ticket (I can't remember at the moment), but she did not pay for our expense in transporting her since I have receipts for my flight to pick her up at the beginning of the summer.

When we were discussing transportation for Christmas this year, she suddenly became irate when we discovered that she assumed we were paying for the entire trip. She claims she is now physically unable to fly and that she will not fly up here to pick up their daughter again. She brought up the idea of flying their daughter unaccompanied this summer, but since their daughter was not emotionally ready to do so, it did not happen. Now she is threatening that she will not put her on the plane at the beginning of Christmas break if we have not bought her a return ticket to come home AND she wants her to fly unaccompanied unless we are willing to foot the bill for one of us to fly back with her.

Anyway, we need to figure out how to get this order clarified so that it is clear who pays for which trip. How do we do that? And what should we do about the situation for this Christmas? We really can't afford to pay for the extra ticket and we are not comfortable with her flying alone. What are our options for getting this fixed ASAP?
#10
Dear Socrateaser / Court costs and such
Aug 23, 2009, 02:26:33 PM
My stepdaughter lives 1000 miles away from us. BM has custody while we only have visitation. The custody arrangement was made over 5 years ago when SD was only 2 1/2. Since then many factors have changed and we are concerned about SD's welfare.

We believe a custody modification is necessary to ensure SD's emotional stability. At the very least we would like to obtain joint legal custody so that BM must consult with us before making important decisions in SD's life. Currently BM has been moving SD from one apartment to another, generally moving at least twice each year. Since SD started school 2 years ago, BM has moved at least 4 times causing SD to be enrolled in 3 different schools.

There are other issues creating distress for SD that would be remedied if BM had to have our permission before making decisions. Ideally we would love for SD to come live with us, but we are hesitant to push for that big of a change because we worry about the emotional ramifications it will have on her if BM becomes enraged and attempts to alienate SD from us.

We are afraid we won't be able to afford the cost of a custody battle, especially if we have to pay her attorney fees as well. We filed contempt charges on her once because she refused to allow visitation as she was supposed to. Since BM had to fly up here for court, she decided that she was going to ask the court to make us pay for her expenses. She made sure she spent over $1000 for a simple one day trip that shouldn't have cost more than $500.

Luckily she didn't get her wish since the judge ordered her to give us the visitation time we requested and she never even specifically brought up that she wanted to make us pay for her travel. I just worry that if we file for custody modification she will do the same thing and try to raise the attorney fees as high as possible to make us pay. I could really see her hiring the most expensive lawyer she can find and meeting with him as often as possible just to raise the costs. There's no way we could afford that.

My questions are:

1. Will we be required to pay BM's attorney fees if we file for custody modification?

2. Is there a way to keep lawyers out of this to keep costs down for everyone?

3. If we file for modification, is it best to shoot for the moon and ask for us to be granted custody or should we only ask for joint custody?

4. How much are the average fees for a custody battle? (We live in Indiana if that matters.)
#11
Custody Issues / Need advice RE:Custody Problems
Aug 22, 2009, 06:11:10 PM
I'm really not sure where to begin since the issue just became heated again tonight. I am in a bit of emotional turmoil at the moment, going from being mad to confused and frustrated to just plain sad . . . and then it starts all over again.

I guess I will just start by explaining the current custody situation. My fiance and his ex divorced over 5 years ago. Their daughter was 2 1/2 at the time. His ex got custody because of the child's age and she had moved out of state so it was hard to do joint custody. The ex has never been very stable. She moves from one apartment to another quite often (usually at least 2 moves a year) and does not have a consistent work history. She simply isn't providing a stable environment for her child.

Up until 2 years ago, this wasn't too much of an issue. It was upsetting, of course, that she moved the child around so often, but since she wasn't in school yet, it didn't have too much of an effect on her. Now that she is in school, it is definitely more of an issue. She started their daughter in kindergarten at a fairly good school 2 years ago. She did move during that year, but at least she kept her in the same school district. At the start of first grade, she moved her to a different school since it was closer to where they were living at the time. Two months into the school year, she decided to move again and pulled her out of that school. She then moved back to the same school where she attended kindergarten. At the start of this year, she began second grade at that same school. We just received a message from her tonight telling us that she will be moving in September because the lease is up on the home they are in now. She will be moving their daughter to yet another school.

