Mom took the child

[snowrose]

I'd ask DD how she feels about the abusive BF.  Maybe mom has told her that he won't be there IF she comes to live with her.  If you let her go knowing about the BF, then you've put DD in danger willfully and that may come back to bite DH if something happens to her.  Not just bite him emotionally but legally as well.

We've already had this discussion with DD.  Mom has convinced DD that the abusive BF is harmless. DD wants to believe anything and everything mom says, so since things have been good for the year of 'in the community' visits and then for the honeymoon of visits at mom and the BF's home, now mom is right and the BF is harmless.


Tigger, we kept CPS with us and asked for their help and evaluations for four whole years.  We very carefully ramped up visitation over three years.  We were in the process of moving to normal visits when this happened. 


At this point, if something goes wrong it's ALL on BM's head for brain-washing DD and then stealing her away. There's no fault that can be found on our part.  It's not like you can blame US because the court has the rules, requirements and blind spots that it does when it comes to its definition of "imminent danger". We cannot say the child is in "imminent danger".  We can only say history shows that within the next few months the cycle of problems will probably start again. But BM and DD don't believe that, and obviously we're just trying to cause problems for saying that history has been repeating itself.


As I said, we would very likely win - AGAIN - if we were willing to once again devote another year of our lives to a court battle for custody - and what good would winning do us?  We would wind up right back where we are now with DD walking off to stay at BM's or maybe even DD never coming back from BM's.


You can only protect a child so much - and then when you hit the teen years there comes a time when you cannot protect a child from themselves.  And that's especially true here in Canada, where 12-year-olds have the legal right to make their own medical choices (injections, surgery, therapy, signing themselves out of a hospital) and 14-year-olds can legally choose to sleep wherever they want without a parent's permission.


(Someone really needs to pull back on some of these 'rights and freedoms' for children in Canada. I'm sorry but 12-year-olds really don't have the capacity to decide if a vaccination or surgery is appropriate for their condition.)

[Mom1Step2]

I feel your pain Snow.

DH's two DDs wanted to move back with BM many times. She would show them a good time, buy them stuff & tell them how mean we were for having rules & such. BM turned them over to us on her own with girls were 5 & 8 and BM was living out of a truck.

When OSD turned around 14 or 15, she just turned it off one day. She liked our house better & has never swapped back (except for slight times when a BF lived near mom or something).

YSD on the other hand was always a handful. She was 2 at the time of their split and moved in with us at 5. She never really experienced things the same way OSD did. She always wanted to move back in with BM from the first time BM mentioned it. YSD was trained by BM to do things to drive the entire family crazy & if there was ever any trouble, a simple phone call to BM would cause WW3. It wasnt worth it to argue, punish, or do anything.

When she was 12, the news came that DH was not the biological father of YSD. After a few months (at the end of school when BMs parenting time started anyway), he let her go to live with BM. It was exteremly hard on him and I dont think he would have made it throught if there wasnt the OSD still living with us.

There was however, after she left such a relief from stress that we ALL noticed & commented on it.

Good luck. This will be really hard on the whole family, but especially your husband if he decides to let go.

[Kitty C.]

 
You see, that is one thing that many people fail to realize....the CO is ONLY between your DH and BM.....your SD is NOT bound by it.  Which is why she can just get up a walk away from it and go directly back to BM's.  The term is 'voting with their feet'....something that has been 'unofficially' been recognized by many parents and some courts.  Usually it happens when a child wants to get away from a bad parent...if the child leaves often enough, sometimes a judge will say 'I can't keep the child from going to going to the other parent, so I guess that parent will have primary custody.'

[/size]In your case, it's just the opposite.  And it's possible that a judge may rule the same way if it happens enough times.  If you do get to court, is it possible to request joint counseling?  Starting out with SD, then SD and your DH, then SD and BM?  This child's mind is literally being poisoned and, at this stage, I would say that IF Dad keeps custody, counseling should be CO'd (in order to get compliance from BM, but that's still questionable).  Otherwise, you will be fighting a losing battle with her and BM.  JMO....
 

[snowrose]

Update below.

YSD on the other hand was always a handful. She was 2 at the time of their split and moved in with us at 5. She never really experienced things the same way OSD did. She always wanted to move back in with BM from the first time BM mentioned it. YSD was trained by BM to do things to drive the entire family crazy & if there was ever any trouble, a simple phone call to BM would cause WW3. It wasnt worth it to argue, punish, or do anything.
When she was 12, the news came that DH was not the biological father of YSD. After a few months (at the end of school when BMs parenting time started anyway), he let her go to live with BM. It was extremely hard on him and I dont think he would have made it throught if there wasnt the OSD still living with us.  There was however, after she left such a relief from stress that we ALL noticed & commented on it.

There's a striking parallel here.  DH is also not the bio-dad, though he was there to cut the umbilical cord.  BM told SD he was not the father when SD was 6, when we tried to get custody of her, and BM has built on that and dragged DH down and built up the shade of the bio-dad for years.  As far as BM is concerned, Father's Day should be spent with her BF that abused SD - and since DH and the BF also have the same birth date BM feels SD should be with the BF for that, too.   

If you do get to court, is it possible to request joint counseling?

No, I don't think so.  As you said, SD would not be bound to it.  At 12 she was legally allowed to refuse therapy.

Well, last night we were served with court papers.  BM has filed for custody and support.  She's asked for the entire last order to be thrown out.  I have no idea how far back that would go, all the way back to our original custody order?  She's missed something though and hasn't asked for the support order - which was separate - to be thrown out.

The paperwork we were handed was startling.  It includes 2 notarized documents - both of which have been altered AFTER they were notarized.  Hand-written items were added to both documents, writing right over the slashes in the previously blank areas.

