Single father, ex is outside the country

[seekanswer]

Hi,

I hope I file in the right category.
I am a single father, live in CA. I have two kids. My daughter (9 years old) lives with me. I have sole custody of her.
My ex abducted my son (7 years old), they live in another country now.

The court recognized that she took my son without my permission. But since he's been out of CA for more than 9 months, the court couldn't make any ruling. The court ordered custodial parent to inform non-custodial parent of the child's welfare, education, and unsupervised call.

I tried to get his custody through the justice system in her country, no luck. The court in her country gave her sole custody of him.

Things went ok for 3 years (even though not as good as I expected), at least I can still call and talk to my son, even though she always supervised the call (I can hear she's whispering, lots of pause when my son talked and he would abruptly change topic after the whispering, saying things that kids his age don't even understand, etc).

Even though she doesn't stick with court order, but I always comply/follow the order (I always go to the other room when she called my daughter, gave her full access to her education/report card, etc.).

Recently, she's mad at me. It all started when I sent a picture of me and my son together, glued it on his birthday card. She ripped it from the card and told me it must be the Customs who took the pic (who would believe that?).
When I asked her to return the pic, she's mad at me and decided to cut communication. I called, and she never picked up the phone. My daughter can't talk to her brother either.

What she does completely violates the court order. But she lives in a country that is not Hague signatory, thus they don't honor U.S. custody order.

Is there anything I can do so that I can talk to my son?

Thanks a lot.

[ocean]

They gave her sole custody but any rights/visitation/phone calls to you in her country's court? Maybe you can file with them for some sort of forced communication which may carry some more weight than American courts. Same things happens here and no one to enforce the orders (police here will not enforce custody papers) so many parents going through the same thing here too. Sad....

Going to have to play her game for a while until son gets older. Are you allowed to fly there and visit? Don't send things that will piss her off (pic of you..)... maybe pic of sister for a while. Give her time to calm down and maybe she will come around.

Just out of curiosity, how did she only take one child with her?

[seekanswer]

They gave her sole custody but any rights/visitation/phone calls to you in her country's court? Maybe you can file with them for some sort of forced communication which may carry some more weight than American courts. Same things happens here and no one to enforce the orders (police here will not enforce custody papers) so many parents going through the same thing here too. Sad....

Going to have to play her game for a while until son gets older. Are you allowed to fly there and visit? Don't send things that will piss her off (pic of you..)... maybe pic of sister for a while. Give her time to calm down and maybe she will come around.

Just out of curiosity, how did she only take one child with her?

Thank you for your response and advice.
She lives in developing country, the custody law there is way behind compared to US law, I guess it is similar to US custody law 40 years ago. The court there only assign custody. They don't even differentiate legal vs. physical custody. And the rights/visitation/phone calls are rarely arranged by the court. Usually they leave it up to the parents. Even if the court decided on those, they won't be enforce-able anyway as violation of those aren't considered contempt. They see custody matter merely as civil matter.

Oh...really? I thought the police would help to enforce the order in here. 

Even US court order mentioned that she should allow me to see my son when I visit her country, but the order in her country court didn't mention about that, because it is the common assumption that non-custodial parent won't prevent reasonable visitation.

As how she managed to take one child, 5 years ago she threatened me she would make my life like hell (do whatever she could to make me unable to see both kids anymore) if I don't allow her take my son, at least (because I insisted to keep both kids). I didn't have financial resources to afford a lawyer, while her family was at a much better financial situation.

Recently she called at my home phone weird hour (the time when she knows that we aren't at home yet, around 3pm). Usually she would call at my cellphone if nobody is home. However, she didn't do that.
She then sent email to my daughter's teacher, stating that she couldn't reach my daughter (I believe she implicitly implied that I block the communication), thus she asked the teacher's help to rely her message to my daughter. The teacher asked for my permission and I gave the permission.

I asked her why she did that, she claimed that she couldn't reach me at my cellphone. I can reach her fine from my cellphone, but she never picked up the phone anymore. So, I asked her why she didn't pick up the phone when I tried to return her call. She told me because she doesn't like me to keep in touch with my son. Apparently she doesn't realize that by doing that she also prevented my daughter to talk to her brother.

Sigh.......what a drama.... 

From what I read....seems like she has lots of psychopath traits, which gave me chill on my spine.
If I have some bargaining power, I would be able to get her cooperation. But to get bargaining power, it means I would need to do something against my conscience, for example, using something as collateral, which is childish and silly. Since I won't do such thing, that's why I feel so helpless right now.

