Mother not following court order

[JackieO]

My husband is one of the few fathers who has been successful in fighting for and obtaining full custody.  As most of you know, it is no easy feat, and it goes without saying that BM was in pretty bad shape when DH was awarded custody. 
The most recent order gives BM 2 weekends a month-  she skipped all but 4 weekends in 2009.  It also gives her 2 two week visits in the summer, she took those, but in order to bring SS back by 4pm to leave on our vacation, we had to give her 2 extra days at the beginning of her visit.  She does this b/c the current order doesn't have set times for pickups/dropoffs for the summer.  We aren't jerks, and have really tried to work with BM to allow her to see SS when she wants.  We are actually the reason she has the extra time- she said she wanted weekends (that she didn't have in the prior order), and we requested that the judge put those in the latest order. 
Well, BM likes to push things to the limit, and she did so over holiday break.  She and DH are supposed to figure out the vacation by 12/1 each year, and each of them gets 50%.  DH asked BM about it halfway through December, and she said she would pick SS up on 12/25 and bring him back 1/1.  No problem.  January 1st comes, and no BM, no SS.  We call trying to figure out if they are running late and are advised that BM has decided she will just keep SS until 1/3 and offers a bunch of reasons. 
1. BM says she gets the first weekend of the month (but holiday time trumps normal weekends, otherwise SS would have been home Christmas weekend)
2. She feels that the holiday break is 17 1/2 days long and she gets 8 3/4 days.  (Break per the school calendar was 12/21-1/1, and even so, by her math she should have returned SS by Sunday morning, not Sunday evening like she did).  Who the heck counts the SECOND ss gets out of school until the SECOND he returns to school?

None of the reasons really matter, b/c any way you cut it, she has to let DH know ahead of time what days she would like.  She can't just make it up as she goes along. 

At this point, DH is frustrated, I am frustrated, SS is upset b/c he missed a big family event that was scheduled for 1/2, and we don't want to play games anymore.  DH is filing to have the summer and winter break visitation set in stone: XX/XX-XX/XX, with all exchanges to be at 6pm.  He is also filing to have the weekend visits limited to just what BM is able to actually exercise since she is required to take visitation at her parents' house yet she is employed and required to work 4 hours away on the weekends.  Between sleep and work, she physically can't be there.  And he is asking that the Christmas break be set in stone 12/25-1/1

We don't want to be jerks, we really don't.  But we are tired of her "acting out" b/c the court order isn't specific.  We wouldn't even have been upset about her wanting the extra days if she had discussed it with DH.  We would have planned the family event for another weekend- for 9 YEARS it has been planned around when SS would be there, this year was no different. 

This sounds pretty cut and dry, right?  DH and I really can't afford to hire an attorney, but we also can't see playing games for the next 8 years.  Do you think we are being unreasonable?

[ShellyD]

You are definitely being reasonable. I'm surprised pick-up/drop-off times weren't set from the get-go. You may consider another common Christmas break schedule: Odd yrs, 1st 7 days, even years, 2nd 7 days, with a mid-day pick-up/drop-off time. I say that only if you think she'd ever want to provide Christmas/Santa at her home. Otherwise, it's pretty hard to make a parent exercise visitation in a situation like yours. Is she letting you know within a decent timeframe that she won't be taking her weekend, or is the child waiting around for mom to show up all weekend?

[JackieO]

She doesn't give any notice if she isn't coming.  She will sometimes mention to SS if she is coming, but we usually don't know until a week before. 
For the summer, she just has to give 90 day written notice of what days she will take, no mention of times.  Usually we let her do whatever she wants, but this last summer, we needed SS back at a certain time for travel.  Otherwise, she usually picks him up in the morning and drops him of at night.  The standard Christmas visitation here is 12/25-1/1 and that is what DH had before he won custody.  I just figured that was easier since break is not always the same number of days. 
We knew that the likelihood of BM exercising all her visitation was slim, and that's one of the reasons we requested that the weekends be the 1st and 3rd of each month rather than putting EOWe in the order.  We figured that we could look at any given month and know which weekends were ours, for planning purposes.  And the judge did set specific times for the weekends.
We just want to make sure that she can't keep playing games.  We had enough of that when she had custody.  We weren't going to file stuff, but feel like at this point if we don't file, she will continue to screw with the times just to assert some control. 

