Goin' Out West

[smitisan]

This is an e-mail I sent child support officials in Colorado.
I keep getting nasty letters from officials in Colorado, the latest from you concerning FSR account number xx with a court case ID of xxx. If my ex has filed a court case up there, great, because it's about time all this got worked out. I'm on my way there to settle this account. In the meantime, you might be interested in this, as it details a side of the story you probably have no clue about, especially that there is a change of custody case pending. What follows, then, is an e-mail I sent Jerry Springer this morning, and that I'm planning to send other media outlets up your way. When I get there, I'm bringing the circus with me.     Thanks,  BS

Long story. ex and I, BS (real name, honest), divorced in Alabama back
in December 2005 after a separation of several months. During the separation and up until March of 2006, I looked after our two boys, C and A, every weekend and on Monday nights so she could take her kung fu classes with her boyfriend, one G, under the tutelage of a master who was yay close to dying. Now, there is this thing in their school that when a master dies, whoever has advanced to 4th degree
black belt automatically advances to 5th, thus becoming a master with the right to teach, which is what ex and G were aiming for. Well, he died. Whether they made 5th, I don't know. But once he was out of the way, ex announced that she and G were moving to Colorado, G's old stomping ground.
Let me back up a minute here. In March 2006, ex dropped off the boys one Saturday and I asked her about her tax refund, since our divorce decree had a clause in it that said we were to pool our refunds to pay off a joint furniture bill we owed. She informed me that it was her money and she needed it for something else and I couldn't tell her what to do with it. On Sunday when she came to pick the boys up, I had the decree in my hand and pointed out to her the relevant clause, whereupon she struck my hand down and told me she'd warned me before about getting my finger in her face. I spent about the next six minutes keeping her from beating up on me, with the boys buckled in the car screaming, and about three minutes after that standing on the porch while she stood in the yard and cussed me up one side and
down the other, the boys still screaming. Then on the following Thursday G calls me and starts barking orders at me about how if I want to see my boys again I'm going to have to do it his way and he's going to be there to supervise me and so on. I told him he was in no position to dictate terms, he kept going, I hung up on him, and he called back and left two nasty messages on my voice mail, ending with "Look out your window, see how you like that. Happy birthday, bi**h."
What I was supposed to see when I looked out, I learned later, was a police squad car coming to pick me up on a domestic violence harassment warrant. (She couldn't claim assault, they told her.) I was there all night, and no police ever showed up. I saved the voice mail messages, and filed a harassment warrant on G. Unfortunately,
the police weren't able to serve it because the address they had for him was wrong. More on that later.
After the fuss there, ex stopped bringing the boys on weekends and started taking them out to her mother's place on Monday nights. She didn't know it, but I was going out there to see them. Anyway, soon after that I was arrested on the harassment warrant, got bail, and the charges were dismissed with leave when ex and I agreed to take a parenting class for divorcees. Separately, of  course.
Ex's mom couldn't keep the boys the Saturday she had the class, so I took them in an exchange at the police station. As far as ex knew, this was the first I'd seen them in months. Now, in all this time, she had not called or sent me even so much as an e-mail telling me what was going on with the boys or anything. I was getting all my news and visitations through her mother. Suited me just fine not to have to deal with ex and G, and meantime I was building up the case that she was not keeping me up to date on their lives. This was in preparation for a possible change of custody.
After G's tirade on the phone I was worried about him having anything to do with the boys, especially after ex had told me previously that he didn't smile in photos because he had a bad case of meth mouth. He had served time, I understand,on a drug charge. In the weeks before our separation, ex had hinted to me that she'd never made love while stoned on pot, and soon after I was out of the way
she took up smoking. So I'm worried, but at least her mom and I could see the boys and more or less keep an eye on what's happening with them. Now I did drugs when I was in the army back in the 70s, but I didn't allow them in my house during our marriage, though we had a few friends who smoked pot. Too, ex will tell you I have a bad temper, but hey I never left nasty voice mails like G did or kicked a coffee cup out of someone's hand like ex did me, and there was one time I had to pull her off C. I'm not perfect, and in fact I did spank ex once after she called me names in front of the boys, the first time in our relationship that line was crossed. She has since called her mother and some other folks names too, including the police when they weren't fast enough arresting me. So yes,I turned her over my knee and gave her three quick slaps on the rear, then let her up. She claimed assault and filed a report, but in my mind had it been an actual assault she wouldn't have been let up. This was prior to the scrap over taxes,