So....seems like I don't have any other option at this moment other than to play her game...right?

[ocean]

Do you give her any money? (money talks)
Does she now want to see daughter at all? Seems very odd she would only want son and not daughter.
Since her laws are so backwards, be careful about going there with daughter as she can maybe get her courts to give custody to her too before you get to leave to come back.

Write your congressman, go see them. They sometimes can help in these situations using politics but both of you have custody depending on which country you look at.

Also, I would stop all communication through the school. You are playing into her games. Send school a letter that states she is not to communicate with daughter at school and her mother has free access to her after school by cell phone. She either calls daughter at your home/cell when you are there only. Your daughter should not have to deal with this at school. Maybe ask her to have her call daughter, you will hand daughter phone when you see her number, then put son son and your daughter will hand phone to you. No communication between the two of you. Can you use email for communication? What about skype? You have sole custody of your daughter so protect her from her craziness. Play her game a little. She can talk to daughter when son talks to you. It is not like you are going to get in trouble here, you have custody. If she starts craziness, hang up and let it go to voicemail. How often is she trying to communicate?

Send her emails at business like at you can:
ex
Teachers daughter called me about your email. There is no reason for xx to be dealing with this at school. You can free cell phone access to her after xx when she comes home. You called my home number on xx date at xx time when you know we are not home. From now on, xx will be available on every Saturday from xx to xx time for you phone calls and then I will speak to xx. Both of our kids should be able to be in each others lives. I miss xx just like you miss xx and we should work together so they both grow up knowing both of us.
You

(fill in skype times or whatever you do). Keep it very tight to times and days so you and your daughter are not dealing with her all week long and daughter knows every saturday she can talk to her).

and yes, here in the US, you can try to get order enforced in family court BUT needs many many times of proving they are not following court order for anything but a slap on the wrist and saying...let him see kids. The whole system in a complete mess and only works when parents want it to work. Sad...

[seekanswer]

Do you give her any money? (money talks)
Does she now want to see daughter at all? Seems very odd she would only want son and not daughter.
Since her laws are so backwards, be careful about going there with daughter as she can maybe get her courts to give custody to her too before you get to leave to come back.

Write your congressman, go see them. They sometimes can help in these situations using politics but both of you have custody depending on which country you look at.

Also, I would stop all communication through the school. You are playing into her games. Send school a letter that states she is not to communicate with daughter at school and her mother has free access to her after school by cell phone. She either calls daughter at your home/cell when you are there only. Your daughter should not have to deal with this at school. Maybe ask her to have her call daughter, you will hand daughter phone when you see her number, then put son son and your daughter will hand phone to you. No communication between the two of you. Can you use email for communication? What about skype? You have sole custody of your daughter so protect her from her craziness. Play her game a little. She can talk to daughter when son talks to you. It is not like you are going to get in trouble here, you have custody. If she starts craziness, hang up and let it go to voicemail. How often is she trying to communicate?

Send her emails at business like at you can:
ex
Teachers daughter called me about your email. There is no reason for xx to be dealing with this at school. You can free cell phone access to her after xx when she comes home. You called my home number on xx date at xx time when you know we are not home. From now on, xx will be available on every Saturday from xx to xx time for you phone calls and then I will speak to xx. Both of our kids should be able to be in each others lives. I miss xx just like you miss xx and we should work together so they both grow up knowing both of us.
You

(fill in skype times or whatever you do). Keep it very tight to times and days so you and your daughter are not dealing with her all week long and daughter knows every saturday she can talk to her).

and yes, here in the US, you can try to get order enforced in family court BUT needs many many times of proving they are not following court order for anything but a slap on the wrist and saying...let him see kids. The whole system in a complete mess and only works when parents want it to work. Sad...

Originally she asked me to pay child support. Later she dropped her child support request (I think she hope she would have a better chance to win the custody by doing that). So, the answer is no.

Yes, I will be very careful when I visit the country. I will not take my daughter with me.

Yes, she wanted to see our daughter, but she doesn't like the supervised visitation. She was being super nice to me for 2 months, and then she asked if I would allow her to visit her unsupervised. Of course I said no. I told her I would stick with court order (supervised visitation).

Thank you so much for your suggestion and the formal letter for the school. I really love your idea!

