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I posted here last week explaining that our therapist had informed both DH and BM that parenting time precedes children's acitivies. She acknowledged that and agreed during our meeting with the therapist.

Well, now that it comes down to my weekend and her having to drive 1/2 (4 hours one way) she is attempting inerference! I should have known better! DH's daughter called earlier this week to request they be able to go to a dance a school on that Friday night. They are to meet 10/28 in the evening and be here for the 29th, 30 and 31st. They only have a 1/2 school on 29th so all agreed it was ok to miss. DH informed the kids that they would not be able to go to the dance (13 and 12 year olds) and boy did he get some objections even after he informed them that if he were in town they could go, but they are scheduled to be here that weekend. His daughter's objections were EXACTLY the same as what Mommy dearest said during their meeting with the therapist last week. She sounded like a parrot!

We both understand that at this age the kids want to do those things. However, this is the first time EVER that she has agreed to drive them 1/2 to our home for a weekend during the school year and the therapist says it should be onex per month. So, we feel that we can't change already before we get a pattern established. If we allow a modification now then she will use any and all actitives to do this again so that she doesn't have to drive. She has already complained about that so we know that is the real reason. THe dance came up and she worked it to her advantage.  DH feels like the proverbial "bad guy" as he is saying no to them and not getting any back up support from their Mom in this decision. Mom should have called DH to discuss instead of having the kids do it. So now, once again, they are stuck in the middle! Indirectly, she is telling those kids that it is not important to be at Dad's house. DH feels if he says "no" then with their Mother's help they will decide that they will not meet us 1/2 for visitation next weekend. Why is it her way or the highway, always?

URGGGG! Everytime we get something worked out that seems like things will finally settle down for a while she pulls this crap again. Can she ever stop? I feel like there are days I could have a heart attack and I am only 37!

I truly feel this woman will NEVER get it and I have to find a better way to deal with the unlimited amount of stress I will have to endure from her for the next 11 years until the youngest is 18.  Any ideas anyone? Lately I feel as if there is an elephant sitting on my chest, my back is full of knots and my jaw hurts. I know exactly why; just don't know how to get rid of it! I had a massage this week and even the massage therapist told me I had knots she couldn't work out and she even gave me an extra 20 minutes FREE!

So, now we have a phone call and email into the therapist to ask his advice and see if he can get BM to see the light so to speak. Impatiently waiting for a response here.

Just venting!
Thanks for listening once again!

We are lucky to have this therapist. He has been awesome and I credit him for making all the difference in the world for our sitaution. Since he has been in the picture BM has behaving as much as she is capable of doing.

We made sure that when the therapist was court ordered we found someone who was familiar with PAS, and contentious family relationships along with custody disputes. As it turns out this guy is pretty well known in their local community for helping decide custody cases and doing home studies etc. We have been so fortunate to have him.

I understand your frustration with that statement from the ex's. It is exactly as ours thinks, too. I hope that you can get there with yours someday too. This has take about 5 years to get to this point, and multiple appearances in court.  

Hang in there.

Today was an excellent day for my DH and his children. He and the ex met with the therapist to work out a visitation schedule, among other things, for the balance of the school year. EX didn't like what the therapist had to say, but we sure did! A little background...3 kids 13,11,7 and we are 4 hours driving distance away one way. DH has always driven back for his weekends. Well now, EX has to drive 1/2 one weekend per month so they can be at our home. EX balked for 2 reasons  1) children's acitivities that they would miss and 2) dh's cs was lowered due his transportation costs ....

Therapist said parenting time ALWAYS precedes any actitives and it is only fair that she drive this 1/2 too since DH does it during the summer for her weekends. Secondly, DH says to her it is only $20 that I am compensated for transportation so if it is that big of deal then I will pay you the $20 on those weekends you have to drive.  The therapist said, ok, fair. She still didn't like it. Ex also mentioned she now wanted to use said therpist to resolve their differences and DH is open to this, too, but mentioned he wanted to go to court to get it all in writing. She didn't like that, and the therapist told her, "you need to understand he has to protect himself" give the previous problems! He didn't see the kids all last Fall due to her visitiaton denial.

She also brought up that DH wrestles with the kids and he shouldn't do that as it encourages them to be bullies. The kids like to wrestle with their Dad and like the kisses monster, duh? Ex has a "no touch" policy at her house and thinks we should have same. Whatever! Well apparently DH's middle boy is having difficulty with violence (news to us and no problems in school) at ex's home regarding his relationship with his step-brother who is a year younger. So, once again, because she has issues in her own home that she is unable to be responsible for she has to blame it on DH wrestling with the kids. DH told the therapist he wasn't going to stop this, but would temporarily halt it until they can figure out what is going on with the boy and step brother. Hmmm... Child will be meeting with the therapist by himself to see what we can determine. This just brings to light that there are issues at her home, as we never have problems with the kids like this when they are with us. And if there was truly an OVERALL problem don't you think it would show up in school? He excels academically and there are no disipline events at school, nor any problems on the sports teams he plays on. Hmmmm....

