help visitation and harassment by my ex. Have not been ablle to visit for 5 years.

[alanh]

I have not been able to see my two daughters (Mara 14 & Nina 16), for five years. I live in California and they live in Florida. I had to move here to get work because my ex wife had harassed me at my previous place of employment where they live. For the last 12 years Marianne, my ex-wife, has foiled my attempts to have a relationship with my daughters. Through various unethical means and emotional blackmail over their well being, she has caused them and myself great pain. They are sadly effected by this. I have no hope of seeing them because I cannot afford the legal means to do so. She would also prevent me from seeing them if I tried to visit. I am a working poor person and just able to cover basic expenses including the child support, and the extra money I sometimes send them.
Of course there is a lot of history here, and I cannot state all of it now, but suffice to say I left because of Marianne's emotional unbalance, meanness and her putting the family through traumatic stress by severe emotional outbursts, screaming and threatening several times a week for five years (89' -94). I was advised to leave by the third marriage counselor we saw during that period. To top all this off she has consistently harassed me via phone calls and email. I have not called my daughters for the last two months because she is threatening to call my employment and cause me trouble unless I send more money. Marianne sabotages my efforts to communicate to them. although they are eager to speak with me they are also afraid to really communicate with me. They almost sound like the 'Stepford Kids'.
All this has gone beyond the pale and I am deperate to see Nina & Mara. Also I grave concern for Marinne's trying to destroy my life for some kind of sick game she plays. She has a history of this with two previous ex-husbands and their childern. Also she has been thrown off and arrested at my daughters school for yelling at the teachers about 6 yeras ago.
When I was living in Florida, I tried to get HRS, the Tallahassee Police and the Leon County Sheriff to look into my kids welfare, but they did not seem concerned with non-physical child abuse. Emotional and mental abuse does take a physical toll especially on developing children. When Mara was an infant she was very much traumatized by Marianne's screaming and outbursts.
In the near future I should be able to afford to visit Nina and Mara so I need to find out what I can do given my finances, to successfully see them.

[Ref]

How is your relationship with their school? Could you send them letters to school and avoid contacting the mom? How about email?

My Sd lives in florida too. BM has a fit if I try to communicate with her. I can't write or call. If I write, BM intercepts and throws the letter away. If I call, she tells SD to hang up.

One of the things that I did to get around mom's crazyness is to start a myspace page just for my SD. It is essentially a webpage that I use to show SD pictures, and write her letters. Ofcourse I am careful what I post on the page in order to avoid mom using things against me. It is nice.

She used to write back, but since mom and my husband have had legal issues, SD doesn't write on it anymore. I just use it so that if she wants to know what is going on up here, she can log on and see.

We used to IM but mom put an end to that too. Technology can be your friend with this. There is also email tracking software to make sure they get the email and opened it and it tells you when and where they opened it.

What about other family? Do you have a good relationship with family in Florida? Maybe you can use them to pass along messages.

Good Luck - we've been at it for 12 years, so if you need advice (contacting the school, doctors etc..) don't be afraid to ask.

[gipsy]

There is Socrateasers board for people that can't hiore an atty <

[gipsy]

There is Socrateasers board for people that can't hiore an atty <