dad wants equal time

[twohomesoneheart]

Hi

My first time here.

Basically we have spent the last year trying to make my husbands ex feel as involved in the kids life on our time to increase contact of both parents on each others time. My husband..and I truly believed that the more contact the kids have with both homes and both parents and step sibling the better. I am convinced this is still so.

The father has given the mother the childrens activities, schedules and locations and welcomed to come by and watch, be introduced and have a little extra contact, when they are on his time. We encourage any type of phone call from their extended family...the mother's grandparents, family step siblings.....welcome to call. Aunts uncles cousins step siblings...call any time. Other step siblings are invited to go on beach trips, overnights birthday parties etc. These invites have never been accepted.

This is absolutely not recipricated. In addition, we are regularly taken to court to take time away from the father. As far as she is concerned this family does not exist. She resents any bonding that occurrs with the father, step mom and siblings.

We just went through four mediation meetings and it was her way or no way. If she wasn't comfortable, it wasn't going to happen. No big surprise but we are headed into the gut wrenching adventure of family court.

The children are currently 10 and 7 years old. Parents have been seperated since they were 6months and 3 years old. For the last three years the father has the kids on his days off. it is a rotating schedule as he is Police. When the father does have weekends off she gets the kids for one of his weekends. For the last two years and through mediation he has simply asked for and has tried to negociate trading those two days instead of just taking them from him. She absolutely refuses.

Today in mediation she claimed that the children were afraid of him and the girl felt second rate in his home. This is the same woman that consistenly lies to the kids about their father. The mother told her second grade daughter that he shoved her. She fabricates malicious lies about the father and yet
has a fit when it is recommended that the boy sees a school counselor. We were fine with it. She thought it detrimental to him. When the mediator suggeted today that we have the kids come in to talk to her about what they would want out of visitation.. The mother was not ok with that.

We have worked and prayed for over two years now that she would settle down, that she would see this totally messes with the kids and that these kids need their father as much as their mother.

We need a fabulous attorney from san diego
We want to continue to battle for the peace of these beautiful children and disregard our need to win or satisfy our egos.
We want to secure for these kids their right to live without a constant battleground.
We may want to try to attain primary custodianship to help assure these things.
We want 50/50 visitation regardless of the rotation of the schedule. A 5-2 schedule.

We want to remain sane in the meantime.

I am discovering a whole world of people in our same shoes.

Any advice?

Please?






 

[MYSONSDAD]

I just went into a career change and my ex will not work with me at any degree.

I am speaking with my attorney Monday about an emergency hearing in regard to having our son on my days off. Should not be too hard, ex does not work and our son is not in school.

All I want is our son on my days off.

I also get the same  "alienating behavior" going on.

You are seeing PAS. Here are a few sites which might help you.

http://www.helpstoppas.com/

http://www.rgardner.com/refs/

"Children learn what they live"

[SadStepMom]

Kim Marie Staron

I highly recommend her.  We ended up not being able to use her since our case was moved out of San Diego, but before that happened, we were very pleased, and we had gotten her name from some one on this board who won custody.  I know there is an additional poster who was very pleased with her also, though I don't recall any details of that case.

[twohomesoneheart]

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.

We will be meeting with an attorney tomorrow to find out more about custody and time.  It is difficult to always look at what is in the best interest for the kids.  The pros and cons are constantly weighed.

I would be extremely surprised if there was a problem with having kids on your days off.  I am sure you have a current order that stipulates visitation.

let me know how it goes.

Thanks
for your input and keep in touch

[twohomesoneheart]

Thank you so much for the reference!!!!  

I will keep you posted.

 Thank you for taking the time to read through the scenario and respond:)

[DecentDad]

Welcome!

Yes, there is a whole world of people standing in your same shoes.

I think your husband put his story on another website that I look at... is this him?  http://www.custodyiq.com/04052005b.html

It sounded familiar to me with the police officer thing and the mediation story.

If that's you, I agree with most of the answer on that page.

You probably already learned that some people just don't respond in a normal manner to niceness.  You should always be civil to the mother, but it isn't worth it making many gestures.  She doesn't care, and it won't help anything.

It's probably at least worth it to talk with an attorney in your area to see how they feel your chances are to change things.

DD

[twohomesoneheart]

yes that was him......:)

We did appreciate the frank forwardness of the response today as well.  

It's almost like you have to train your brain to respond differently.  It will always be a struggle, but I am truly learning that not everyone can see things in an objective manner.

Your words....You should try to be civil but the gestures are unnecessary and unappreciated...

Different voices... and a lot of help:)


Thanks
Again

Keep in touch

 

[twohomesoneheart]

We showed our file to a veteran attorney today.  I was prepared to counter his selling points with arguements sure to  follow from the other camp.  

We went in cautious.  

The attorney pretty much said that the courts are definitely going towards 50/50 custody regardless of how the time is spent with the kids.  Two stable households, half siblings here, history of involved father and everything between household can be compared and  measured as the same ie disipline, level of care, school grades maintained and activities, then there really isn't a reason why the father should not have a right to his child half of the time.

Well what about the argument that the stepmother will be putting kids to bed?

  Right of refusal is 24 hours that the court would sustain best interest of the child.  Jealousy is not a credible counter to best interest argument...kids need time with father.

But technically it is time not with the father but other members of the family as he is at work.

There has to be substantial evidence of neglect for that argument to hold ground.  People are at work and they leave the child in daycare rather than a parent.  Mothers and fathers have grandparents put kids to bed a couple times a week for continuing education school or softball games or bible study classes.  This goes back to helping the kids establish solid and consistant ground in their own lives and this protects the best interest of the child.

She will argue that the kids are too afraid to tell their Dad that they don't want more time at his house.  

Classic Manipulation and as soon as parties begin these type of statements credibility is severely damaged.  It becomes questionable whether the parent may even be capable of excersizing the responsibility of primary custodial parent as protecting the best interest of the child.  Without circumstances that gravely effect the ability to parent, it is assumed that the best interest of the child is to have 50/50 custody.  

That was it in a nutshell and we did use points that were suggested from this forum as well including the father shirking responsibilty and gaining new time from Custody IQ.

If all we do get from this is kids on the days off, we win not to mention cleaning up the orders so as to relieve the posibility of argument from her.  

We will keep you all posted.

Please be sure to forward thoughts and ideas as this has already proven to be a big help.

Many Thanks
th1hrt

[MYSONSDAD]

False allegations never end. Everyone is wrong, but BM.

I am in school for the next 5 weeks and have been almost completely cut off from visitation. Brought it before the Judge, she did not give a damn. What a joke. "We will hold a conference in June." Like, that helps me now.

That is all I want, for the moment, on my days off. No reason not to.

What was Custody IQ's advice, I did not see that post.

"Children learn what they live"

[twohomesoneheart]

I haven't seen all your posts that would give me an idea of you are facing.

Do you not hve a court order visitation?  How long have you been in a custody issue with your child?  It doesn't sound as if you have a parenting plan that enables you some type of consistant visitation.

my husband put a post up at custodyIQ.com.

Our Question was posted on April 5th.

Good Luck and we will keep you posted.