Day 5 in court, what a waste!

[onedaddy]

Yesterday was day 5 of our custody trial.  The judge promised us a full day again.  When we got there she had a morning full of people, took us in at 11:00 for maybe an hour and broke until 2:30.  BM was cross examined between 2:30-4:30.  She continued to lie through her teeth even when the proof was handed to her.  She blamed everyone else but herself, her NJ lawyer, her former NY lawyer, the children's counselor, etc. The judge seemed interested in her having DH falsely arrested. The estimony was comical

While I was outside, SF came over to me and begged us to come to a settlement and be civil. Sounds wonderful.  SF has threatened DH on more occassions than I can count, many times in front of the kids, 2x in court in front of the officers, every time in a very vulgar manner.  HE and BM made false reports to the police and DH was arrested 2x.  Which he admitted they lied.  He was upset that it is his name that is being slung through the mud because he has a violent, ugly past but admitted that BM is lieing about everything in court.  

Stupid us we felt bad and would love to come to a conclusion, their in the whole $60,000, us $40,000.  

SF emailed me a proposal.  Whaddya know it is exactly the agreement as it stands.  Every other weekend, shared holidays, etc. etc., etc., a court order that has never been followed.  Mind you BM petitioned the court for sole custody and supervised visitation, she got out of control dening weekends, telling the kids to lie, etc. we eventually filed for custody.

Well, I emailed them back a very nice NO WAY but we will make them a proposal of 50/50 shared parenting that is very fair and gives BM more time.  
She emailed me back that we are crazy, she is a terrific mother and we'd be lucky to accept what she is offering us since she has a very good case and will never lose. HUH?!  All her allegations are he said/she said.  She has proof of nothing.  We have submitted over 100 pages of evidence to prove her lies, her denials.   We proved she had DH falsely arrested to better her case.  We proved her witnesses were coached and lied.  We have experts testifing in our case.  We have the GAL on our side and the top; we have the forensics evaluator, whom she requested saying she is a severe sociopath, psychopath, antisocial, borderline, decietful, a danger to these children, DH and society, etc.

Someone's delusions are going to make her very unhappy

[Stepmom0418]

Sounds like things are going well from what you have posted. Ours starts in the morning. We are nervous as you can imagine! We just hope Iowa courts can see what everyone else can see in regards to my SS. When do you go to court again? Keep me posted and I will update on ours as soon as we get home if I am not too tired. (lol) Again good luck!

[onedaddy]

Try and stay confident!  I will be thinking of you

[skye]

just want to make sure you are prepared I was not really ...

we went through everything you are going through to the letter.. reading your case is so much like our story it is unreal.. I never thought there was any one else as crazy as DH's ex...

so anyway we went through this and we got custody she appealed and it was affirmed DH have custody.. and then the actual war started.. I thought when the trials were over she would accept and life might actualy be somewhat normal we have been in court on false showcauses ( all of which have been dismissed) every month since we are now in to the hundreds of thousands and I fear after yesterdays meeting it will NEVER end..

things will never be normal and no matter what we do it will always be this way.. it has now been 3 years since DH was awarded custody.. she has filed 9 times for custody since and lost ..but she will never stop and my life has become protecting MY kids and HERS from all this drama.

[jilly]

You shouldn't be communicating directly with the BM or SF, especially now that you're in trial.  Tell them if they have an offer to make have their attorney present it to your attorney and your attorney will get back to their attorney with your response/counteroffer.  You obviously know you can't trust this woman as far as you can throw her so why throw a monkey wrench into the works when so much is at stake?  I hope you copied the e-mails and gave them to your attorney or at least made him/her aware of their offer.

[onedaddy]

Actually our lawyer and DH walked outside mid my conversation with SF.  He was stupid enough to keep talking and admitted to quite a few lies in front of her.  We haven't had contact with them since March.  Our lawyer is okay with little communication only via email or fax.  Our lawyer and the GAL are bcc'd on everythng. BM is an id**t, she has consistently implicated herself in writing in the past and today wrote me some crazy, idiotic email back that makes no sense and that we can probably use in court.  I will not even respond.   I gave our lawyer a parenting plan I took from this website.  We are willing to offer her the school months and we will take the summer months.  Extremely fair I feel considering we can very well walk away with full sole.

We are willing to agree and give her the most time because we truely what BM, her husband and her parents are capable of doing if we do win full sole.

We understand she will never follow an order and I fully expect to be back in court on a regular basis. I added in our order that if she violates any of the orders she will agree to a change in custody and to pay our lawyer fees and lost wages.  No matter what be it an agreement or a judges order there will have to be a penalty clause put in.  We are also asking for a change in jurisdiction to where it will be harder for her to file frivilous lawsuits since she moved very far away.  I pray this will help just a little.

Your hindsight is what has helped me so much.  

[jilly]

OK...gotcha.  Just wanted to make sure your bases are covered! :)
Good luck! Sounds like at least the SF is seeing things aren't going very good for them.