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Custody Battle

5K views 34 replies 24 participants last post by  Michelle68 
#1 · (Edited)
Most of you are very lucky and seem to be happily married, raising your children with their father. I am unfortunately NOT in that situation and am embroiled in a nasty custody battle with my girls' father. You may not be able to relate.

My stress level is through the roof. Right now my ex and I have joint custody of our girls, with a 50/50 time split. I see him not raising the girls right and it just kills me. He hates me and many things he does seem simply to be for spite.

For example, this week my parents drove 950 miles to see us and it is his week, and he would not let the girls come over except for two hours. The thing is, he is not spending time with the girls. He is working at night (don't even ask about the job - it is horrible). He left the girls with his girlfriend's 12 year old SON as a babysitter until 3 AM. I begged him to leave them with me, I told him I found the situation unsafe and inappropriate but he refused to even discuss it. I told my oldest to call me if she had an emergency and she told me it was not allowed, that she could only call her Dad, who works 45 minutes away from them. I called the police and Children's Aid Society to discuss this, and while they sympathized, there was nothing they could do. This is legal. I was up all night worrying about them for the past three nights while this was going on.

It is still another month until the next courtdate. He does not know I have an attorney, he thinks I am just going to go in there and get walked all over.

Not sure of the point of this little rant. I guess I just needed to vent and ask you all to keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and also, for those of you with good marraiges to good men, remind you how very lucky you are.
 
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#2 ·
I'm sorry Karen, for you and your girls. Hope you can get a better working arrangement when you go to court. :hugz:
 
#3 ·
Glad you have a lawyer Karen, (good thinking) & I hope he/she is going to be able to fight for you & the girls. An unsupervised teen male and young girls would have me concerned about all their safety on a few levels. He might be a great kid but it's just not right. I'm sorry you all are in this situation. I'll be thinking good thoughts for you & the kids. :heartsm:
 
#5 ·
Thanks ladies. I am with you Darlene, about the young boy unsupervized with the girls. All kids get curious at some point, and why tempt fate like that?
 
#6 ·
My friend had a similar problem with her son's father. She kept a log of every phone call, every e-mail and every thing her son's father said or did. She brought that into court and it really helped her situation.

I would worry about the girls staying with a 12-year-old boy. I would think that would not be a safe situation. I would certainly educate the girls and make them aware of anything inappropriate to let you know immediately or if they felt unsafe with the boy babysitting to call 911 themselves. It is awful to think that way but give them the power to protect themselves as their father doesn't seem to concerned. I will pray for you and your girls and also that he comes to his senses and realizes that you are both here to nurture and keep your children safe.
 
#7 ·
I so understand where you are coming from. I have a 12 year old ds from my first marriage. His "father" never calls, or sees him except for maybe once a year. He is gone with him now until next weekend. His father sent us an email out of the blue wanting him at such and such times, etc. Then gets mad when I tell him that my ds doesn't want to come back for the second two weeks. My ds is not allowed to call us either however he did the other night at almost 11 P.M. Scared us to death! We have told him that is he ever needs anything to call us collect at anytime but he called direct so I hope a phone bill doesn't come before he gets home, or he'll ne in trouble. The weather was bad where he is, thunderstorms and rain, and I think he was scared. He said that everyone was in bed when he got out of the shower so he called us and couldn't remember how to call collect. I think a lot of what my ex does is out of spite too. Just the popping up every now and then out of the blue with no warning is a major strain on one's emotions. He was complaining about how he is never able to get ds for the second two weeks. What he seems to forget is that most of the time he is the one that calls and says he isn't able to come back for whatever reason. Now having said all of this about my 12 year old ds, no I would not leave him in charge of anyone. If you want to "talk" feel free to email me anytime.
 
#8 ·
My ex was like that, doing things outta spite, even if it was at the expense of my dd. So sorry that you are having to go through that and will keep you in my prayers. That's great you have an attorney, will pray things go in your favor next month at the court hearing. Big (((hugs)))!
 
#10 ·
:hugz:

It must be very hard for you to have that 12 year old babysitting your 11 year old and 5 year old. I sure hope some judge uses his or her brains when it comes to this. If they are going to be with a sitter anyway, they should be allowed to be with you. I think the 12 yo boy is highly inappropriate. I won't even let my 17 yo brother-in-law ever, ever be alone with my 3 yo. :hugz:
 
G
#11 ·
Just wanted to send hugs and prayers your way - fortunately I'm not in the same situation, but I have friends and family members that are also involved in custody battles, so I have a small idea of how hard it must be for you. Hang in there!

:hug2:
 
#13 ·
((HHHUUGGSSSS))) and prayers are coming your way!!!
 
#14 ·
Ladies, your good wishes mean so much to me. I have re-read this thread many times and it really helps. It is hard to do this, because at this point my kids just don't get it -- sometimes I wonder if they will ever realize I am doing it for their own good. If so great, if not, well, I will just have to live with that and know I am doing the right thing.

