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The closer the court date gets, the more insane she gets. She is calling and harassing dh almost every day. She is always screaming and swearing at him about this and that, totally losing control. She has gotten one of those "free" lawyers apparently, and is planning to try and get sole custody back.

We have had the kids more in the 2 months since the custody order was changed, and for many months before that. DH said he is going to file a RO on Monday, because today she was threatening to physically harm him. I know she's full of BS with her threats, but she is planning to be house-sitting for my next door neighbor all next week, so it would be nice if someone told her she can't come near our home.

I don't know how the kids can deal with this crap, because I am literally pulling my hair out right now.

Some of you know my story. DH got joint custody of two kids in Dec. Before that, bm had custody, but they spent most of their time with us. She has threatened to move them thousands of miles away several times. Her parents live in AK, and she wants to move there, so they can support her.

We were pretty sure all this moving nonsense had ended with the custody change. They have a court date in April where she will have to explain to the judge why she fraudulently filed an offer dh made her in Sept in order to take the kids from us on Christmas, and illegally bring them to AK. Not only had the judge told her not to take the kids to AK til after Christmas, but the order she filed required her to return the kids to his custody the day after Christmas, which she obviously didn't do. So we are waiting for court date on these issues.

In the meantime, dh lost his job a couple weeks ago due to a company restructuring. Last night, in a fit of anger (these come frequently with her) she told him that he is going to look like a total loser when they go to court because he lost his job, and she is going to petition to move them to AK! Where do we stand here? She can't really expect to take custody from him just because he lost his job, can she? If that were the case, he should have gotten FULL custody a long time ago, because she has lost several jobs since their divorce. I think the fact that he is home with the kids now is GREAT for them. I know that he is going to get another job, because he has to support his family, but the kids are really going to miss all this extra time with him when he does.

On Dec 10, a judge told pbfh that she could NOT take the kids to AK on or before Xmas, but could take them after Xmas. Also, pbfh agreed to change custody to joint physical and to go to mediation to work out all the details, and dh agreed to pay her the same amount of cs while she is still enrolled in her nursing program full-time--after that he would have it reviewed to comply with state guidlines for joint custody.

Dec 17 pbfh blew off their mediation appt. Dec 18 she called dh begging him to let her take the kids to AK on Xmas day, since that was the only time she could get seats on such short notice. He said no way. That night she had the kids call to tell him they really wanted to go. He said that he was sorry she could not get tickets after Xmas, but they were not going to leave on Xmas day.

Dec  18 she was supposed to cancel the reservations she had made on a 24 hour hold. She didn't. Dec 19 she filed a modification offer he had given her back in Sept. She did this behind his back without telling, but he signed it in Sept. At that time, there was no way in hell she would sign it. This offer gave her cs until June 2005--he threw that in to encourage her to go ahead and sign it w/o having to go to court. It also reversed the holiday schedule from their divorce j & d so she would get the kids Xmas day instead of Xmas eve this year. We didn't realize they were switched. The judge signed the order on Dec 23, and we found out about it on Dec 24. Dec 25 she picked up the kids at 9am like the order said she could. Ruined our Xmas plans. Flew to AK w/kids. She was supposed to return them to our home at 9am Dec 26 to stay until after church on Dec 28. That's what the order says. She didn't care about that part, and now she is violation of the very order she shoved through. Does anyone agree with us that she just gave dh custody of the kids?

She knows he called the police, and she is worried about going to jail for this. She actually thinks he might just say she had permission to do this so she doesn't get in trouble.

Today dh and his ex had an appt w/mediator. She has been trying to get out of it all week. First it was a $$ issue. Dh has offered to pay her portion. Then, this morning she said she was going to cancel because she didn't know how to get there. Then back to the $$ issue. DH assured her that he is going to pay for this appt.

