Where do we start?

[Dramafree]

I hope I explain this clearly.  I get so worked up when I talk about this.  I will try not to drag it out!!!

My husband, the NCP, has a 3 yo daughter.  We are newly married, this past June.  Legally he only has visitation rights of every Saturday for a couple of hours. But he worked retail and almost never had a Saturday off.   He pays child support and always had.  Starting last year Thanksgiving 2005 the CP, his ex-girlfriend, started letting us keep her few days here and there.  More and more as time went on.  This past July she complained that we only get his daughter when its convenient for us, which wasn't true, we always "begged" to see her.  So we offered to set up a more permanant visitation schedule. She agreed. So we started getting her every other weekend since then.  She lives 2 and a half hours away from us and we do ALL the driving, we got her to meet us half way twice.  The CP does not have a car and just recently started working at the mall and lives with her parents, that smoke.

Basically we cater to her schedule of when to pick her up, when to bring her home.  We pick her up early sometimes so she can pick up hours at work, we give her rides to appointments, etc.  When ever the daughter or the mother needs anything we are there.   The problem is that she "re-niggs" on our visitation and it is very frustrating!  We recently went on vacation for 2 weeks, family was coming into town, we asked the CP if we can have her during that time because we were going to be doing lots of kid oriented things.  She agreed and also agreed we could keep her Halloween, which fell in those two weeks.  Well during these two weeks, she asked for her to come home because a great great great grandmother passed away in another state!! His daughter doesnt even know this family memeber and the CP was saying the daughter needed to give her respects! she is three!???  Anyway we drove her back home in the middle of vacation for this.  We then were allowed to pick her back up few days later....everything was going ok, then we asked the CP the day before Halloween, Monday, if we could keep his daughter till Friday?  She said yes but then Halloween day she called saying oops she forgot the daughter had an appt wed and that her sister in law just invited them to a kids party wed night too. SOOO! we had to stop everything we planned for the rest of that week and actually too her home after trick or treating!! we got home at 1 am! We expressed how unfair and rediculous she is being with all this! We had planned this vacation few months before.    She has custody so we know what she says goes, but this has got to stop!!!  I could go on and on!!  

Im not sure where to start? But we don't want to take her from her mother. We just want equal and fair!  We are married, both employed, I am a pediatric nurse, we have two vehicles, our own place and smoke free!  We want joint custody, I think , equal and fair visitation on paper, and his child support revised.  Any advise?  Thanks, Very frustrated

[Kent]

You start out with your own schedule.

Is there a structured time the father can excercise his parenting time?
Does he still work every Saturday? Is he off every Sunday?

When you have all that figured out, you try to create a schedule for parenting time, i.e. every other Saturday evening thru Sunday evening, or even every weekend.
Try to get tje CP to agree. When she does, ask her to cooperate with a change in the court order. If she does agree, any attorney can write up this change and file it with the court for very little money, or you can ask Soc (on the Soc's board) to help you and you can do it yourself.
Then stick to that schedule.
Still take her as much as you can on other times, but do not deviate from the schedule.

Kent!

[Dramafree]

As of right now we get her every other weekend because that is what the mother lets us do, but the problem is that the mother changes it up when she wants and has already stressed to us that we will never have her xmas morning.  We can try to talk to her about coming to an agreement without going to trial, but I think she is gonna give us problems. When I bring issues up to her about what is fair and what if we told her that she could never have her xmas morning she goes into the crying, feeling bad for herself and the "poor me", she is thinking about herself and I know the only reason we do get her every other weekend is so she can get a break.  I just don't think its going to go that smooth.

[Mamacass]

The best advice I can give you is to go through the courts.  You'll need to get an attorney, but it will be worth it.  We tried working things out with our BM outside of court, but it always came down to her selfish wants.  She would agre to give us more than our visitation of every other weekend, but anytime she got upset about something or decided she didn't feel like letting us have him she would keep us from SS.  
We actually had a signed notarized agreement (outside of the courts) to have joint custody (50/50 time) and no child support paid by either party.  Even though we had that on paper, it didn't mean a thing since the last order through the courts only gave us visitation and had us paying child support.  The only time that we could enforce was the every other weekend.  And when we filed for custody this summer she filed a show cause for unpaid child support.  We won custody, but still have a few months until our c/s case.  Our lawyer has told us to be prepared to have to pay back 2.5 years of child support.  
If we could go back in time, we would have done so much differently.   Don't wait, b/c you'll end up looking back and wishing you had done something sooner.
Oh and make sure to keep a calendar of when you have your SD.   Also take notes of all your conversations with BM, especially those when she agrees to additional time for y'all, and when she renigs in those agreements.  

[Dramafree]

Thank you both for your help....

[Dramafree]

I have another question?  We have been researching lawyers and omg!  We don't have thousands sitting around. I know some do have payment plans, but I'm not having any luck finding any winners.  Does anyone know of anything helpful?  
Also, we thought about confronting the BM and see if she will come to an agreement outside of court, especially if she knows how much she will have to spend on a lawyer.  But, we want shared custody, reevaluated child support, and more visitation.  Im not sure those are things we could agree on outside of court without having some kind of legal guidance.  Not sure if a mediator is going to suggest things or come up with a proper child support amount, etc
Also, is the BM able to get a free lawyer, or representation from the state?   or would she have to get her own?

Any help would be appretiated!  

[mishelle2]

well.. my best advice for finding an attorney is go sit at the courthouse for  a day, (not the whole day.. just during hearings) youll see someones style that you like and most of all notice the attorney that the judge gives the most respect to, if he is agreeing with a particular atty alot, then thats one he respects and you will have a winner.. that is what we did and we love our attorney.