Custody, Visitation, and Father's Rights, Oh My!

[stepmomandmom]

I will make my best attempt to keep this short.  Here is some general background FYI.  

1.  My husband has a four year old daughter from a previous relationship.

2.  The BM and he were never married.

3.  Oklahoma County has jurisdiction.

4.  For over two years, BM denied my husband visitation with his daughter.  This began right before he and I were married.  We did not have the money to go to court to establish visitation at the time because our extra money was going towards child support (which was established in November 2003.)  

5.  In August 2004, after we had saved up enough money and after making one more attempt to request time with his daughter, we decided to retain a lawyer.  

6.  As a result, we settled out of court and agreed on a graduated visitation schedule as follows:


VISITATION SCHEDULE TO ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIP

1.  Two hours on either a Saturday or Sunday each weekend (choice of day should alternate each weekend, beginning with the custodial parent), occurring in the-home of the custodial parent, or in the presence of the custodial parent at a place mutually agreed upon.  This weekly visitation should continue for eight weeks, or longer, depending upon the age of the child at the inception of visitation.

2.  Four hours on either a Saturday or Sunday each weekend with choice of day alternating between parents. Non custodial parent may take the child away from the custodial parent's home, provided that the specific location is made known. This visitation shall continue for a period of four to eight weeks, once again depending upon the age of the child.

3.  Eight hours every other Saturday (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) for eight weeks.

4.  Eight hours on a Saturday and eight hours the next day, Sunday, to occur every other weekend, but not including overnights. This period of visitation to occur for eight weeks.

5.  From 9:00 a.m. on Saturday to 3:00 p.m. Sunday, every other weekend for twelve weeks.

6.  Thereafter, depending upon the readiness of the child, standard visitation should be implemented: from 6:00 p.m. Friday to 6:00 p.m. Sunday, every other weekend.

7.  Special provision should be made for holidays, birthdays, Mothers or Fathers Days, etc. which occur during the first year of visitation, and prior to the Standard Order beginning.



You probably notice that this schedule could be interpreted in a few different ways.  Naturally, BM took advantage of that.  After four months of documenting, calling, writing denial of visitation letters for missed visits and missed holidays (we were never allowed to see her on any holiday) we got tired of it.  So we called our lawyer back to file contempt charges.  

Again, we settled out of court.  We agreed, mutually, to hire a parenting coordinator (kind of like a mediator/GAL) who interviewed BM, daughter, and us.  My husband and BM had one final meeting and it seemed as if everything was going to go in our favor.  The BM had gotten into an argument with the PC.  Here is a basic run down of BM's actions:

1.  She has refused to allow daughter to ever come to our home.  She required that my husband visit his daughter in her home only.  

2.  She has never allowed daughter to meet me, her stepbrother or her half-brother.  She also would not allow my husband to talk about her brothers to daughter and would not allow her to ever see pictures.

3.  She filed a false claim with the Oklahoma Insurance Commissioners office claiming that I had committed insurance fraud by putting her daughter on my insurance (per CS order, my husband was to provide medical insurance.)

4.  Back in 2003, she requested a VPO against my husband (which was denied by the judge) claiming that he had attempted to break into her car.  

5.  She has instructed the daycare his daughter attends not to allow my husband on the premises or to give him information about daycare.  She also refuses to list him as an emergency contact.

6.  She has denied my husband access to all medical records.


The result of the meeting with the PC was as follows:

1.  Even though we should have been on step 2 of the visitation schedule back in December, because BM succeeded in delaying this process for so long, my husband is to start step 2 of the schedule now and complete 20 more weeks of visitation before moving forward to standard visitation.

2.  BM says that she needs to cut visitation short by four hours on Sundays because she has to drive to Tulsa to pick up her other son from his dad's.



All of that being said, here are my questions:

1.  Is this a reasonable expectation of my husband?

2.  There was no formal agreement signed.  The PC made the listed adjustments to the schedule in her handwriting and my husband and BM signed it in agreement.  Does this legally change the order?  After thinking, my husband really doesn't find this agreement fair.  At the time, he was just SO glad that the PC was making BM allow daughter to come to our house that he didn't want to argue.

3.  We talked to our lawyer and updated him on the situation and even he stated he was surprised by the agreement.  He believes we should just go on to court and request joint custody, which we would like to have.  Is this unreasonable?  We simply want to be involved, not take away BM's time.  However, we do feel that until my husband has some legal control over the situation, that BM will be unyielding and uncooperative (meaning she will make the situation as inconvenient as possible, will deny visitations when she can get away with it, and will not compromise on holidays.)  


Finally, I just want to say we are so tired of this.  My husband and I have been married almost two years and I have never met my stepdaughter.  Also, my son has never met his sister.  We are tired of being the ones willing to sacrifice and compromise without any compromise from BM in return.  Must we continue forth with this ridiculous schedule?  We feel as if we are being treated like criminals.  My husband has no criminal record (not even a parking ticket), no history of physical or drug abuse, and pays his child support on time.  


What can we do?  

[socrateaser]

>All of that being said, here are my questions:
>
>1.  Is this a reasonable expectation of my husband?

