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Well, for me, court was very anti-climatic. In my case, it seemed like the judge kind of knew how he was going to rule. It didn't follow the exact protocol that one might expect. So I didn't get a normal experience I think. That was in Texas. In Mass, I settled before going to court to just get it over with. Also, what is interesting here is the judges almost always take whatever issue is brought before then under advisement, and you get the ruling a week later in the mail. This is to avoid emotional outbursts. I guess it depends on the judge and the way things are generally done in your state. What state are you in? Let me know how it goes for you.
Anyway, I guess I am going to get a lawyer in the end. I have a meeting scheduled next Tues with one. I am waiting to hear from a couple of others. I don't think I need the grief of trying to deal with this by myself...

Prior to son's birth is when I moved, but it was after he told me to move back by my family and he didn't want to have any relationship with the child. So I moved and he changed his mind about involvement shortly after birth, and about me moving a couple of months after that, but I was already gone a few months. This is all in a very explicit emails from him.

The first year he saw son 6 times (most of which took place during court case which lasted 7 months). After we legally set visitation that he requested, the second year he also came 6 times (more spread out this time). He had said that he would visit every 3 weeks and got a child support reduction based on that amount of visits.  I agreed to the deduction because I do want him to visit frequently, since it is very bad for my son that there is so much space in between visits (he forgets his father so it is always a traumatic). So I agreed to it to encourage him to visit (although he makes more than $100K a year and could do it in either case). He was probably just asking for this intense visitation schedule to get a big deduction. There has never been less than 5 weeks between visits and as long as 3 months.

Well anyway, most of his complaints are about money rather than not being able to see son a lot. Which I guess is showing what is really bothering him. (PS Won't pay medical either and will argue with me about $5.00, and this weekend was son's birthday and he didn't let son keep any presents. How do people feel about that? I think it isn't very nice. Son doesn't understand now but will soon and it will hurt him! Same was true for last christmas and last birthday. He must think I will play with the toys!)

Curious Mom-Do you represent yourself? Sounds like his attorney doesn't meet with you, just goes to court? If you do not, you must be having to pay many legal bills? Do you have a strategy to minimize them?

My mother is concerned that she will use statements against me, but I told her I am not arrested or anything, that it is not like criminally incriminating statements. She can't tape me without my knowledge and if it goes bad, I will just leave. I know mediation is confidential, but I don't know about conversation with the other lawyer to try to settle an issue. I assume they are not but at the same time, it is her word against mine.

I think the worst I might do is reveal too much of what I am thinking. Example: BF says that he wants me to go to the airport for pickup because it gives him an extra hour with son. Sounds good right? But the funny thing is he picks son up on Sat at 10am when the settlement states 9 am. I have never called him out on it because I don't want him to fix it. It belies his true intention, not to lengthen his visit as much as possible, but just to lengthen my DRIVE as much as possible. Think I can use that in court? Another time, I suggested taking a later flight out to get extra time (he returns son around 11:30 from airport instead of 10am as it was before when pickup was from his hotel, although he can have until 3pm) and he stated "Where is YOUR sacrifice in that?" Is this about my sacrifice or seeing son max possible?

Ocean- I love those suggestions. They are very helpful. Son is only 2, so he can't really do this unassisted for now, but would be good in future.

I consulted a different lawyer post-settlement and he was impressed by how vague the settlement is. His lawyer wrote and we amended it. As I have been trying to comply with it, this has been the major problem

Here is what it says exactly "The defendant shall have visitation as follows: Until age two, visits shall be in Massachusetts every third weekend from 9:00am on Saturday until 3pm on Sunday. If the weekend is followed by a Monday holiday, at the defendant's option the visit shall be extended to 3pm on Monday. The parties will be flexible in accommodating the defendant's travel arrangements and shall share transportation to and from the defendant's hotel."

Does that mean from the court date? From the very start, he visited the court date, then 10 weeks later, then 6 weeks later, Christmas, 5 weeks later, 3 months later...so on. I guess I was thinking from the last visit.

The letter threatened to go to court in 2 weeks if I do not respond. I know they didn't file because I checked yesterday, since i was suspicious when he wasn't replying to my email.

Notification is also a big deal so I really like the May 1st idea. We have no provisions as to notification, and that has been a problem. I don't know right now if they will take him for Thanksgiving this year, or Christmas, because last year he chose not to take Thanksgiving and chose not to have son Christmas eve and day. I wanted Thanksgiving and Christmas to alternate with each other too, but now that is messed up as well. Our settlement says every other Thanksgiving and alternating Christmas, but not how they relate to each other. And now it is getting to almost October and I don't know his plans. So that's one thing I will deal with when I meet his lawyer.

Well, the idea with police is good, but I don't even know since it is supposed to be their hotel. They won't tell me its location.

