Remaining in my boys lives

[tannim1dragon]

I am a single father now of four amazing boys, for the past three years I have taken my boys as often as possible from my now x-wife. It is a very stressful situation and has continually been hard on my boys and my xwife and I. On top of all of the normal routine we have created, my xwife is in a relationship that has been very hard on the kids and the situation between my xwife and myself. Her current boyfriend whom she has been with now for the past few years has an extensive criminal record and a history of abuse. She has repeatedly called me in the middle of the night after he has either hit her or yelled at my kids. I do not feel the environment is a safe one. I never have.

When we first decided to end our marriage because of her ongoing infedelity with this other man, My xwife Jeannine, stopped paying the mortgage on the house we had shared, I had already signed the home over to her fully as a place for her and my children to live. As a result she was sued, and we both ended up with a wage attachment that barely ended a few months ago, child support was not paid at that time by either of us. Only recently has the Child support agency started attaching to my wages after some confusion with having the wrong person served with my paperwork. I actually have a meeting with the case worker tomorrow morning to get the correct dollar amounts straightened out. They are currently taking about 90% of my earnings, because they are under the belief that I make about $5,000 per month, when in reality I am making $1,835.00 before taxes.

Jeannine heard from me that I was planning to meet with the child support case worker this past Thursday, on Friday when we met in a Denny's parking lot for me to pick up the boys like we usually do, when I got the boys home I noticed that my youngest son (Konnor age 4) had a very pink area just under his right eye,  I took him to the Doctor the next day and had it looked at, it was a sty, the Dr. prescribed medicine and I called Jeannine to let her know what the outcome was, I got her voicemail. When she called back she turned the tables on me and tried to make me out to be a horrible parent for letting my son get a sty. He had it when I picked him up. Now I don't get all bent out of shape when things happen like this. Jeannine then told me this evening after dropping the boys off at her parents home that I would no longer be seeing my children and that I would have to get a court order just to have visitation rights. Our divorce paperwork clearly stated full joint and physical custody of our children.
My x wife is a very good parent when times are good, but there are times when her relationship jeopardizes the safety of the children. I do not understand how full joint custody can be taken away because she doesn't want to deal with me.

For three years we have kept the boys to a very regular schedule, and only since she found out that I was trying to fix the child support issue, never has my seeing my boys been an issue until now. I love my boys very much and it would be very sad for them and I not to be able to have our time together.

A few things that I have concerns over with Jeannine and her living situation as well. She tells the courts and child support that she is living in La Habra at her parents home, but is only there with the kids on the weekends, the rest of the time she keeps her daughter and our four boys at her boyfriends studio, 7 people living in one room and I don't see that as a very good environment especially when the police have been called on him several times for his behavior toward her or my children. Jeannine works in Riverside, the boys attend school in riverside and get up every day at 4am in the morning to get ready for school and do not get home from school most days until 7-8pm, my boys do not get the a normal childhood with friends or time to play and I think that is wrong.

I want to spend as much time with them as possible because my boys really love their dad. They are my sons and I really care about their future.

Thank you,
Chris "Tannim" Hiebert
714-618-2515

[mistoffolees]

You already know what you need to do.

First, has she started denying visitation? Can you prove it? If not, then continue as you've been doing and start a journal of everything that's happened.

If she is already denying visitation, get an attorney and file for sole custody on the basis of her living with an abusive person and parental alienation. The first step is going to be to request a custody evaluation where presumably all the problems with her living situation will come out.

You didn't mention how old the older boys are, but the older they are, the more likely the bs is going to come out when they talk with the custody evaluator - particularly since you'll be filling him in on the background so he can ask the right questions.

Make sure you document as much as you can (for example, get a copy of your phone records showing the phone number where she is currently living, as well as save envelopes of anything she sends you which have a return address if she puts her bf's address on it.

Furthermore, you need to get an immediate reduction in your cs obligations - your attorney can do this, too. They're not allowed to take more than 50 or 60% of your income for cs.

As bad as the situation sounds, unless there's something you're hiding, a good attorney should be able to straighten it out pretty well. You will undoubtedly get a much, much better situation than you have now even if you don't get sole cusotdy.

[tannim1dragon]

my first and biggest hurdle is I cannot afford an attorney. I make at the most  236.00 per pay check twice a month

[tannim1dragon]

oh yeah their ages are 11, 8, 6, 4

[mistoffolees]

Well, if your support is currently calculated on $5 K per month and you're making less than $2 K, then it won't take you long to reduce the cs enough to pay for the attorney.

My advice is always the same - you can try to do this on your own, but you're going to have to spend countless hours learning how to do it preparing filings, and then trying to recover from your mistakes (which is often impossible). You don't want to do this on your own.

Work overtime, sell belongings in your attic on eBay, find a pro-bono attorney, or contact your local legal aid. Beg, borrow, or steal if you have to, but you really need to do this right.

[tannim1dragon]

Well it's always good to get good news, after spending most of the morning at the CS dept with a very helpful case worker, We got it all straightened out, instead of them taking over 2k per month like they have been, they will now only take $818 per month. What a relief! The case worker also gave me some very good advice on how to go about getting some aid to hire an attorney. Why was she so nice? Apparently when my x wife went in there to file she got the same case worker, and that person did not like my x's attitude. Fresh air always tastes better after drama.

Thank you for your quick responses, I look forward to more advice as this continues.

