Change of custody question
So SS13 is looking at being sent to a different school because he is having trouble getting work done. We think he suffers depression, and he laments the time he spends with BM. She let him stay with us the entire summer, and utterly denies this ever took place. We think she is seriously insane. So we're wondering, (and we're gonna cross this with the lawyer tomorrow for sure) but, what's the worst that would happen is SS13 just refused to go home with her? He complains he isn't able to get his work done at her house, it's too crazy, he has no quiet space to work, she babysits little babies all afternoon, and has parties late into the night. He's been in physical altercations with her, we've had to call CPS on her several times...to no avail. He's called his law guardian who seems to favor his mother, and will do nothing to address this (despite her immediate response to SS10 not wanting to attend therapy anymore at DH's request, and therefore ending his therapy).
We've told him there's nothing we can do at this point to help him. We've spent $40K fighting custody with her, and that was to go from 85% DH to 50%, when BM was going for 100%. We told him he needs to tell someone about what is going on over there if he wants anything to be changed. He's ready to talk about it with the school psychologist. He has a therapist that's been pretty clear to stay the hell out of it.
I don't know. Sorry to ramble, but not really sure how to help him. DH was also diagnosed with lymphoma this summer. We find out this week if we got it all, and he's on FMLA, which means we have very little income right now. Ugh. I hate this.
Most states allow a child 12
Most states allow a child 12 or older to have a say in where they want to live. If ss13 absolutely refused to return to BM's I don't see how the courts would force him to return. The worst that may happen is that she'll hire a lawyer or ask the courts to enforce the CO. But that would only happen after she petitioned the courts and ss13 would be able to have his say alone with a judge.
SS13 has tried speaking
SS13 has tried speaking openly with her. She rages and punishes him for saying things like "I can't focus with you hovering over me like this." He wrote out an entire list of reasons he'd rather live with his dad, to be brought up in counseling with her, and she ripped it up, then called the police to force him to go home with her, right from the therapist's office. The therapist apparently spoke with her privately for a while, and she did not look happy when she emerged from his office. She's in a downward cycle.
You can stand in the way of a
You can stand in the way of a CO, people do it all the time. My exMIL ran custodial interference after I allowed my daughter to spend the summer with her. She kept my then teen daughter and enrolled her in school. I hired a lawyer, enrolled daughter and I in counseling but because daughter wanted to stay with grandparents there was little I could do. The police would not do anything unless they had an order from a judge telling them to return the child (teen). It wasn't until dd ran away with her boyfriend and caused lots of trouble in the grandparents small religious community that exMIL made dd come home.
It's a whole different ball game in family court once the child has a voice in the matter.
I would love it if this were
I would love it if this were true, except the fact that she is certifiable. She took it upon herself to email me to prove what a "liar" my husband is, because he mentioned the fact that SS13 lived with us for 5 months and never saw her (which is a semantics error, she took him out for his birthday, and to his therapy appointments, but did not stick to a call schedule, and never got to a point to work up a visitation schedule they had talked about, and it was more like 4 and half months), but why go to the trouble of bothering me with this, to prove what a liar DH is over semantics? Either way, she has to be nuts. How can we ask a kid to live with a person who is going to habitually punish him for nothing?