Messages

I must say it sounds all so familiar. We have been fighting now for 6 years. I am the step mother and I feel helpless. We have 50/50 custody, and my husband and I have 2 children of our own. We are financially tapped, and live our lives around the parenting plan. The mother (his ex) takes us to court of everything. She has tried to move out of state, and fought for full custody and soon she will say she is old enough to decide for herself where she wants to live. However she has been poision ing the childs mind with horror stories about the father. The woman simply is in it for a power gain. We toy with the idea of letting go and rekindle our relationship at a later time in life. But we have siblings that have attachments too. Its deep.

I do not have an answer, but I read a lot and most books say the children need both parents, and also deep down know which parent is providing unconditional love. So we just keep truding along, in hopes the mother will get a boyfriend, hobby, job or life, and move on.

We share 50/50 custody of my step-daughter and have no support order. In the order it states parents agree to pay for one-half of costs of the the childs school-related activities. She decided to take up flute, (5th grade) and the mother went out and bought a $800 flute with no discussion to the father. Then she sends the receipt to the father and expects payments. He has 2 other kids and needs to live a little more frugile then one with one child would. He had access to 2 second-hand flutes and offered them instead, since she is a beginner it should have sufficed. She refused, and said the child has been using the new one and prefers it. Does he have an obligation to pay on demand whatever she chooses to purchase without discussion? She filed contempt for not paying for 1/2 of the activities.

We share 50/50 custody. It's very conflictive to say the least. Last year the mother decided to leave the country for 8 weeks (for school) and simply have someone else (her mother) do the exchanges. She figured no-one would ever know she was gone. She also tried to make the child keep quiet about the whole facade. However it was a little more obvious then that. My question is wouldn't the father have the right to have full-parenting time if the mother is away (especially if out of teh country) for that long? Could she be held in contempt of court for not telling the father she was out of the country? No way to contact her in emergency. Does the grandparent (third party) have the right to parent on mothers parenting time over the father?? We think she will do this more often since she got away with it. Her big claim in court was that she was more "available" to devote time to her child then the father was, so they granted her residental school placement (only, no extra parenting time), yet she is hardly ever parenting the child on her parenting time, and typically leaves her with the grandparent. (her mother)

Frustrating!