We have been debating filing for custody modification for several years now. So far we have decided that it is not worth the emotional toll it would take on their daughter since there is no guarantee that we would get the custody change. But we don't know what to do now. It's simply getting ridiculous for her to keep moving this child around and not being able to provide for her the way she should. She just needs a more stable home environment. We know we can provide that for her but we are nervous about whether we would win a custody case and whether we could afford to go through that. We're also wondering if we can afford to wait on this any longer since we feel she is causing emotional distress on their daughter.

So the questions I have are: What can we do, other than filing for custody modification, to prevent her from continuing to move this child every few months? If we do decide to push for a change in custody, what is the likelihood that we would win? We are in the process of filing bankruptcy to get a fresh financial start since we both made bad financial decisions before we met each other, will that look bad in a custody case?

We would very much appreciate any advice anyone can give us. We just don't know what to do. We want to make the best decision for this little girl, but we just don't know what that is right now.
#12
Visitation Issues / Flying unaccompanied
Aug 05, 2009, 05:08:27 PM
My fiance and I live about 1000 miles away from his ex-wife and 7 year old daughter (the ex moved prior to their divorce). Our state has jurisdiction over the divorce and custody issues since they lived here prior to her moving and he filed for divorce in our state. We have been somewhat able to resolve visitation issues reasonably in the past but recently we had to take the ex to court over the visitation schedule. The schedule was modified so that his daughter comes to see us for the entire summer break every summer, during every spring break, we get alternating Christmases, and we get her for Thanksgiving (though we pay for that and are responsible for the transportation). That issue was resolved less than a year ago but the new schedule has worked very well for his daughter since she gets to see him on a more regular schedule.

Due to the distance between us, his daughter has always flown back and forth between the two parents unless his parents were able to transport her if they were driving to our state during a scheduled visitation time (Christmas). His ex tended to rely on his parents quite often for transportation because it meant she did not have to pay anything toward the visit. Now that his parents have moved back to our state permanently, his ex has been forced to fly with their daughter for one half of the visitation every time. Generally he or I will fly down to pick her up at the start of visitation and the ex flies up to pick her up at the end of visitation. This has worked well until now.

Yesterday the ex sent my fiance a message and said that their daughter would either have to fly alone at Christmas or one of us would have to fly both ways with her because her arthritis is bad enough that she cannot fly without being unable to work for two days afterward. Frankly, we both knew this was simply an excuse to try to get out of taking time to fly with her daughter. She continued to send him messages today trying to get him to agree to let her fly unaccompanied at Christmas. We sent a message saying that we did not want her to fly unaccompanied because we believe she is too young and immature to fly by herself at this age. We would prefer for her not to fly unaccompanied until she is at least 10. Her response was that we are "babying" her and that it is her (the ex's) decision, not my fiance's. She seems determined that their daughter will fly unaccompanied unless we are willing to shell out the extra money to fly with her each visitation. The visitation agreement does not address whether or not the child will be allowed to fly unaccompanied or anything so we are not sure what rights we have in this. Do we have to bite the bullet and pay for the extra tickets to fly or can we file contempt again since she is unwilling to bend on the issue? I already suggested that she have a relative fly with their daughter if she is physically unable to do it. That is when we got the snippy response about it being her decision.

Does anyone know what the legalities are for children flying unaccompanied in long-distance visitation situations? And what age would most of you consider reasonable for a child to begin flying unaccompanied?
#13
General Issues / Change of Venue
Aug 23, 2008, 06:15:00 PM
My fiance is having to take his ex back to court on a contempt charge for not allowing holiday visitation. After their divorce, she moved several states away and now she is telling him that she is going to file for a change of venue so that she will not have to travel to court hearings.

Can anybody tell me if the court will grant a change of venue from one state to another? So far all the information I have found for our state only mentions change of venue from one county to another, but has no mention of a move to another state. Anybody have knowledge of this?