Tannim

[mistoffolees]

>Well it's always good to get good news, after spending most
>of the morning at the CS dept with a very helpful case worker,
>We got it all straightened out, instead of them taking over 2k
>per month like they have been, they will now only take $818
>per month. What a relief! The case worker also gave me some
>very good advice on how to go about getting some aid to hire
>an attorney. Why was she so nice? Apparently when my x wife
>went in there to file she got the same case worker, and that
>person did not like my x's attitude. Fresh air always tastes
>better after drama.
>
>Thank you for your quick responses, I look forward to more
>advice as this continues.
>

I'm glad it's looking better (there's no way they could take 90% of your pay). However, the facts don't add up. First you claim that you're making $236 twice a month and now you're happy that they're 'only' taking $818 per month.

People can only offer good advice if the facts you present are accurate. Be aware that the advice you get is heavily dependent on the facts as you present them. Where the facts are inaccurate, the advice may be useless.

[tannim1dragon]

What I meant was that out of my entire paycheck bi-weekly I was only getting about 230 some odd dollars depending on how much I made

I make on average 1835.00 month - child support was pulling 2k per month from me. thats right figure that one out...

They had me making 5000 per month where I in reality only make 1835.00

make more sense now?

the facts are straight, it was just my delivery

[tannim1dragon]

I would like to talk to your more about some of the back history and some of her more flavorful attacks toward my character as a parent maybe tomorrow when I have the time to sit down and type them. My facts were very straight from the first message I posted, in your last reply you were only seeing some of the last few replies which is understandable.

Hourly I make 11.973 per hour, I work 37.5 to 40 hours per week.
That calculates out to about $897.97 bi-weekly, now minus the days I take off to spend with my kids because every other week I have a full three days off and don't get a full forty hours two weeks out of the month it ends up around $1795.00-1835.00 per month including commission.

Of that, CS has me covering %100 of the medical, dental, and vision for the boys which was a total of $280.00 per check. (CS said that my percentage of that amount will now be about 100.00 per check) Being as these costs are supposed to be split 50/50

Now the CS office went on my wifes word because I was never served with the CS paperwork, they actually served the front office of my apartment complex and had a signature to back that up. She told them I was making $5,000.00 per month, so CS was taking $2,000.00 from me each month based on her information. She also told them that I only spend %5 of my time with my boys. If you do the math according to the CS office if I were spending every other weekend that would be considered %20 of the time, not %5.

Aside from the extra holidays and 1 on 1 weekends with each of my four boys during the year I spend a good %35 to %40 of my time with them. That counts in my favor. The case worker took my current paystubs today, my W4 statement for 2006, my commissions earnings, and my itemized list of monthly bills including car, rent, food etc, and calculated my monthly responsibility to $818.00 per month. Make more sense now? I hope you don't think I was misleading you as that was not my intent, and I realize that is exactly what an attorney would do to me in court so I thank you for that lesson.

After I spent the time at the child support office I sent Jeannine a text message asking her to rethink her stance on denying my visitation because that would be bad for all of us. She's mad at me. She called me 23 times and left brutal voice mails for me all day long ripping me apart and trying to make me feel as if I am a rotten parent. I don't agree with her on this, I believe that we both need to be in our children's lives as much as possible and not bicker because were mad at the other parent. However, I do not feel that her anger and venom is warranted and therefor refuse to answer my phone during working hours. She is constantly trying to interrupt my time at work, and does this just as bad during my time with my boys. I find it to be very disruptive. I just want order and stability, no longer do I want the chaos this is causing between the boys and us Parents.

When Jeannine and I first had our last fight, Jeannine took a swing at me, to which I raised my hand to block. She told the police that I slapped her. I went to jail for three days, finished my anger management, paid my fines. I have never ever hit a woman in my life even to this day, I am not that kind of person, I tend to keep my cool so well, that it tends to enrage people to the point of lashing out at me.

In terms of her living situation and BF, seven people packed into one small room is unhealthy and wrong period. As far as Jeff goes, he has had a marriage once before that ended because he was so abusive to his xwife that he ended up hospitalizing her. This man is now with my xwife Jeannine, and this has been bad from day 1. The first instances that happened were his spanking my children, I called CPS instantly upon hearing of this and CPS went to her and told her and Jeff that that was not to happen, there was an instance where both Jeannine and Jeff were tested for Meth use but nothing came of it, the second instance was Jeff slapping Jeannine, she called the police and they spent time looking for him but again nothing came of it. The third instance he locked her and the kids inside the house they had at that time (They were renting) and Screamed all kinds of profanities at the kids and slapped Jeannine around a bit. The fourth instance Jeannine called me when I had the boys crying in a parking lot because Jeff had sat on her after coming home drunk, busted her cheekbone, gave her a black eye, and terrorized her for a few hours before she was able to grab their baby and get away. She called the police and he went to jail for 3 days. She took him back every single time, regardless of Anger Management, regardless of the restraining order imposed by the DA in riverside. This is how bad it has been in regards to her living condition.

Me? I just dont make enough money and have terrible credit as a result of my divorce, the house, and all the bills I am paying. I cant borrow the money from anyone.

I really want to talk more about some of the issues, but I think that this should give you an pretty clear understanding of the full situation at this time.

Thank you

[mistoffolees]

My advice is the same as my first post  - if you seriously believe all of the above and can prove it, then you need to get with an attorney and ask for custody.