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In our state it's standard to say:
All parties are restrained from having the child/children on an overnight basis in the presence of an adult party of the opposite sex (*or the same sex if the party or guest is bi-sexual or homosexual) to whom the parties are not related by blood or marriage, or any lover/paramour.  

Original decree required husband to carry life insurance with kids named as beneficiaries and ex as custodian.  It also went a step further to state that kids are entitled to 30% of everything else.  Is this normal? (includes 401K, extra insurance, property, everything)  since the divorce (husband assumed all debt and paid tidy chld support payments) bio mom has run up significant debt even putting her house in foreclosure.

Since we've gotten married, husband wants to change life ins/beneficiary info to state if he were to die, child support would continue as if he were still alive.  Beyond that everything comes to me.  (normal property division if we were both biological parents of the kids). Of course when I die, then everything is to be divided evenly between kids. This is to protect kids money since mom obviously can't manage it as well as insure a relationship with me continues AND keep me secure after his death.  Right now, i'd have to sell the house since that's the majority of where his equity lies.  Also, he doesn't want to be worth more dead then alive to her!  Of course she is totally opposed.

Is this a reasonable request to a judge?  We're going back for other things and this would be part of it.  I just want to make sure it's not something standard.

Can you hold her in contempt for denying visitation or anything?  That's the fastest route.

Then if you get legal documentation of the arrests, the testimony of the lady who wrote your letter, and get a guardian ad litem, I would think you would have a decent chance.  Will definitely be expensive.....

there actually is a "divorce for dummies" book. I saw it the other day but I didn't look at it. Divorce does work like a trial where evidence is put on the table - but that's your job to gather and maintain the evidence.  Your atty can only do so much.

fight for at least 50/50 placement custody in your final decree- don't just settle for joint legal custody because that means absolutely nothing. And if you agree to it just to get through everything it's next to impossible to reverse it unless you can prove abuse of some kind.  

My understanding on the spousal thing is that after the divorce is final, it's impossible to get it changed - however, nows the time to get your facts in order so that at trial, all your evidence will show what's marital debt.  Like you said you can't undo the past, but marital debt is usually split 50/50 (even if she created most of it) unless you're really lucky!!!!

I may be a little biased because of our situation, but biomom's words rarely matched her actions. In 5 years she's "given" my husband, an extra overnight four times. Three of them because she was out of town herself, or had a conflict and one was from 8PM til school the next morning so he could make a cubscout thing with his son.  And boy we've heard all about how generous she has been. Unless it's in writing she doesn't have do anything. It sure is easy to believe they're going to keep their word, but if you're getting divorced you probably didn't trust her before so why should you start now????

It's always about the money.  Kids biomom doesn't hesitate to ask for 1/2 or this or 1/2 of that (of course father doesn't have any say in those choices) but far be it from DH to ask for more time.  You would think logically less time means less expenses for her, so wouldn't money go further?  No it's all about knowing the time is important to the father so that's the best way to control and hurt.

0%.  If you sign that now, unless you spend a ton of money and can prove neglect/child endangerment, you won't get it later.  Please DON"T sign that if that's your plan.

My husband signed that 5 years ago with her side promise that she would let him have all this extra time because it's important for him to be involved.  5 years later he's got nothing to show AND she is guilty of lying and involving the kids in adult matters trying to get them on her side and alienate them from her father.  We have a court date next week so I'll let you know how it goes. But as our attorney told us, unless you've got something to prove significant change of circumstance, what you sign in the beginning holds you for LIFE.

She of course can always come back to modify child support as much as she wants, but nothing can force her to give you more time with the kids. DO NOT SIGN THAT unless you're content to live with that the rest of your life.

We have a court date in two months!  I will let you know how it goes. We're going to take your advice and ask for the moon so there will be some wiggle room.  We're actually thinking she'll try to settle now that she has an incentive.  Up until this minute everything was in her favor with the way the original decree was written so she had no incentive to negotiate things with us. Now with a court date - including contempt charges ;-)  Just cross your fingers!!!!!

Thanks for all the advise.  Documentation is definitely our strength.  We don't have pictures of house conditions b/c again for the sake of the kids we didn't want to tramatize them and go around with a camera.  but we do have our testimonies and in-laws first-hand experience. (and the suitcase that still reeks!)  Counselor did try to get DSS involved with that, but I guess that wasn't high priority for them, so we don't have a record of that.  We have also been reading up on PAS.  She's got the passive-agressive victim poison thing down.  

I don't think I mentioned in the original post that EX remarried right after our temp hearing last year - new spouse has custody of his youngest child - and they had another baby last fall.  They requested our fall trial be post-poned because this was too stressful on her in her pregnancy. (course she was out camping, boating, etc.)  We're still without a date at this point.