Is "what" a reasonable expectation?

>
>2.  There was no formal agreement signed.  The PC made the
>listed adjustments to the schedule in her handwriting and my
>husband and BM signed it in agreement.  Does this legally
>change the order?  

No. But, it is evidence that the court could use to find that an agreement had been made, and thereby order the agreement.

>3.  Is this unreasonable?

No, but it doesn't mean you're gonna get joint. My approach would be to document all of the frustrations and ask the court to create a more reasonable and precise order that does not permit the BM to act upon her whim alone. This could include a request for joint custody (which I doubt you will get, but nothing ventured nothing gained).

PS. I understand your frustration, but you and your husband need to let it go. Until you can treat this issue with the child just like any other business dispute, your life will be miserable. The mother is instinctively predisposed to control access to the child, and she will fight you tooth and nail at every opportunity.

So, if you're going to remain married, then you need to get used to the situation, because it will never end, and your frustration will boil over, causing you to fight in your marriage.

Life is too short. Just keep repeating, "It's just business." I know it's "not" just business, but you'll go insane unless you treat it as such.

[stepmomandmom]

Sorry, I meant is it a reasonable expectation for my husband to have to go through 20 more weeks of this before he even gets to spend a weekend with his daughter?  I've heard from many sources (including our lawyer and the parenting coordinator) that there is no court in the state that would have ordered any kind of schedule like that one.  We just let her lawyer write it up and agreed to it.  

Yes, I agree that the frustration of all of this can get to me.  It just doesn't seem right that she can continue to find ways to drag this out.  I mean we have actively been trying to get a single visit with his daughter at our house for almost 8 months.  He wasn't even allowed to talk to her on the phone at Christmas.

Then there's the fact that she won't give up this insurance issue.  She tried to get me fired from my work.  She called and told them I was committing fraud and to take her daughter off of my insurance immediately.  They sent her a letter back advising her that they regret they cannot comply since I am not doing anything illegal.  I also got a copy of the letter fwd to the insurance co. from the insurance commissioner's office and they asked me if I wanted to give BM power of attorney on my insurance.  

Our lawyer had said that based on the facts, we have taped recordings of when my husband went to BM's house for supervised visits, that she could lose custody.  BM had decided that when dad came over that she will require daughter to stay in her room with dad the entire time, no coming out to play outside, no watching a movie.  Then she started telling daughter what she was going to miss (like trips to grandmas or going to other fun places) until dad left.  So it got to the point where daughter started wanting dad to leave as soon as he got there because he was a roadblock to something fun.  We have this on tape.  

[socrateaser]

>Sorry, I meant is it a reasonable expectation for my husband
>to have to go through 20 more weeks of this before he even
>gets to spend a weekend with his daughter?  I've heard from
>many sources (including our lawyer and the parenting
>coordinator) that there is no court in the state that would
>have ordered any kind of schedule like that one.  We just let
>her lawyer write it up and agreed to it.  
>
Maybe, but the key phrase is that you "agreed to it." So, it wasn't a court that was ordering you to do this, you volunteered for it, and your opponent will claim that your agreement is evidence that you believed, when you agreed, this 20 week restriction was in the child's best interests.

>Yes, I agree that the frustration of all of this can get to
>me.  

Good. Now you need to accept it as reality and move on with your lives before you have a stroke.

[stepmomandmom]

Here is a classic example of what we have to deal with.  Yesterday, my stepdaughter came over to our house for the first time (we were thrilled!)  The visit went great, and the kids got along great (two boys and my stepdaughter.)  During our visit, my SD's shoe broke, so we decided to take her to Wal-Mart to get a pair of new shoes.  While we were there, we stopped in at McD's (right in the same store) and got the kids some happy meals.  Then we returned home to play with the kids until the visit was over.  

After our visit, my husband took his daughter back home.  As most kids do, when she got there she started rattling off everything she did.  BM got extremely upset because we went to Wal-Mart without calling her first.  She said we should have gotten her approval first.  

Long story short, she called me several times and my husband several times, she left me text messages with choice expletives.  When my husband finally called her back, she told him twice that she wished he would "fall off the planet and die."  She also referred to their daughter as "her daughter" at least fifteen times.  We actually recorded this, as Oklahoma is a one-party state.  She said she would call the parenting coordinator about what we had done.  

So let me ask you this.  Based on the following paragraph in the court order, were we in the wrong?


2.  Four hours on either a Saturday or Sunday each weekend with choice of day alternating between parents. Non custodial parent may take the child away from the custodial parent's home, provided that the specific location is made known. This visitation shall continue for a period of four to eight weeks, once again depending upon the age of the child.

[socrateaser]

>So let me ask you this.  Based on the following paragraph in
>the court order, were we in the wrong?

Yes, Wal-Mart is a known hot bed of violent pedophiles, and Wal-Mart shoes have beacon implants that allow pedophiles to track children via the International Pedophile Satellite Tracking System.

Now, please hand me an aluminum foil hat so that I can screen out the control beams eminating from the Planet of the Red Lectroids!