[ocean]

What was in those areas that were blank?

Now that child is with mom, she has a case to change the order as child is now living with her (and you "allowed" it).
Keep with the school until court, check attendance and grades. Get a detailed new order of when/how you get visitation. Child will see that the grass is not greener after living there a while...it is new and fun. Wait until she is asked to do chores/HW and not all the fun weekend stuff. Sounds like daughter needs to see for herself.

[snowrose]

What was in those areas that were blank?

On SD's affidavit, BM has written that she wants SD's birth certificate, passport and some other paper.  And she wants me to supposedly apologize for telling people that BM was a "convicted felon" when she isn't, except I've never said that to anyone.  I don't play the kind of games BM does.

Now that child is with mom, she has a case to change the order as child is now living with her (and you "allowed" it).

We didn't allow it!  We took the only option that the court gave us: we filed to have a Police Assistance clause added to the custody order as the police will not help you unless you have this clause in the order.  That's the law.

Keep with the school until court, check attendance and grades.

Already doing that.  And when BM tried to have the school changed over to her address DH went in the next day with the custody order and made sure it was never changed.

Get a detailed new order of when/how you get visitation. Child will see that the grass is not greener after living there a while...it is new and fun. Wait until she is asked to do chores/HW and not all the fun weekend stuff. Sounds like daughter needs to see for herself.

Heh.  She been complaining on Facebook about 'cleaning day'.  BM and the BF are supers for some apartments, so at the end of the month they have to go and clean all the vacated apartments, and she had to help them clean.  She's also been complaining that she has no money.  (We use to give her $10 every 2 weeks for walking the dog and emptying/filling the dishwasher 2 times a week, and she told DH a few months ago that she felt like a slave. (A slave? Then just stop doing the chores and we'll stop giving you an allowance.) But now she has no money at all at BM's.)

Also, today I was reading through the informationals from SD's Facebook page. Apparently, BM and the BF let her surf the internet while they were over here serving court papers on us and she was talking with some of her friends, maybe telling them what was happening with BM.

The thing that interests me is that SD was posting while BM was here and then stopped posting 15 minutes later - about the time BM would have gotten home. But one friend answered SD about the time she logged off and the interesting message was "You love heartless people."

That fascinated me. I went onto Facebook to see what that message was in response to but apparently the entire conversation had been deleted. That single message was all that was left, and there were no other messages since October 18th.

So a perceptive friend has told SD that she loves heartless people. I wish I could have known what SD felt and thought when she saw that message.

You know what the ultimate irony is of all this? SD13 is on the regional Anti-Bullying team for the schools, and yet she chooses to live with the two biggest bullies I've ever seen in my entire life.


BTW, there's never been any fun weekend stuff with BM.  BM would only have SD on the weekends she and the BF work, and they would never take SD anywhere.  The only thing they've ever done with her is take her to a movie with community visits and to the mall - but they want her passport. 

[snowrose]

Last night DD13 was at an overnight with a friend.  While she was with the friend she contacted DH through Facebook. She told DH that she wanted to meet the new puppy we got a few weeks ago. DH told her that BM could bring her over or DH could go get her. (BM use to withhold her new pets to force DD to want to visit her. We don't want to act the same way BM does.) DD said she'd 'have to ask mom'. *roll eyes* Mind you, she contacted DH when she was over at her friend's last night because she's not allowed to talk to him from BM's.  She's only supposed to talk to him if BM is with her.  Now does that sound like someone who's there completely of her own free will? DD then asked DH "How's snowrose (me)?" DH looked at me and said he didn't know how to answer that. I mean apparently she's asking 'how is snowrose, now that she has the court paperwork that shows I lied about how we got along together?' Well, what do you expect, DD? When you betray people, whether it's you betraying your father or myself, they don't feel too good. They don't trust you and they're hurt and angry. DH finally answered her, "What do you mean?" and she just moved away from the subject, saying "Never mind." Not sure if I said this before but in the paperwork BM filed we did find out that she's now $10,000 in debt to a bankruptcy trustee.  BM filed bankruptcy about 7 years ago, so that's very interesting.  We think it's from a student loan from BM's BF, as he went to community college for a month and then dropped out.  And since student loans can't be discharged by bankruptcy they're going to be paying on that for 5 years or so, now.[/t][/c][/t]

[ocean]

See if she contacts you after she talks to BM but maybe next time, asked her, do you want to come home now? and go get her.

[snowrose]

See if she contacts you after she talks to BM but maybe next time, asked her, do you want to come home now? and go get her.

I think at this point SD would say she doesn't want to come home (yet).  She's place a lot of value on being with BM.


Oh, and no, she hasn't contacted us again after asking to come over and see the puppy.  I'm sure BM has voted that down.  SD isn't allowed to see anyone: not her dad, not DB27, not her niece and nephew, not her aunts and uncles.  The only person she's allowed to see in the entire family is DB29.  (I guess BM either sees him as harmless or for some reason believes he's on her side.  But he's not.)


A friend pointed something out to DH and I tonight.  She pointed out that when this started we told BM that we approved of her having an "extended visit" with BM.  Our intention was to allow this extended visit either until things blew up at BM's or until we got the Police Assistance clause in place. 


So no, we haven't actually approved of SD "living with" BM.  DH has only allowed an "extended visit" with BM and hasn't withdrawn his permission yet.

[Mom1Step2]

If the child contacts your DH again, he should see if the child wants to be picked up. Just to hang out. He has every right, as child is supposed to be living with him. Let BM know you have child. But be very careful, make sure child really wants to 'visit'. It sounds like she already knows the consequences as far as BM goes.