You always know when holiday season is here! ...... LONG

[awakenlynn]

Hubby went to court in March this year to deal with stuff ex pulled last year.  Now its Thanksgiving again and she is starting her c**p again for the Christmas holiday.

Court order states SPECIFICALLY that ex is to decide if she is going to fly or drive SD NO LATER than November 1st of each year.  So this year she got the November 1st right but said while she is driving the family that is she was to drive SD she would be dropping SD off a day late and picking her up a day early and by the way they won't be there at the court ordered noon the day later when she does finally make it to the area.  OR it was DH choice and he could fly SD.    So ex put it out there with absolutely no decision in there.   

DH emailed her back and said the court order said she was specifically to let us know what she was doing in order for us to know to buy the ticket or not and to email us back with her decision.  If ex was driving then she had to be at the court ordered time on the court ordered day in the court ordered city or she had to let us know if we were flying SD either way or both ways.  We looked into flights, none of the flights that came from the court ordered cities met the time needs ex would have.  (the airport is 3 hours away from their home and the flight is late afternoon, they would have been 3/4 of the way here by the time they left in the morning and ex would have the excuse of why SD missed the flight. 

It is now November 15th.  SD called to talk to dad about the arrangements.  It is not SD's place even at 16 to be put in the middle of it.  DH asked to speak with mom.  She got on the phone and said she has nothing to do with it, SD is 16 and it is THEIR visit not her's.  DH tried to make her understand that the court order is specific and that it wasn't fair putting it on the daughter, but it goes completely over ex's head.  DH finally said since ex is driving then she will drive SD to the court appointed place by the court ordered time and date.  (The court order says visits are to start 6pm the holiday vacation starts, if the ex is driving then they are to meet at 'X' city by noon the first full day (which is Saturday) and we are to drop off in the 'X' city at noon the day before school goes back into session (sunday Jan 3rd). 

Ex called back again later and wanted to discuss the arrangements again.  This time her excuse is that in order to be here by Saturday then she would have to drive all night.  (Nothing new for her) and how DAREwe ask it of her (her kids are 10, 11 and 16 and she would be driving with her husband, she has done it MANY times in the past and in fact lives 12 hours closer than what she was living before(still 14 hours away) and it is something WE have had to do many times in the past (in fact hubby did it in the spring to be there to pick SD up for spring break and court).   Then she moves onto the fact that she has to work and just can't take days off.  1st she does volunteer work for her best friend, 2nd she has known since MARCH of this visit, 3rd all she has to do is show the court order to her 'boss' to get the needed time off.  It is something DH has had to do every year he needs to take time off of work to pick up SD for visits.  HE actually SUPPORTS his family and HE actually pays the child support ex splurges on instead of using it on the SD.  By the time she got this far in her actually ranting, he finally just hung up on her.  She was no where in the world of where he could speak rationally with her.

Now we wait to see what she pulls next.  She hasn't called back, SD hasn't called back.  DH did text SD (on the off chance she would get it) that he was sorry that she had been put in the middle and it wasn't fair to her and that he loved her.  He knows ex will be ranting and raving and blaming him for everything and SD has to deal with her mother's extreme and inappropriate behavior, she is going to get the backlash from it and its not fair.

As to us, Monday we go speak with both of our boss's, see if we can get an advance on our paychecks, and pay attorney fees from the court in spring and an a retainer for this part of the case with a promise of another amount straight from any tax refund we MIGHT get.

We hold onto the thought that SD will be 18 and we won't have to deal with ex in 18 months!!!!!   and in the meantime we hope and pray we will get our family complete for Thanksgiving and Christmas.


P.S. hubby and I did agree that is ex would notorize a statement and have it added to the court file that she agreed to 48 hours make up time we would allow ex to drop off SD a day late--Sunday at noon and she could pick up a day early--Saturday at noon.  It didn't go over so well  (ex has absolutely gone back on her word everytime she has promised make up time so it is time to follow the court order strictly and to the letter, what else could we do?).