She also called him this am to tell him about big problems she has w/the parenting plan he gave her. (I took the one from this site, changed it to fit our situation, and retyped it for him, with his input, of course.) Besides various other things she doesn't agree with, she has a huge problem with the statements about step-parents' rights. Now, this doesn't concern me much, because I believe legally step-parent has these rights anyway, if they are married to the child's custodial parent. But I thought it was a good idea to have that in the parenting plan because she's said several times that I can't volunteer at their school, go to their conferences and stuff like that. I told dh that when she brought this up in mediation, they would probably tell her she's cracked.

Then she called him back and told him that she's not going because ss is sick. This is total BS! He offered that he could come over here and stay with me if he can't go to school, of course she refused. He talked to ss and he said he had a headache. DH asked him if he was nervous about the meeting today and he wouldn't answer him. He asked if he okay, and he wouldn't answer him. Now if in fact, this child is sick, it's because she made him sick. She's been drilling these kids about this crap for the last three days, and now she's using him for an excuse not to show for this meeting. There is going to be a cancellation fee of about $100, and dh certainly shouldn't have to pay it, but if they bill her, she won't pay it. Then they will probably refuse to see them until it's paid.

She told dh this am that she tape-recorded the kids telling her that I wrote this document, not dh. I would really like to see her try to use that in court. I think the judge would tell her she is a mental case for using her kids like that and take them away. Besides that, I also think the judge would acknowledge that she herself uses someone else to do most of her typing for her.

I was so hoping and praying that we were nearing the end of this. Doesn't look that way now.

This week I have a constant tension headache. I was so happy after court last week when the judge said she would grant them joint custody. Haven't seen that order yet, and they still have mediation on Wed to work out the details. She has been calling every day since court being a total B**** about this and that. I copied the sample shared parenting plan from this site, and have spent a lot of time retyping it to make it relevent to dh's case. I want him to go into this meeting with a clear cut idea of what we want so they have something to go on--make sure no detail gets missed. This will make it so they don't have something to fight about EVERY DAY.

Well, Sunday she called trying to get out of the meeting. She can't afford it. He will pay her part of the FIRST meeting. She told him on the phone she hasn't received cs in two months so she's broke. I asked him why would she even say that? The state takes money from his check every two weeks. We know she gets it. He said she probably said that because her boyfriend was sitting there and she is getting him to pay all her bills.

Today she said doesn't even know if she can afford the gas to get there. Gimme a break. I finished the proposed agreement today, and he dropped it off there tonight because he had to bring some stuff over there for the kids. She was calling withing 15 minutes. She has huge problems with all sorts of things. Namely, the statement that neither of them can call each other's homes from 8:00 pm to 8:00 am. She said that's illegal, and the judge said so in court. I'm beginning to think she was stoned when they were in court, because she didn't seem to hear what was said by the judge at all.

I told my dh tonight that I feel like I'M fighting with his ex through him, and he's sitting there going "Leave me out of it." (He's not saying that, it just seems like we are arguing about so much, when we both want the same thing.)

I just want this to be over. The worst thing is, the kids are there this week, and she manilpulates their minds so much, if she's pissed at dh about what's going on, you can be sure she's either trying to convince them to be pissed at him too, or treating them like garbage because they are not pissed at him.

The judge hasn't even signed the order yet, and already they (dh and bm) are proving they cannot get along. She's a wacko. She picked the kids up from school on Friday. It's dh's weekend, but since ss was "missing his mom" so much on Wed, we decided thought they could go over their Fri for the night. We were going out anyway, so they would've been w/a sitter here.

Well, dh called to talk to the kids between 4:30 and 5:00, just to say hi and see how their day went. She freaked out! She goes " I can't believe you're doing this already! They have not even been home an hour, you are going to see them in less than 24 hours!" She wouldn't let him talk to his kids. They did call him back, though, when they found out he had called. They were each going to spend the night at a friend's house. (Missed Mom eh?)

