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Of course you have to document your time with the child. Keep records of all communications with her. We were advised by our atty when we started court proceedings last year that in order to get a judge to change a custody order you have to prove a.) the child is endangered or b.) the child has been integrated into your home with the consent of the other parent.

 So you'll have to increase your time with your child, and wait it out for a while. After 6 months to a year goes by, (I would consult an atty for advise on that) you ask her to change the custody order out of court, or go to mediation to resolve it.

If she refuses to work anything out with you then, you'll file for a modification of custody. When we did this, the kids had been spending more than 50% of their time in our home, but when PBFH would get po'd, she'd say "Ok, we're going back to the co." Our complaint in the motion was that the kids had been living here, but now she was "sharply curtailing" dh's time with the kids. He had offered her a settlement before filing to change custody to 50/50, with the cs amount remaining the same for another year and a half, to prove his motive was not the $$.

I'm sure your situation is somewhat different. Our BM is very stupid and crazy, so once things started to going to court, she completely lost it, and now dh has complete custody of the kids. I hope this helps some though.

When he got temp custody in April, the judge suspended his cs payments until the next hearing. She was overpaid by $240 that month, and there is an open case in which she owes that money back to him. So far she has paid $40. LOL.

BM will ask magistrate to base cs on her income. DH will ask them to base it on her ability to earn. She has not worked full-time in at least 12 years. (That is how old her oldest child is.) She was supposed to be a full-time parent when dh and her were together. When they split up, she lived off of his cs payments. Now she doesn't have the kids anymore, and therefore, has no reason not to work full time. Her education and work background and present employment are as a nursing assistant. There are TONS of jobs of that type in MN right? So if her current employer doesn't have full-time work for her she could work somewhere else. She just doesn't want to work, and doesn't think she should have to. I may sound ruthless, (and I don't mean to) but my husband has been paying her more than we can afford to spend on groceries for years, while we have been the ones taking care of the kids.

If anyone has any experience with this issue that can help us out, I'd appreciate it.

How long have the grandparents had custody of her? Did you have any visitation with her when she was in your aunt's care? What has changed in your life that you thought she was better off without you 6 years ago, but better off with you now? Did you legally sign over custody of her, or just leave her there?

This was through Human Services. We are on MA right now, and so they started working on getting an order in place right away, supposedly. But this I don't understand...Permanent custody was changed in May, they opened the case right away, but we didn't receive the proposed order until July. It says that since the custody stipulation states "the right to collect cs is reserved" she doesn't have to start paying until 7-1.

DH's cs worker suggested he request a hearing to try and get back pay. He didn't, but bm requested a hearing. She wants to dispute the amount. It's based on her ability to earn, working full time as an NA. She doesn't work full time though, and doesn't think she should have to. The hearing is in Sept.

How bout this? Back in Dec, she fraudulently filed the wrong order stating they would have joint custody and dh would keep paying the same amount of cs until 6-2005. Their agreement in court in Dec was that he would pay the same amount until she was no longer a full-time student, which she wasn't. It was supposed to be reviewed right away, but we couldn't get into court to get the correct order signed until April. Dh filed a motion in March to get cs adjusted, but then canceled the hearing because custody had changed. Can he still go back and recover the money he overpaid in Jan, Feb and March?

Oh, I went into that, and I think pm's are enabled now. How do I get them?

I have no idea how to get a PM here. I went into my user profile and found it was disabled. Wanna help me out?

The first one she took, was positive for meth. She hasn't taken any since then. She hasn't had visitation in over a month. She has been talking to the kids on the phone. DH decided to leave it up to them if they want to talk to her or not. SS usually does, if he has time. SD has been more moody, and sometimes just doesn't want to. I think she's getting sick of her lies. BM sent the police over here one day because sd would not get on the phone. The officer asked sd if she wanted to talk to bm, and she said no. So the officer went and told bm sd doesn't want to talk to her, and they can't make her talk.

I have been a nervous wreck the last few days because bm keeps hanging out next door. She sits in the back yard and watches us. And she plays with the kids over there to try and make skids jealous. DH keeps telling them that she is only doing it to try and upset us, and if she were in her right mind, she wouldn't want to hurt her kids and us. I don't understand what's wrong with the whacko next door, that she would be encouraging this. We're getting ready to go on vacation, and I have to find someone to baby-sit my house, I'm afraid what will happen to it if we leave it empty and alone.

The kids are in counseling now, they've only had a couple visits.

I want to move really bad, but there are a couple things stopping us. First, dh is still unemployed. Hopefully that is going to change soon, though. He had a call last week from a company that is very excited to talk to him about an opening they have, and it would probably be for more $$ than he was making before! Also, BM has a $10,000 lein on our house. It is payable either when yss turns 18, or when the house is sold, whichever happens first. We're hoping her cs arrears will add up to $10,000 within a few years, and they will xnl each other out.

Or rather, proposed order. Both parties have 20 days to respond, or request a hearing. If not, it gets filed. BM will have to pay almost the same amount dh was paying when she had the kids! They have based it on her ability to earn. She hasn't worked full time in over ten years, but now she has no reason not to. She's really pissed.

She called dh and told him she is going to take him to court for back pay on last few years when he was making more money, and she never asked for an increase. I'm pretty sure it's too late to ask for an increase now. She also is going to claim that she doesn't even earn what the cs amount is set at. I hope she tells the magistrate what she told dh. ("I don't have to work full time.")

Of course, if she does take him to court, he is going to ask for back pay. She hasn't paid anything since custody was changed in April. Also, when he got joint custody in December, the order stated that cs would be reviewed when she was no longer a full-time student. She hasn't gone to school since January. So, she should owe him back at least 50% of what he paid for those 3-4 months too right?

I think she stayed there 3 nights. Thursday, during our garage sale, the neighbor kids came over and told skids their mom was at their house. SS came into the house in tears and told me that his mom checked out of treatment. SD went for a bike ride to get away from here. DH called around to find out she had not been served with OFP, so our local police came over and served her. The OFP includes a 1 block radius of our home, but they did not make her leave immediately, just told her to get out of there asap. About an hour later, they left, and a few minutes later, the neighbor's van came back, pulled into the garage for a minute, then pulled back out and parked in the driveway. She may still be over there.

My mom, the counselor I saw today, and a friend I talked to on the phone today can totally understand why I am so stressed out and scared, but not my husband. Next weekend we are going out of town. I'm going to pack up all my pictures in my car in case the house is burned down when we get back.