We tried to work out call and skype time during custody battle, she refused to cooperate. I provided plenty of time slots to accommodate time difference (14 hours diff). Since she kept rejecting, finally her lawyer picked the time on her behalf. But those only worked for 2 months.

After that she tried to call sporadically. Sometimes even pass my daughter bedtime. I reminded her via email, but she always disregards whatever I say. Very, very hard to ask for her cooperation.

Btw, I couldn't find the congress contact info for my district. I found a link, but the webpage had been removed. Do you know a good website?

Oh, I see....yes it's sad that the justice system regarding family law is a mess here....

May I ask for one more suggestion?
Currently she has direct access to our daughter education (because it's available online). Thus she can see her weekly progress: homework, grades, report card. In the meantime, she claimed our son's school there doesn't have online system yet. Thus she scanned and sent only his report card to me, but only the last one.

I asked the school one time if they would remove her direct access, and I will forward my daughter's education information manually. But the school refused since she has been in the system. Can the school do that?
What happened if I move in the future? Can I possibly ask the new school to not add her? By doing this I hope I would get more bargaining power in her game.

As of why she only picked the son, all I know is that at that time, she couldn't persuade our daughter to go with her. My daughter has been much closer to me since she got addicted to Facebook games. My son was still very young back then, he was only 4. She managed to persuade him (I don't know how).

My theory is, she managed to use our son to get our daughter, because in her statement she sent to the court (and also during mediation) she kept emphasizing "what a terrible situation when siblings have to live apart."

My other theory, she did that to hurt me, because she told our son to use her last name (thus, remove my last name) on his skype account, etc. At school he still uses my last name.

[MixedBag]

School access....personally I don't think either one of you should have to go through the other for information regarding the children on any subject.  THEREFORE, I don't think you should pursue or ask or whatever with regards to her having access to your daughter's information to get that turned off.  On the flip side -- if you know where your son is going to school, contact the school directly for information as well.  Since you're living in two different countries -- access is not going to be the same and availability of everything is not going to be the same, but IMHO, go around her straight to the school to see if they also have something available.  heck -- they might not have even heard of having something for parents on-line to monitor.

You really have two sets of rules to follow -- one for your daughter and one for your son....

The only other thought I have right now is for you to initiate skyping for your daughter to speak with her mother at the right time.   and document that (not sure how that happens, as I've never skyped).  In one sense, that puts control back in your court and takes it away from Mom being able to whine about this subject -- because a court and kid might focus on the whine and not that the parent didn't follow the order.  Kids and courts are funny like that.

[ocean]

Way too much power you are giving her.
Email her the times child is available for skype, if she calls during that time, great, if not, go to voicemail. Not like she is going to come to US and file against you.
Online school access- yeah so what, let her see that but you do not have to talk to her about it. I agree, call his school directly and see if they will do online with you or ask if you can call teacher once a month or do email with teacher. Ask teacher to send you pictures of him at school eventually. You can ask the school for his whole educational record to be sent to you (all previous report cards). Offer to pay/send envelopes and shipping costs. Call and talk to who is in charge of the school and tell them situation and if they can provide you direct access instead of going through mother.

What if you offer if she come to US with son, you can all go to a public place to see each other? Either stay together at the public place or switch kids and say you will stay in public place and meet back in a few hours. Fun place for kids, or restaurant with two tables?  Kids should be able to see each other too. If your daughter has a passport, you can put a notification on her account so that mom can not use passport to take her out of the country.

[seekanswer]

School access....personally I don't think either one of you should have to go through the other for information regarding the children on any subject.  THEREFORE, I don't think you should pursue or ask or whatever with regards to her having access to your daughter's information to get that turned off.  On the flip side -- if you know where your son is going to school, contact the school directly for information as well.  Since you're living in two different countries -- access is not going to be the same and availability of everything is not going to be the same, but IMHO, go around her straight to the school to see if they also have something available.  heck -- they might not have even heard of having something for parents on-line to monitor.

You really have two sets of rules to follow -- one for your daughter and one for your son....

The only other thought I have right now is for you to initiate skyping for your daughter to speak with her mother at the right time.   and document that (not sure how that happens, as I've never skyped).  In one sense, that puts control back in your court and takes it away from Mom being able to whine about this subject -- because a court and kid might focus on the whine and not that the parent didn't follow the order.  Kids and courts are funny like that.

Yes, that's the problem. I used to be able to contact the school, but that only lasted for 2 weeks. Now the school never picked up my call anymore, nor respond to my email. Whenever I asked her if she told the school to not pick up my call or respond to email, she always avoids/never respond to my question. I got a feeling she told the school to do that.