So, today was a good day for the children!

Like yourself, I too, am passionate about his children. I don't have any children of my own so his children are "my children" so to speak. I am not a mother by the technical definition, but I still feel all the pain of the situation.

You are one of the fortunate ones who has established a working realtionship with your ex. You children are truly blessed because of your efforts in this arena.

I never thought of it that way...that they need to see a loving relationship between us so they know what one is truly like! Ironically enough, we are not married and I would bet that our relationship is better than her current marriage for a variety of reasons. There are days I wish evil upon her and that karma would come around soon, but I know that won't solve anything either.

I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, but you may not discover what that reason is until much later. However, for the life of me, I can not figure out the reason for this one at all. There is no reason for her to be treating the children's Father as she does.

Thank you for your kind words. They are appreciated. I know those children love me as we always have such a great time when we are together. Heck, when I go running the 11 year old begs to go with me, and sometimes it is a miler and he STILL wants to go.

You may be right about him giving up sooner had it not been for me. I encouraged him to finally stand up for himself (very passive guy wanting to please everyone). The only problem is that when he started telling her "no" is when some of the problems started. Hey, but he realizes that parenthood is not a popularity contest, unlike their Mother.

What do you mean by "enforcement sanction", as I have never heard of such a thing.

When it is our weekend with the children we do attend all of their acitivities, but sometimes it interferes with plans that we may have had for them which gets really frustrating. During the summer when they are here with us they are in things, too. However, we give their Mom the choice of whether or not she wants to take them to things during her parenting time etc as it is Her weekend time. We don't get the same courtesy.

She does need to be more than slapped to get the message. I think that the Judge verbally lashing her a year ago put some sense into her head, but  not enough for it to be permanent. Our family court system is the most backward thing that I have ever encourted in my life. Why do you have to fight to be a parent just because you are no longer married? That is so dumb, but the way it is. It is just like his ex telling him that she doesn't like the way he disciplines the kids (how come everywhere we go everyone has nothing but praise for how well behaved his children are? Hmmmm...boundaries?), yet when they were married he used the same type of discipline and she didn't have a problem with it then?

Again, thanks for the kind words. It is only the people here at SPARC that help me keep my sanity some days.

I know it is PAS. There has always been signs of it since I met him, but it really escalated when the ex got remarried. For the life of me I can't figure that one out. We thought she would finally be happy and stop trying to interfere with everything.

I am not offended. Yes they are his children. However, I am the one that has to put up with the aftermath of his choices both positive and negative. That is where my stress comes in. Last Fall when we lived through the visitation denial I pretty much stopped eating and doing anything that I enjoyed as I could only muster the energy to get through the work day. It was awful. I just don't want to go through that again. I fear that is what will come if he pursues some of this through the courts. I know, we can't control what the ex does and we aren't responsible for her reactions to anything. However, since we know from past experience how she will react when challenged all of this scares me.

 And yes, he is going to run all of this by his attorney who I hope talks some sense into him about how to approach this. I don't think what he desires is wrong, I just think there are some better ways to go about it without having the ex become "major league" upset and take it out on the kids again. JMHO.

The current CO states that he gets the kids one weekend per month and every other holiday. The boys are here during the summer from one week after school lets out until two weeks before shcool starts. His daughter is here for 4 weeks during the summer to be determined before each summer. BF's atty and we both thought she was in contempt in Dec 2003, but unfortunately the Judge did not see it that way. There were 3 criteria to be met for this to be found true and she didn't meet one of them which was something about having the ability to maintain the co. Judge basically said she can't force the kids to go with their Dad if they don't want to....BS if you ask me.

The therapist is not really in his favor or her favor; he is in favor of what is best for the kids. Which we see as actually being in his favor as we SEE what is best whereas the ex doesn't see that at all. It has always been about what is convenient for her and no one else.

I hope that he feels as you do that he is "lucky to have me" as some days I think that he thinks I am a pain in the butt for trying to tell him what to do in regards to the situation.

Thanks for the good thoughts.

I am looking for some advice.

I will try to paint a brief history of the situation.  My bofriend has been divorced for nearly 5 years and has 3 children who are ages 13, 11 and 7. The oldest being a girl and the younger two both boys. Since the divorce his ex (Sybil is my nickname for her due to what I think is a multiple personality disoder) has taken him to court numerous times in an effort to reduce his parenting time to nothing. And it has worked because at the time of the divorce he had every weekend, every other holiday and all summer. We also live 4 hours and one state away from Sybil  and the kids. BF drives back 4 hours to see the kids for his parenting time.