I like that statement about only using 1/3 of visits. It is stated every third weekend (nothing more), Thanksgiving weekend alter, 4 Days week of Christmas with x-mas eve and day alternate, fathers day, birthday. If you count the visits in a one year period it is a max of 18 (including Thanksgiving). Since son's birthday last year came 6 times, Birthday, 3 regular weekends, father's day and Christmas. and He also could have taken for his wedding and opted not to (not counted in 18 visits). He has the option to extend the weekend visits one day if it is a holiday. He has never chosen an extended holiday weekend (weird). Now he gets 1 week 4 times per year (non-consec.) on top of rest and has not scheduled that yet either.

Flexibility works well, actually, if they just wouldn't be looking for trouble. I really just want to go on with my life and find a way to live with it. *sigh* So I put up with a little more than I should have. I think what happened is since last time they said they would be filing in court and then didn't, they don't want me to think they are always bluffing.

Hi Everyone,
I posted awhile back and got some great advice. I am in need again (prob won't be the last time). Sorry this is long.

So background is bf lives in Texas, I live in Mass. Very tense relationship (if you ask me, coming from them) much of which I believe originates in the new wife (she is very controlling).

So I had an issue a while ago where bf was constantly changing my pickup location, ultimately making it the airport, when our agreement state that transportation is shared to and from his hotel. Anyway, I ended up picking son up from airport since I wasn't going to not show up! That was my last post. So it just continued from there. They had pushed things as far as they could with the pickup, so now they worked on THEIR pickup, which up to this point was from my front door. They now wanted it at a local Starbucks, and I am sure would have kept getting further and further until I was picking up and dropping off at the airport (a stated intention of theirs). So I refused. They had to come to my home. They pushed it so far as to go to the Starbucks and wait until I called asking why they were late (this was father's day visit, the last visit) and they then came to my home.

So I KNEW something would happen today, the birthday visit, and there it was. Pickup went real well (we have started a picture book of them that I go through with son to help with transitions although they (bf & sm) initially refused to make it saying I wouldn't show it to son anyway) son didn't scream, upset but not terrified. So I thought things were ok, then I get a letter in mail from their lawyer saying that they are going to take me to court to modify about pickup and dropoff. Also, they had asked two weeks ago to visit for Halloween. They have not followed the schedule since we started (supposed to be every third weekend not specified further) this is five weeks after this birthday visit, and I am not even sure where else to count from since they have come so irregularly. I have always said yes, but this time I said we were busy and he could come weekend before or after. Nothing else. I received no response from email even after followup, but got this letter today. They count is as a third weekend from their first visit after court, but settlement doesn't specify how it is counted. I was thinking based on last visit, since there are 3 and 4 months between visits sometimes. Last year they took the Halloween weekend also and I had complained a little but said yes to the visit, so I am SURE that is why they even picked this weekend. So they didn't even try to protest or negotiate. Straight to court.

His lawyer is known for bleeding her clients which also bleeds me. So I was thinking to postpone getting a lawyer since the issue seems pretty small to me. I am not in contempt, if anything he is with the airport issue. If possible maybe even represent myself.

I would like to know what you think about the Halloween thing. It is not reasonable for me to have to be 100% flexible. If there was a history of me saying no a lot I would understand, but this is the FIRST time since child is born. Also, about meeting his lawyer. Any advice?

Oh, and I forgot to add, that they are also going to request that I not be there for these exchanges!! I have never done anything to deserve this beyond their claim that I say goodbye too long and do "nothing" to reassure son. I wasn't at one exchange due to work conflict (so my husband did it alone) and they complained about that. Now, I am not supposed to be there. For the record, I don't say good bye more than anyone else or more than they do when they give him back. Exchanges are less than a minute generally (again because they are running away usually!).

I am not trying to sound like an angel, but I have been pretty careful and have tried to not cause conflicts. I just haven't allowed them to completely push me around (although I have allowed quite a lot).

I was thinking to meet with her and let her bleed him a little, so they don't take me to court over stupid things, or too quickly as they are here.

Also, if I do have to go to court, if you have suggestions about arrangements. They want maximum flexibility, I guess so I can never say no even off schedule. They want lots of visitation just in case they want to come, but only come about 6 times per year (if followed schedule would have had 18 visits). Also, stepmom is vindictive (sent pics of their wedding in picture book for son) and a lot of these issues are coming from that (bf is a wimp). They get a generous cs reduction for travel (beased on 18 visits). And I have numerous nasty emails (written by her as though him) were they just generally insult me and belittle me. (Not have me at visit exchanges is an attempt at this).

Anyone have ideas???  How do you deal with people who just don't follow agreements anyway?(I suppose you would sell a book if you could answer And constantly threaten court? And then try to turn it on you?

Seriously, I am sorry this is so long......