He picked them up at noon today, and she's called here like, 4 times since they got here. The kids were getting ready for bed the last time, and I made a comment to dh about how many times she's called today and he thinks she's trying to prove a point. Whatever. So her last call got disconnected after about 5 minutes, and the kids went to bed. She called back and dh told her they were in bed, she started screaming at him!

I am typing up a proposed parenting plan for dh to bring to the mediation meeting on Thursday. It's going to say that she can't call here after 8:30 pm. She won't like that, but too bad. That's when they go to bed here. Can we limit how many times she calls in one 8 hour period? Geez!

BM told the judge that she has no problem giving dh joint physical custody, so the judge said good, then that's how it will be. Our atty is to draft the order in the next few days, and have the judge sign it. They still have mediation scheduled next week to work out all the kinks. This is HUGE for us!

The hardest thing was holding back from bringing up all the wacked-out stuff bm has done. DH had to convince the judge that he believes they can work together on this and respect each other and get along. Now, if they can't get along, and end up back in court, there will be no joint custody. Listening the cases before ours was very encouraging, knowing that dh will always have the same judge if they go back. We watched her award sole physical custody to a man because his soon to be ex wife was messing with his visitation. We also heard her tell a couple that were requesting joint physical custody that both parties must be commited to keeping the kids in the same school.

BM also requested that she be allowed to take the kids to Alaska for Xmas, and the judge told her (just as dh had) that she could do that after Xmas. They have a lot of tradition here in MN, and they can work out their future holiday schedule in mediation.

Now we have to figure out how to pay our atty, but I think my dh will be smiling when he writes the check this time, because he has finally seen that this whole thing did him and his kids some good.

BM called dh today and told him she wants to go to week to week schedule right away and wants him to take the kids next week. She is changing the busses back tomorrow. It seems her new bf who she is "probably going to marry" is being shipped to Iraq for a year and next week is the last time she will be able to spend with him. Whatever--that's none of my bus, but when dh asked if that was okay with me, I said heck yeah! This is what he wants (kind of) and what the kids want, so if the bus issue is solved there is no reason not to. We are still planning for court next week, but this makes it even better. If this is already the arrangement and she has agreed to it, there is no reason for the judge not to order it. Even better, she might just think everything is all solved and not show up for court at all.
So that was great news, but then when dh stopped there to talk to the kids (the phone is disconnected, so he can't call their house.) she told him she is taking the kids to AK for Xmas. He has been over this with her before and told her she can't. The other day she said she can't get the tickets anyway, now her mom wants to buy the tickets for her. Sorry it's not up to Grandma where the kids go for Xmas, that's what I told dh. If it were up to Grandma, his mom would not let them go because she wants to see them too. These people new they were leaving their family behind when they moved up there (and it was after the dh and bm separated) so if they want to see their grandkids so bad on Xmas they should come here. Otherwise, they can go the day after Xmas and stay for a week. I hope this issue doesn't wreck everything else.

DH has court on the 10th. BM really does not want to go. She is trying everything she can to avoid it. They are working on setting up mediation to come to an agreement about joint custody. I'm thinking if they went to court, dh would have a good chance of getting custody and almost want to just go for it. We really can't afford it though. We are so overextended--financially, physically, and emotionally. She told the kids yesterday that she does want to give him joint custody, and asked them when they want to start going week to week. Of course they said right away, they've wanted this for years for crying out loud! But she has made it impossible to get to school from here. She is calling the bus company on Thurs (that's the first day she will have time to make this phone call-yeah right) to find out if they can take one bus one week and another bus the next week. I already know what the answer to that is going to be. Why can't she just get her lazy but out of bed in the morning? She doesn't even get up to make sure they are dressed and eating breakfast before school. SD leaves for school about an hour before ss, so then he is all alone in the morning.

Also, we just found out that her new bf lives with someone that has wolves as pets. The wolves don't like children, and think they are food, so when ss goes there to visit, he has to be carried in so the wolves don't get him. Nice huh?