mind, and yet she didn't include it in the charges I suspect because she felt that even though I admitted to the spanking, somebody might have gotten a laugh out of it. She hates that.
So, on January 19, 2007, I get an e-mail from ex to the effect that she and G are moving to Colorado around March 30th and taking the boys with them. I filed for a change of custody immediately and sent off a certified letter to G's supposed address. I sent ex an e-mail notifying her of the filing. She then announced that they were speeding up the move and would be leaving February 13th. Alabama
law requires at least a 45 day notice before the children can be moved, or that the new address should be given me as soon as it is known or within ten days thereof, and further that if the move is contested the children cannot be taken out of state or the court can order them returned. Ex insisted she did not know the address they were moving to even up to the last day before they took off. As it turned out,
I didn't even know the address they had been staying at after the divorce, something else required by state law. I was going by an address her mother gave me, the same one the police had. She even sent me an e-mail stating that because I had a history of "violence against her" (Hah!) she was not going to give me her address. Thus the police were unable to serve G with his warrant or ex with the papers for the change of custody, and they got out of the state and have been
in Colorado since around mid-February. And I still haven't gotten so much as an e-mail telling me what's going on, though I did get a certified letter from ex giving me their address in Rifle,"as required by law." Whether this is their actual address I don't know.
In August this year I lost my job, and so ex's child support payments came to an abrupt end. Now she's sending the state of Colorado after me for arrears.
I still haven't found a new job yet, but even so I don't feel I should be
paying child support in this situation, especially after the change of custody filing. What she has done is clearly in contempt of the court and an outright denial of my visitation and any other rights as C's and A's father. So I took the money out of my pension fund, paid off a whole lot of bills, and now I'm on my way to Colorado to have this out. I e-mailed ex a couple of weeks ago to let her know I was coming, but never got a reply. So the other day I called her old cell phone number (even though she'd told me she was going to change it after the move) and hey it worked! A few minutes later I got a call from G asking
"what the hell" did I want. Obviously things haven't changed. I told
him I wanted to see my sons, and he started in with a rant, and I hung up. He calls back, tells me that under Colorado law he can kill me for trespassing if I show up at his house, and that's where we are now. He had the police call me to tell me that I wasn't welcome there, and I told the officer that I would let the police know when I got to Rifle, and would drop by to see them before proceeding to the address I've been given. So there's no telling how all this is going to play out. They might arrest me at the station for nonsupport, who knows? But at least then I'll have a chance to bring all this mess into court. Still, you guys might be interested in being there for the great confrontation. I love my boys, and I just don't feel I can do much of anything about work or anything
else until I know where they are and what's going on with them.        Thanks
for listening, BS

[mistoffolees]

If you hope to get any results, you're going to need to clean this story up to make it readable. Pick the one or two issues that really matter and focus on them and let everything else slide. Hitting 100 different issues without a clear story or objective just makes it hard to read and will cause it to end up in the trash bin at Jerry Springer's or wherever else you send it.

Pick the topic you want to address. The story doesn't need to be more than a few paragraphs and everything should be tied to the main issue. Anything that is not directly tied to the main issue should be dropped.

And you'll get better response if you focus on what's good for the kids. For example, rather than highlighting how difficult it is for you to not know where the kids are, say how difficult it must be for the kids to be yanked away from their father and not able to keep in touch. That makes you seem like a concerned father rather than someone who's only interested in their own wants.

Good luck.

[olanna]

I think the spanking his wife part did it for me.

[Giggles]

I read that and my red flags started flying!!