I posted a little while ago about the father wanting me to pickup child from airport when we have no agreement to that.  We had settled about a month ago to a hotel lobby for pickup per our settlement.  Today, 1 hour ago, he picked child up from my husband (i am working today) and told him(me) that my pickup is at airport, like it or not. What do I do?

I think that they don't want me to know where they are staying that is part of the reason that they are trying to avoid me picking my child up at the hotel.  I would like to know where he is, and that was one of the reasons that I liked this provision, since it would neccesitate them telling me where they are staying, and it is part of the reason I never would have agreed to other locations for pick up.  Actually, I wasn't specific in my last post, the settlement states "The parties are to share pickup and dropoff from the father's hotel" so it specifically mentions his hotel rather than the airport.  He is just being a jerk. Also, I think they just want me to have to travel as far as possible in any case.  Anyway, they have tried to change or manipulate many other aspects of the settlement. 

An interesting issue is that he gets a big child support reduction for his travel expenses, much bigger than what he should be getting when compared with the actual amount of times he has visited son.  If I were to take him back to court, I would take him over this issue, since he is getting a reduction of 600.00 and actually would end up making a profit of more than 1000.00 a year with the current reduction.  It should be more like 300.00/month with the amount that he is traveling (and that would be generous since he is coming every two months or more on average).  Anyway, my point is, when I would ask for this adjustment he would have to prove what he has spent, and I would then know what hotel he actually stayed at during each of his visits.  Knowing him, it would be a reasonably priced one, in other words, not the one he is telling me to pick my son up at.  So, I would be able to prove contempt at that point, if I traveled further than his hotel, or if he lied about which hotel he is staying at.  I don't know what a judge would do about it though, maybe nothing I suspect.  (I have heard my judge is rather pro-father).

One of my issues is that we will have a 3 week old infant at the next visit, and it would be a total of a 2 hour car ride back and forth to the airport, so I am sure this will be difficult since I will be breastfeeding *sigh* and then only one of us will be able to go into the hotel to pick son up from them.  I like to be accompanied during these exchanges by my husband.  But I don't want to tell tham that I am expecting a new baby, since one of girlfriend's issues is jealousy, or at least she doesn't want anything good to happen for me, and I think this may trigger her to react and cause trouble.  Even the father may have  a reaction to this news since he often cited my ability to have more children as a reason that I should give over custody to them (girlfriend had a hysterectomy, although she does have 2 older children).  I know its weird but that is how they think.  The reason they don't know, is one that I didn't tell them, and two because the last visit was 2 months ago, and it still wasn't noticible. 

Anyway even if they knew they would probably be even more inclined to make sure I have to travel as far as possible.

The visit after this next one is father's day, and he already told me to pickup son at same airport hotel.  That would be two contempts I guess.  Do you think that would look bad since he is being deceptive?  Or would I look bad, as though I am not being flexible, considering how far he is traveling?

And to answer Ocean, I am 60 miles from the airport. Actually, at one point they suggested a halfway point, which I refused, and maybe I am regretting a little now, because I liked having pickup be at my home for getting son ready, and also because they had been staying at a hotel during the first 3 visits that was actually at a halfway point, so I figured they would just be tricking me into doing almost the whole pickup and dropoff (which they may be doing now in a different way).  I just wanted to be simple and as originally intended during negotiation, where pickup was from my home and I pickup at at his hotel, and there was an implication that they would be choosing the more inexpensive hotels located somewhat near my area, since they are dramatically cheaper than downtown Boston.  The reason it was vague was to give them flexibility, since they were traveling a long distance and professed a desire to keep expenses as low as possible.

So anyway, I guess I am stuck for now, since I am not going to lose too much sleep over this with a baby coming...and I am not willing to spend the money on a trip to court over the issue.

And my last note stated that but he blatently said that it was his way or I could take him to court.  I guess he has to commit the act anyway to be in contempt, correct?

Thank you very much for the advice.  I am glad I found this site so I can at least sound off a little bit and maybe help some other people in a similar situation. 

The agreement only says that we will share pick-up and drop-off.  Yes, it makes the most sense to me also, that the parent taking over do the pickup.  Unfortunately, it allows them to make me chase them all over the state.  But I suppose I should count my blessing for now, since like you said, it is not every other weekend because of the distance. 

His visitation is every third weekend plus holidays, and when child is 2 years old it will be the weekends and holidays, plus 4 non-consectutive weeks a year until 6 years old, and then after 6 years old it will be the weekends, holidays and 1 week during school year and 1 month in summer.  However, he has actually only visited 4 times with two planned in the next 3 months, when he could have visited 20 times.  So, in a year it will only have been 6 visits.  This is another issue since he got a child support reduction based on these 20 visits (like 600/month reduction!) since he absolutely insisted that he was going to be doing it.  Seems like the time in between visits is getting longer and longer.  Girlfriend really resents traveling.  The next big issue will be when they want to take him to Texas for these longer visits, since the agreement states nothing about how that is supposed to happen, except that father or a member of father's family will accompany child for all airline travel.  I assume (since I am not going to be completely difficult and force father to pick up child in those cases) I will have to take him to and from the airport, which I don't mind 4 or 5 times a year for long visits, but would not want for weekend visits. My settlement was way too vague considering how poorly we are getting along. 