As for skype and call, I never block her access to our daughter. That's what happened in the last 4 months, she talked to our daughter, but whenever I called/asked, she always gives excuses (my son is sleeping, going to the mall, extra curricular, etc). Not until recently she admitted in the email that she intentionally blocked my communication to my son (she never picked up my phone).

She called sporadically (request to have skype), refused the agreed skype schedule. When I told her that my daughter and I already have plan (on the way to movie, having a playdate, etc) she never believed me. She demanded to talk to my daughter directly, and only accept answer from my daughter. I let my daughter answered to her mom. My daughter hated it when it happened (her mom called sporadically - at the wrong time when she already has plan), thus she told her mom she couldn't skype.

Recently she called at weird hours (at home phone) and claiming the call didn't go through when she called my cell. I can call her fine from my cell, but she didn't pick up the phone.

Even up to this point, I don't block her access.

I am just so tired trying to cooperate with her....everything I did is never good enough.

[ocean]

You are not blocking access but making times to deal with her. If she calls at other times, let you phone go to voicemail. Once you send the email detailing times daughter is available then stick to it. If she is refusing to let son on phone, then the next time, pick up phone at the planned time and say "let me talk to xx for a few minutes and then ill pass phone to xx so they can talk for a few minutes then you can talk to her". If she says no or demands to talk to daughter and hang up with contact with son, then next time try again and do not put daughter on phone until you talk to son first.

You are allowing her to have full access 24/7 and she is not even in the country. Court orders here usually have days/times to call. If you have that already then go back to it. Send ex letter:
Ex,
Calling times have been confusing so I am going back to the court ordered times which are xx xxx. Daughter will be available during those times. Please have son call at those times and I will talk to him first and hand phone to daughter so they can have a few minutes together, then he can pass phone to you. This way you do not have to have contact with me and we both get to talk to the kids.
YOu

School- Send a letter directly to the school,
School,
I am the biological father of xx xx. I am writing to you to get access to xx teacher and educational record. I am enclosing envelopes (big yellow ones) and $10 to cover any copying costs in sending me his past report cards and attendance records. I am also available by email at xxxxx or telephone number xxx. Please have his teacher contact me. Thank you.
You

[seekanswer]

Way too much power you are giving her.
Email her the times child is available for skype, if she calls during that time, great, if not, go to voicemail. Not like she is going to come to US and file against you.
Online school access- yeah so what, let her see that but you do not have to talk to her about it. I agree, call his school directly and see if they will do online with you or ask if you can call teacher once a month or do email with teacher. Ask teacher to send you pictures of him at school eventually. You can ask the school for his whole educational record to be sent to you (all previous report cards). Offer to pay/send envelopes and shipping costs. Call and talk to who is in charge of the school and tell them situation and if they can provide you direct access instead of going through mother.

What if you offer if she come to US with son, you can all go to a public place to see each other? Either stay together at the public place or switch kids and say you will stay in public place and meet back in a few hours. Fun place for kids, or restaurant with two tables?  Kids should be able to see each other too. If your daughter has a passport, you can put a notification on her account so that mom can not use passport to take her out of the country.

I see, ok will do. But then, I believe she still won't let me skype with my son still.
Because in the past 4 months, she talked to my daughter, but she always making up excuses when I want to talk to my son (and then later she admitted that she blocked my communication to my son).

As for online access, I tried to contact my son's school in the past. Worked only for 2 weeks, and they never picked up the phone nor respond to my email anymore. I got a feeling she asked the school to block my access as she always avoid that topic when I asked her.

I tried to talk to the school, but they refused to remove her access (because she's already in the system). Do I have the power to make that decision (I have sole legal and physical custody)? The school told me that unless the court revoke her parental right, they cannot remove her from the system. That's why I am afraid the new school would act the same way too.

As for visitation, that's the thing. I don't feel comfortable if her visitation with my daughter is unsupervised. The reason is my daughter has dual nationality. My ex could easily apply for her passport from her country (because over there they don't ask for both parents signature to get passport for minor). And I couldn't put notification on her foreign passport either (they don't have it on their system yet). This is also one of the reason why the court order supervised visitation. They recognized that she abducted my son, and also that she can apply for my daughter's foreign passport and take her outside the country.

Complicated huh....?
I really appreciate your inputs, please keep it coming.