We're asking for what we think would be fair and reasonable to any court.  We considered asking for the moon, but decided maybe we stood a better chance just approaching it from a logical - fair point of view.   There is no reason a fairer distribution of time could not be worked out in the best interest of the kids. Its about the kids not punishing the Ex.

My husband has joint custody of three elementary aged children and has been separated and subsequently divorced for 5 years. at the time of the divorce, ex moved about 1 1 /2 hrs away to be closer to her family.  At time of divorce, husband was trying to keep cost down, be reasonable and look after best interest of kids.  Since new location did put closer to family it was considered a good thing.  He agreed to standard visitation (EOW and every other Thurs for a few hours) anticipating being able to work things through.  Also hoping to save costs, ex had cheap atty and husband was not represented - being assured everything was joint and standard with kids primarily residing with Ex.

For the first several years after the separation and divorce, ex would sign kids up for whatever extra-curricular activities she chose even when it conflicted with husband's time.  Thinking it was the best thing for the kids to be supportive of their activities, we would end up staying over at husband's inlaws on our weekends because it didn't make sense to drive back and forth.  Emotional issues kept escalating with kids with their comments showing mother was involving them in adult issues and lying to them.  we got her to agree to counseling.  she chose a counselor in her town and we would drive every other week to accommodate her schedule for this additional counseling. Counselor found that kids were not adjusting because they did not see two separate homes, Mom was creating an unhealthy co-dependency  and we were just visiting family. counselor recommended establishing firm boundaries.  Ex quit counseling saying "no one was going to tell her what to do with her kids" and "counseling was causing more trouble then before" - because we had begun saying 'No' to her control.

We ended up hiring attorney to try and enforce decree as well as make changes to the visitation schedule. We had a temp hearing and judge ruled in our favor in several items but required longer hearing for the additional visitation requested and remaining items.   That was over a year ago.

The mid-week visitation means we have to drive over 3 hours for 3 hours of time with them.  When we get them, we feed them, play for half hour and work on homework the rest of the time.  There are often PTO meetings, extra-curricular events, etc, that also coincide, so we have even less time.  We have requested an extra weekend to take the place of every 4 Thursdays but she refused.  Basically anything other then the original decree is denied unless it works to her advantage.  If we can't make the Thurs visitation due to work issues, she refuses to allow husband's inlaws to use that time to see them.  I don't know how she thinks she can dictate husband's time.  

The kids have begun making friends here but it's very hard when they're only up here every other week.  We would like to get half of the summer, and three weekends a month in place of the Thursday night and for extra time.  this would also help us be better informed and help with school work.  

Financially the original decree stated each parent was responsible for half of any and all extra-curricular.  Ex has determined that means anything she defines and we don't have a choice. At the time of our temp hearing, she was in F/C because she could not manage money. (she had no debt leaving the marriage) So we're trying to get this limited to what we agree to in writing with written documentation from extra-curricular source.

Husband carries the kids under his insurance and would like to keep it that way because he has better policy.  Husband's credit has been effected b/c ex does not pay dr's bills or file insurance correctly.  Standard child support in our state would be for primary custodian to pay first $250/child/yr.  Because he was not represented he is responsible for xx% of all medical.  Between the fact credit is affected, ex chooses optional medical procedures and requires our %, even when we disagree, we are requesting to have the standard financial requirements.  

Ex gets to claim all kids on taxes.  Despite the fact we pay a large amount of child support/have never missed a payment, subsidize extra-curricular and xx% of medical, not to mention 100% of everything at our house - including all clothes, toys, etc. - nothing goes back and forth, we don't claim anything.  We volunteered to have her accountant send us her tax returns and we would claim the kids, give her everything she would have gotten, plus split the extra we got.  She refused.  So Uncle Sam wins.

Any info we get from school or dr has been from our direct contact with them and proactive communication.  Info she does provide is usually inaccurate so we have to go to the source (providing proof he has joint custody).

Part of temporary hearing required her to meet half way.  We had to move the time back one hour because she was never on time.  Since then we've still had to sit and wait  - for our pick-ups - she's never later for returns.

The final issues before the court are a series of contempt.  They are a series of failing to provide joint access to school/dr. Bringing kids into adult issues; welfare of the children, etc...

At time of court filing, we witnessed on many occasions in the house, dried feces, unhealthy conditions, received suitcase reeking of cat urine, etc.  Since then we are not allowed in house.  Also at time of filing, kids were all sleeping regularly in bed with Ex - including the dog.

Are we wasting our money? Do we stand any chance since we're not asking for a custody change, just more time with a realistic schedule?