I was kind of thinking the same thing, which is small wins for them, which makes them feel better about their life, might actually be better for me since in the end I just want to be left in peace as much as possible.  And I think they get a lot of pleasure out of thinking that they "got" me somehow.  If I were just dealing with the father, I wouldn't be so nervous about giving in, but the girlfriend really seems like the type where you give an inch and she takes a mile (not to mention she is very intrusive acting like this is her situation rather than her boyfriend's situation, I saw her talk more than anyone during the settlement).  It is like, every compromise I make is simply something I "should" be doing anyway, so it really isn't a compromise just them making me what I am supposed to be doing anyway.  In other words, I can't win.

I am not sure why the font came out like that...I hope I can fix it...

We live long distance.  He lives in Texas and I am in Massachusetts.  We are not communicating well, and it seems to be getting worse (related to his girlfriend).  She always accompanies him on visits.  Prior to the final settlement, he was visiting the child (a baby) in my state and did both pickup and drop off.

At the settlement one of the compromises I made was that I would share pickup and drop off with him back and forth from his hotel. 

During the first three visits he had me pick-up the baby in a parking lot near a hotel that he was supposedly staying that was reasonably close.  I told him I preferred the lobby of the hotel, but didn't fight.   The next visit he wanted to change it so that we would do both pickup and dropoff in the same parking lot, so I would have to bring the baby to him and get the baby after.  I didn't like this, since it meant that I might be doing the whole distance and it is just so much better for the baby to leave from my house to get him ready.  Anyway, in retaliation they choose a hotel in the middle of the city, and was four times the distance of the previous hotel (60 miles).  They also wrote me a very nasty note that actually was a little scary since they pretended to be me (signed his name at the top my name at the bottom) writing the note as though I was offering to do both pickup and dropoff from the airport along with a lot of other rude and mocking things.  (BTW: these two people are 45 years old and "educated" professionals).  But rather than respond with anger, I made him admit that he wrote the email (since it was written as though I had written it although it came from his email account) and simply did the pickup at that more long distance hotel.  The next time I needed to contact him I asked him to please choose a hotel closer as he did the first 3 visits.  He responded that he had decided it would be better for me to pick the baby up at the airport from the terminal that they are departing.  Since the nasty email said they wanted me to do both pickup and dropoff at the airport, I decided to draw the line.  Anyway, I wrote back to him and stated that we are supposed to share transportation to and from the hotel.  Prior to this compromise he was doing both pickup and dropoff.  I would like to follow the terms of the settlement.  So what he did then was write me telling me he was staying at the Hilton that is connected to the airport (clever!).  This hotel is extremely expensive (2 nights are 725.00) and I am just sure they are not actually staying there (he is a penny pincher) unless it would be only to antagonize me.  I wrote back and asked for proof that he is staying there and that it is an unreasonable expense to include in any child support deduction (another long issue).  He wrote back saying he didn't have to prove anything, and if I didn't like it take him to court.  He says if I deny his visit or shorten it in any way, he will take me to court. He also says I have a choice, either the curb of the terminal or the lobby of the hotel. I don't think I am going to write back at least for a while (the visit is in 6 weeks).

The issue for me is each time they push more and more.  I am having a hard time knowing where to draw the line.  I don't want to go to court over it, but I am sure that if I don't find a way to nip this in the bud, I will be doing both pickup and dropoff at the airport and who knows what else.  And they will just be emboldened to harass me more and more.  This behavior is not isolated to only this issue.  BTW, he would LOVE me to deny a visit, since he knows this would get me in a lot of trouble, and is always trying to set up situations for me to take various "bait".  So he regularly includes statements like that, even though I have never threatened or denied a visit (of course).  I have also only extended time for visits rather than shorten them and been completely flexible with dates (he doesn't follow the schedule) and pickup and dropoff times (within reason).  So, don't worry, that is not something I would consider to be an option.  Basically, my lawyer said that I could refuse to pick the baby up, and tell him that he needs to return him to my residence since he is being unreasonable and be in comtempt and explain myself (this was the option he was pushing), or I can give in which I guess sets a precedent and maybe file for a modification specifying limits.  Or I could just give in again, and see what the next demand is going to be, because there WILL be another step in this.  I cannot and will not refuse to pick the baby up, since my baby is too important to play games like that with and the father is so stubborn, there would be a good chance that he would not return him, wait at the pickup location that he has dictated, and who knows what he would do from there??   Any other ideas?