The most heinous of the court battles began in the Spring of 2003 and at that time Sybil alledged abuse of both a physical and sexual nature. Judge saw right through her crap; however he still managed to eliminate some of his summer parenting time with his daughter. That got reduced to 4 weeks. That summer was HELL as Sybil pulled multiple stunts that i won't expound on as it would make you want to vomit. Then beginning in the Fall 2003 Sybil began denying weekend visitation. This went on until the Decebmer 2003 court date. BF missed 10 weekends with his children including his Thanksgiving holiday that year. In court in Dec the Judge again reduces pareting time to one weekend per month, and orders BF and kids into counseling to repair their relationship. The one good thing was the Judge did rip "MOTY" a new one in court and did threaten to change custody if this crap kept up. We tried to get her for comtempt, but that didn't fly which is no big surprise give the favored status of women in family court.

BF and kids start couseling in Jan 2004 and he begins to see them one weekend per month. The kids behave like nothing ever happened and are all love and hugs for their Dad. Go figure! The counselor did discover that Sybil and BF are not able to communicate so wants to meet with them together. I do have to add a funny in this...counselor told BF that he thought Sybil was "crazy". The biggest problem with her is that she is afraid of BF for whatever reason (can't think of a reason why?) and since the kids spend so much time with her they pick up on that and act in kind. The counselor has made things better for us, and this past summer was great. During the Spring when Sybil and BF met with him to do the summer schedule Sybil even said she would give BF his weekend back that he lost in court last Dec. We were shocked by this, but kind of thought that it would only be so that she could get her weekend parenting time during the summer months. The therapist also mentioned that those children need to spend at least one of those weekends per month during the school year here and that Sybil should meet BF 1/2 to facilitate this.

This brings us to this fall and my dilemma. She did give him is EOW and things have been going well thus far. However, she has those kids involved in so many damn activities that she is now balking on them coming her one weekend per month, but did tell BF that if he wants them here one weekend per month he will have to do all the driving. Grrr. that would mean that he would have to drive 16 hours in 3 days by himself! And she is also hinting toward reducing the summer parenting time for the 11 year old now, too. The kids are he are meeting with the counselor next weekend to do a post summer follow up and then the two of them are going to meet with counselor too. After that meeting, which BF thinks will be ugly, he plans on meeting with his atty to file more court papers. Thus my problem....every time they go to court she tells those kids, esp oldest daughter, everything and they react to her anger etc... etc.... refuse to see their Father and so on. Since things have been going so well (ok as well as we can expect with her) I am not sure this is a good idea as it will impact his relationship with his children yet again. And I CAN'T go through the living HELL I went through last Fall for a second time. It will kill me!

This is what he wants to file in his papers (some of which I agree with because if you don't have it in writing it will bite you)
1) to use the counselor as binding aribitration for their disputes

2) to get his eow back into the court order (he has been getting it again since August)

3) to get one of his weekend per month at our home and have her meet him 1/2 (normally he stays at his Mom's as she is in the same area as Sybil)

The things I don't agree with because I feel he is just waging a war to get back at her for the false allegations etc....

4) his weekends back that he lost last Fall

5) more time with his daughter in the summer ( I feel ex will use this to get less time with the son for the summer as if we ask for 7 weeks and get it then she will say son to only have 7 vs the 10 now)

6) ex to pay expenses for all his driving last Fall and he didn't get to see the kids, and for her to pay for his atty and court fees and reimbursment for all the couseling since we now know that it wasn't his fault for all the problems during 2003

7) if her crap keeps up he wants the kids in foster care and a home study to be done etc...( I think this was just him venting, but you never know)

How do I get him to see that he needs to tread carefully, as it is about what those kids need (more time with their Dad) and not about putting her through the wringer even though she deserves it. I know that I can't make those decisions for him as they are not my children, but as the psuedo sm of those kids I feel completely caught in the middle. Some days I wonder if I shouldn't just walk away from the realtionship as I am only along for the ride stuck in the middle not being able to do a damn thing. Frustation! I feel so stuck because I am under undue stress just because I choose to fall in love with someone who has 3 great kids and is a great father, but a psychommy? How do you disengage and still keep your sanity?

SD can look at it, but I am not sure if they would since DH's income and mine are similar in size. If I made substantially more than him it could be a possibility. This is pretty much the only reason we are not married yet...his youngest will be 18 in 10 years...guess the wedding will be then.

You are all invited!!! LOL!

she is re-married and still wanted to use my income to increase her child support. We still aren't married! She is a spend aholic...always maxing out credit cards and buying new vehicles to keep up with the Jones'. All the kids have the latest electronic toys/games/movies etc.... funny thing is her daughter doesn't even like that stuff and she keeps buying it for them!

wanting to consider my income for an increase in her child support and my DH aren't even married!

The one over the top though is subpeona'ing her own kids to testify in court, and more than once!