New to all this

[BothSides]

OK, quick run down on my situation.

First of all, ive lurked here on and off, but havent posted anything yet.

Second, my situation:  i have a son, and i am engaged (40 some odd days to go), and my fiance has a son.

I have my own visitation battles, but those arent really the ones that were having problems with right now.  Its my fiances situation that Id like some advice on.  

My fiance has a son, hes 18 months old.   He wasnt married to the mother, and since their son was born, she allowed him just as muhc visitation as hed like, mostly, as long as it was with her.  Unless it was a weekend evening, adn she went out, and he was allowed to have overnights with his son at his mothers house.

Now, obviously when i entered the picture, shortly after their son was born, he realized spending several nights a week at her house wasnt reasonable.  My sons father isnt in the picture much, so i encouraged him to spend as much time with his son as possible, but also encouraged him to get legalized visitation.  Especially since she used visitation as a threat for everything anytime she didnt get her way.

Well, he tried getting a legal agreement, unsuccessfully, for months.  She refused to agree to anything reasonable, wanting to put stipulations on who the child could be around, no girlfriends of his could ever be aroudn the child without her approval, where the child could be, who could drive witht he child in the car, which friends of his could be around the child, etc.  Those were the small things.  

Finally, she started threatening to tkae the child and move away if he didnt give up dating and try a relationship with her (theyd never exclusively dated) for the chidls sake, or at least let her and the child move in with him.  He refused, she flipped, to make a long story short, and she left town with the baby the day after he had her served with a petition for legalized visitation and chidl support.

She moved 8 hours away.

Now, shes continually denied him visitation, has accused him of abuse and neglect for any little diaper rash or anything that he gets after going back to her.  He can have a cold when we receive him, and shell file petitions to make him have supervised visitation.

Well, after a year, they still arent on a finalized agreement.  

She has delayed things to no end, cnotinues to deny him even the court ordered visitation, and we have had a really hard time getting an attorney that will deal with it.  Weve shelled out close to $10k so far.  Most of the attorneys get so frustrated with her after a couple of weeks, that they throw their hands up, and have admtited they absolutely hate our case.

Its so frustrating.

Well, now weve got an atty who is halfway decent, but who absolutely cannot wait to bedone with our case (a good thing and bad thing).  Im certain hell get my fiance a finalized visitation schedule, but he wont follow up much on all the rest.  He wants only to focus on getting us a set visitation schedule and worry about the dozen or so contempts later.

Anyways, long story short, now weve found out that my fiances son has 4 rotten frnot teeth frmo her putting him to bed with a bottle.  She refuses to have him seen, much less treated.  The pediatrician told her it was bottle roat, and i guess left it at that.  Since we only have him on weekends, we cant get him to a dentist.  Were trying to get more than a weekend becuase she owes us makeup days for denying us 5 days worht of visitation, but shes denying us makeup visitation now.

So were both at our wits end.  

Anyone care to give us some tips?  Where to go, what to do?  Wed like to pursue custody, but not sure what kinds of things will work to our advantage.  She constantly denies makeup visitation, we have a ton of emails stating she will always do whatever she can to make visitation as difficult as possible, that she will remind her son of how he denied her the family she always wanted, that shell tell their son what an a**hole his father is, that im a homewrecker (how i earned that title i dont know!), and all kinds of stuff along these lines.  To top it off, she doesnt work, she does go to school PT though (shes 29?), and lives with her parents.  Her mother smokes, which is another thing, because their son is constantly getting upper respiratory infections, and now the bottle rot which she refuses to get checked or have treated.  Its to the point that his teeth are brown and eroding.  I dont understand why she even gives him a bottle because hes 18 months, has been off the bottle for 6 months now, and never asks for a bottle at night with us, sleeps on his own and everything.  She even lets him carry a bottle of juice around all day, which our dentist had said is a major cause of bottle rot.  She refuses to stop that, although she did agree to stop giving him a bottle of warm milk at night, but basically said since were not dentists, were not going to tell her how to parent her child.  Go figure.

Anyways, she also complains that he cries all the time wiht her, and she gives him motrin every hour, and orajel all the time.  I imagine his pain isnt from teething anymore, but from having severe tooth decay.  When hes with us, he doesnt suffer any of the complications that she describes (not sleeping through the night, crying all day, etc), but then again our dentist said that if shes letting him carry a bottle around with juice or anything sugary even milk, that will cause his teeth to hurt, and make him cranky, and since he doesnt get anything but water with us, its probably a relief to his teeth.

So, any suggestions?  Could these things be brought before a judge and if so, what are our chances.  OUr attorney doesnt want to deal with it right now until we have a visitation schedule set up :(

BothSides

[TPK]

I suggest posting this on the "dear Socrateaser" board in this forum.

How is it that you've gone thru $10K in legal fees but have yet to file an order to show cause and have the court issue a visitation schedule?

File for custody based on things like bottle rot and not taking child to dentist/doctor which would be signs of neglect. You can also contact Child Services and have them visit the mother and check over the child.

You should've never allowed her to move 8 hours away, not without putting up a fight in court.


Go ask Soc about all this.

http://www.deltabravo.net/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=106


TPK

[BothSides]

Thanks, ill check that out.

As i mentioned, basically its taken so long (a year since the initial filing) because of our attorney.  Were on our second official attorney (we went prose for a while).  Also, due to the hurricanes, our court system is taking months to book cases, and then the ones that they did have on the books got pushed back several more months :(

Anyways, things like, her not responding to filings, her side arguing and protesting court dates, because they wanted to file more stuff, they were filing like crazy for a while there, subpoenaing everything they could, which his attorney would only reject becasue none of it was relevant.  he settled on a CS amount (thats another story), and weve had 4 signed agreements on visitation, each of which she has denied ever signing even though we have copies of the original.  Shes signed them, then changed her mind, created a new one and signed it, knowing it was something he wouldnt agree to or sign, and then according to our attorneys, that invalidates the previous one.  
Theyve been before a judge twice: the first time to set temporary visitation, which shes never complied with since day one, and the second for a case management hearing (9 months later) because of all the stuff she was pulling.  The judge basically put in another order, which gives him legal fathers rights, a shared parenting agreement that is good for all but the visitation, and then the judge basically told the attys that he is reserving jurisdiction so they can try to work out details of visitation.

Personally, i think the attys are wheeling and dealing and just spinning this case to make $.  Neither one actually puts any work into it.  Its pretty frustrating.  Like right now, she denied him thanksgiving visitation, gave him 2 days of makeup and is denying him the rest.  The atty doesnt want to file cnotempt against it "yet" until they have a signed agreement on the visitation schedule that SHE suggested, and now shes refusing to sign the visitation agreement SHE suggested.

The thing about the bottle rot, we need to get him to a dentist, and cant because shes refusing him his makeup visitation days.  So... i guess technically we can call CPS, but his atty will advise against all of that, im sure.  

Im pretty frustrated with it, adn so is my fiance.  We get m'd next month, our original date was in may (hes having to be deployed) so, im sure thatll only cause more problems when she finds out its happening sooner.  

Sigh..

thanks , heading to check that link out now. :)

Bothsides

[BothSides]

BTW, we put up a fight about her moving 8 hours away, and at the time our atty told us there was nohting we coudl do about it, because he didnt even have fathers rights invoked yet in our state, (FL) and being on the BC didnt mean anyhting since they werent married.  He had to get her to sign an acknowledgement of paternity, and he had to sign one as well, and then they had to get a court order acknowledging that but by then, shed been gone 2 months.

I wish wed have had a diferent attorney.  

BothSides