Thank you all so much.
 
#16 ·
Kay, what a fabulous idea! I will do just that. I have worried myself sick about them not being able to contact me if they need me.

I looked into it and up here they have an inexpensive phone you can get that allows you to call up to 4 numbers, which you program in. The numbers would be for example, Mom's work and Mom's house, and maybe Granny and Grandpa's. To be used for emergency or whenever they just want to talk to me. Not an outrageous expense, either.
 
#17 ·
not to sure of what states allow this - but there is something you can put in your custody arrangment that basically states "if the parent who has custody at such a time cannot watch child, non-custodial parent must be asked first, then if also unavailable, custodial parent may chose babysitter".
that would help with you being able to watch the kids when he is at work, but that might also backfire for when you have custody.

good luck - As a child of divorced parents, I know it's hard.
 
#18 ·
MandiDawn said:
not to sure of what states allow this - but there is something you can put in your custody arrangment that basically states "if the parent who has custody at such a time cannot watch child, non-custodial parent must be asked first, then if also unavailable, custodial parent may chose babysitter".
that would help with you being able to watch the kids when he is at work, but that might also backfire for when you have custody.

good luck - As a child of divorced parents, I know it's hard.
Yep, I was going to suggest the same thing. I have a girlfriend who's going through a really nasty divorce and her attorney put a clause like that in the papers. You could ask your attorney if that could be added to your divorce papers.
 
#20 ·
The clause you are talking about is called "right of first refusal". I asked my ex if we could do that before, and he said no, but hopefully the judge will agree it is for the best.

My kids have gone to the US to visit their grandparents for most of the month, so thank God, they are away from this mess. My oldest and I had a long talk last night before she left, and the way her dad treats her breaks my heart. It was a good conversation though because it made me even more certain I am doing the right thing.

I meet with my attorney again next week, hopefully we can get the ball rolling -- the waiting is really hard! Our courtdate is near the end of July.
 
#21 ·
Hang in there Karen!!! I got my fingers crossed for you. I went through a similar thing with my ex. He only wanted my dd over there to punish me and paid almost no attention to her at all but handed her off to someone else to watch.
A good lawyer is worth their weight in gold. I still keep mine on retainer and I will until dd turns 18 is out of my house.
 
#22 ·
Thanks, Handy Mom. Isn't it obscene how people can use their children in a way that hurts them as well as the intended target? Makes me truly ill. How did your attorney combat this? If you would like, feel free to message me privately about this -- I would love advice from someone who has been there.
 
#23 ·
NOT the world's best news. At my most recent meeting with my attorney he told me he felt we would win full custody, but it might take a YEAR or more. AAAARRGGHH. How can I deal with all of this stress for a year.

On the bright side, at our first court date we should be able to have some rules put into place regarding childcare and other important issues, which, if their father breaks them will only hurt his chances in the future.
 
#24 ·
Coming in on this late but sending you good thoughts and prayers on the whole situation. I don't have children but watched a dear friend go through similiar problems for several years, it is SO sad when adults use children to hurt their ex's.

And right now hubby and I feel like we're right smack in the middle of a similiar situation with our neighbor and her ex, we're VERY protective of her and her children, she's such a good, hard working and honest parent, ex lives right across the road with his new woman and they only take the kids to frustrate her and then complain constantly about the kids and yell at/punish them constantly. The oldest son no longer even visits him since he took a swing at him and chased him across the street and to our house. We try to stay out of the middle but the kids know that they can come to us at any time if they're in any danger at all.

kj
 
#26 ·
Thanks, ladies, for the good wishes.

Our first court date was Monday. My ex came in completely unprepared and tried to bully the judge. He has been a bully his entire adult life, and has always felt the rules simply do not apply to him. The silly thing is, that I actually felt sad when I watched the judge refuse to be pushed and put my ex in his place. My friends all thought that was ridiculous, but my intent was not to trash him and make him look like an idiot in public. It sounds so dumb, but even though we won all of our motions, I came home and just cried.

We won the motion to force him to provide financial records, to force him to pay the court costs since he brought the case, and to get the children separate representation from an impartial 3rd party. Wayne (my ex) tried to tell the judge it was not convenient for him to have his past 3 years of taxes done and tried to refuse to disclose his finances, to which the judge told him there was no option and if he does not provide them in 30 days he will be jailed for contempt. He tried to argue that he did not want anyone talking to his kids, to which the judge replied, "Then I suspect you have something to hide." If he does not provide his financials and his paperwork for the children's lawyer, I win the entire case, as simple as that. He was so angry and red in the face the judge had the bailiff escort me to my car.

The girls are with their dad for the next three weeks, they were supposed to go up to their granparent's cottage on the lake for two of those weeks but their dad has told them that he cannot afford it because Mommy is making him get an accountant. I think I may call his parents and offer to take the girls up there myself. Again, he is hurting the kids to try and make me look like the villain.

I just want this whole thing to go away.
 
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