Question re breaking terms of divorce
Hi Guys
Has anyone any experience relating to the following and what to do:- this is BM's weekend and Mondays and Tuesdays are our days, the divorce papers say that our parenting time begins at 9.00 a.m. or after school. As the kids are off school this week for Thanksgiving we expected to get them at 9.00 a.m. tomorrow and my DH called to confirm that he would pick kids up from BM's at 9.00a.m. as usually happens in this situation and which has never been a problem before. Both my SD14 and SS9 have ADHD. When BM used to drop them off on days like tomorrow it would usually be around 7.30/7.40 and the kids sometimes would not have had their medicine or breakfast or taken a shower. SS would turn out to be quite a handful for me as my DH would be at work. We agreed with BM that DH would pick kids up from her house at 9.00am to allow SS to have extra sleep and basically have time to wake up before being thrown int he car to come to us. Well tonight BM has SD call us and insists that she will be dropping kids off early, when my DH asks to speak to her she refuses to speak to him and then hangs up the phone - when we called her back she shouts "it's done" and won't talk to my husband but tells SD to tell dad she'll still be dropping them off early.
Well, as expected, this has pissed us both off, for one, we don't understand why she has such a problem this time around when she never had before and for two, the divorce papers state 9.00am so why does she think she can do whatever the hell she likes? Has anyone ever done anything about ex's breaching terms of divorce before and if so what? This woman thinks she can dictate our schedule and I'm pissed right now - my DH will be at work and I had to cancel a gym appointment last minute which cost me money just so I can be here early. It's totally ridiculous, problem is if she keeps getting away with it, she'll keep doing it and I'm fed up with her. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Comments
Good Question. My X dropped
Good Question. My X dropped the kids off 5 1/2 hours early yesterday with no notice. We weren't even home. We found out they were home early because my daughter called us from the house asking where we were.
When I asked why she was home so early...she said "Dad was sick of us".
He's an ass.....no audience...to try to play dad ...so this is the real dad that we all see. He doesn't want "extra time" with the kids..like he tells his family..and his friends...... Some of our mutual freinds who are still close to me see it .... but he has many ppl fooled..
I don't have an order....just a long standing agreement..but pick-up & drop off times are not something he needs to follow....BUT God forbid I ask to change a time or a visit.
I don't expect an order to change this in the future......
So I'm interested in suggestions also....
(I believe that the court doesn't want it's time wasted over adults fighting over an hour or two in visitation........just my own opinion.....and I don't think the court has alot of bite to its bark over things like this...maybe I'm wrong)
contempt of court?
I thought that if there is a court document stating specific days and times, then the parent who does not follow the document is in contempt of court. But is it worth the lawyers' fees to settle a 90-minute discrepancy? Perhaps you should document these incidents until you have a more substantial number of times she's done this?
Ordinarily I'd bite my tongue
in this kind of situation but it's really not a matter of time, it's about my SS and how he ends up being totally disfunctional for the rest of the day when she wakes him up, throws him in the car, and throws him out again at our house in the space of 15mins particularly when she's not tracking his bed time i.e. like on a non-school night she lets him go to bed whenever. Today my SS is completely unbearable displaying all the usual misbehaviours that caused us to ask if we could pick him up at the proper time in the first place. Again if it were a one-off incident I'd be ok with it but it's all the time and it seems to me intentional. I considered getting a no-trespassing order which would force a mutual neutral meeting place but it seems so extreme. I just wish she would have some class and act like a decent human being just for once, or twice or forever. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!1
How much "teeth" does it have?
I’m just curious…has anyone ever taken a custodial parent to court for being in contempt of court and had the Judge actually penalize the custodial parent for violating a court order…I mean I know that we always say/believe this method of regulation exists but does it have the same existence as Big Foot or the Lock Ness Monster?
Make a GREAT Day!
I have..
several years ago, when ss was 6, we pursued a long over due parenting plan. At that time, bm was use to sharing ss on only her terms, so when she was pist off, she withheld ss from dh. Anyhow, after court docs were signed by a judge, she still thought she could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
We drove 83 miles one way to pick up ss for our weekend visit. She was a no show. Then on that Sunday, she called our house apologetic stating she "totally forgot" it was our weekend. Then, that same afternoon, we caught her in our city at our grocery store, with my dh's son...
We called our attorney and faxed in a statement of the events that occurred. Our attorney immediately filed docs for a hearing for contempt of court, and immediately had her served with papers ordering her to personally appear in court to explain why she was a no show. Funny thing is, bm still didn't get it. Again she thought she could do whatever she wanted, and her attorney showed up for court, but she thought she would blow the hearing off too. The judge was so irritated with her, that her attorney had no ground with the judge. She was found in contempt of court for violating the parenting plan. The judge awarded us equal makeup time for the missed weekend added to our summer schedule, plus 2/3rds the attorneys fee (yes bm had to pay our attorney's fees for us taking her to court). Then, since we were already in court and we wanted to knock two birds out with one stone, we finalized summer schedule in court then too. And since bm didn't bother to show up, the judge gave us a better deal than what we expected to get...for summer we asked if we could have ss for 7 weeks, and bm would have him every other weekend, so that we could enroll him in summer soccer. And in exchange we would not ask for Spring break (normally they only do summers in 50/50 split). The judge said "7 weeks is a long time for a 6 year old to be away from mom...but them boys do love them sports. I will give you 6 consecutive weeks in the summer, mom get's only one weekend in the middle, and you get Spring Breaks too." Oh bm was so mad at us for not reminding her she had a court date...she said to dh "oh we're going to have to go back to court for that.." like as if she get's a "do over" b/c she shows up...
So yes they work..they work better when bm's are so dumb and don't show up to court...but they do work. And judge's know that bm's pull a lot of shit, and I have heard from others that it doesn't take a lot of "evidence" to prove to a judge of denying fathers their visits.
Just my experience...
We've had one blantently
We've had hubby's x blantently disobey a direct order from a judge to produce financial information...had her show up to court twice afterwards without producing them, resulting in an adjournment and rescheduled court date and again 'ordered' to hand over the information. After all that..Had the same judge conduct a conference call to her & and again 'order' her to produce the documents...... Direct, blantent defiance!!!
Guess what...no order of contempt from the judge!!!!!!!
So I don't know what you have to do to get one.......
That's what I mean about all bark no bite!!
Wow that is sad..
I wonder if it is the area you are in, or if courts (nationwide) really just don't care. Our bm was late on producing docs as well, and our attorney was getting ready to file contempt, and our attorney was confident that the judge was going to penalize her for not following through. She produced them at the very last available minute.
We had a good experience on filing contempt of court, but bm didn't show up to defend herself after she was served. So that could be the difference....sad...
The courts never seem to favor the responsible parent
I think you're right, there's a procedure we can follow but realistically they make it not worth your while so why bother. I thought about having a friend who's a lawyer draw us up a letter reminding her of the terms of the divorce and then I thought of pursuing a no-trespassing order as dropping kids off before the agreed time is a perceived invasion of my privacy. It all seems extreme and most likely futile so she basically gets away with doing whatever she likes. Very frustrating!!!!
Would it be possible for mom
Would it be possible for mom to drop the kids off the night before on these non-school days? At least they could sleep in in the morning, then, anyway.