[ShellyD]

She doesn't give any notice if she isn't coming.  She will sometimes mention to SS if she is coming, but we usually don't know until a week before. 
For the summer, she just has to give 90 day written notice of what days she will take, no mention of times.  Usually we let her do whatever she wants, but this last summer, we needed SS back at a certain time for travel.  Otherwise, she usually picks him up in the morning and drops him of at night.  The standard Christmas visitation here is 12/25-1/1 and that is what DH had before he won custody.  I just figured that was easier since break is not always the same number of days. 
We knew that the likelihood of BM exercising all her visitation was slim, and that's one of the reasons we requested that the weekends be the 1st and 3rd of each month rather than putting EOWe in the order.  We figured that we could look at any given month and know which weekends were ours, for planning purposes.  And the judge did set specific times for the weekends.
We just want to make sure that she can't keep playing games.  We had enough of that when she had custody.  We weren't going to file stuff, but feel like at this point if we don't file, she will continue to screw with the times just to assert some control. 

Are you using a time tracker and documenting all of her visitation games? There is one here at SPARC that has helped many parents. I agree that she needs more time boundaries not specifically to make your life easier, but for her son to have a better idea of when he will see her.

[MixedBag]

I just wanna discuss or comment on the differences in counting the number of days for the Christmas holiday from school.

See -- many families face this.

I'm gonna guess that Mom included the Saturday and Sunday before and after and you didn't.

EX#3's EX would say that EX#3 was only entitled to "Christmas Day" according to how the order read -- where as of course EX#3 being the NCP, would take the position that allowed the most days off for the child to be with the NCP.

So pick and choose your battles with the NCP.

HOW far apart do Mom and Dad live?

[JackieO]

Mixed Bag- our issue isn't so much with the number of days.  Our issue is more that she asked DH for her visitation to be 12/25-1/1, then on 1/1 when DH called to find out why SS wasn't home, she said she was keeping him 2 extra days.  She lives 4 hours away, and DH didn't want to make the drive and involve the police, or shake things up like that.  If she had ASKED for that time to start with it would have been different. 

As far as counting how many days the vacation was, she tried giving different excuses for why she did what she did.  She was counting from the hour he got out of school to the hour he had to go back, then rounding up to the next full day when counting her "half". 

What it comes down to is the court order isn't specific on dates and times for summer and Christmas, and BM uses that to her advantage.  Anytime she wants to pick him up at 10 am for her visit we allow it (except Christmas day of course).  We are pretty easy going.  And if she doesn't want to bring him back till 7 pm, not a problem.  We were travelling out of town over the summer and asked her to bring him back at 3pm.  Not b/c we felt like it, but we were leaving 2 days prior and a family member was going to meet BM and drive meet us and that was the time she was leaving.  BM told us it would be IMPOSSIBLE for her to have SS there before 7 pm, unless we could allow her to pick SS up 2 days early for her visit. 

[JackieO]

By the way, I thought I would mention what we decided to file for, after sitting on it (and cooling down) for a few days.

the visitation and court order to remain the same with the exception of:
ALL visitation to begin and end at 6pm
Summer visits and Christmas visit to have exact dates (and we request the specific dates- still the same number of days, but now it is easier to enforce).
To have BM required to give notice of intent to exercise or waive her weekend visits at least 30 days in advance.

The reasons why
BM has refused to bring SS back at previously agreed dates/times or required additional days in exchange for bringing SS back at a reasonable time
BM has exercised only 6 weekend visits since the prior order (5/08) and doesn't give advanced notice to the father of intent to exercise or waive her visitation which is difficult for the child and makes planning ahead challenging for visitation weekends. 

We don't want to TAKE her time, we (DH, me, and SS) want to know when he will be where.  SS has no clue when he will see BM next. 

Oh, and according to SS, BM told him that DH had called her and told her she could keep SS till Sunday. 

[MixedBag]

switching over to a "Long distance" plan might be better for both of you.

Mom is sending the message that she can't make the 4 hour one-way trip every other weekend or how ever it is spelled out now.

She might actually "go for that" and as you do all that, include the parts that Dad was clarified and specified.