Crazy-making and control issues

mj · January 04, 2020, 09:31:28 AM

I have primary custody, he has access. Pick-up times are notoriously difficult. He requires me to wait 500 m away from his residence while he walks our child over, saying that I have "anger issues". The truth is that he has been arrested multiple times for DV and required to stay 500 m away from ME. I have moved past this as he doesn't pose a current threat to me and am attempting to be civil. He refuses to allow me to pick our child up from his residence and consistently shows up late. This means I am sitting and waiting for them to show up. It seems to be a way for him to hold onto control and be spiteful toward me for his previous arrests. Do I have a right to pick our child up from his residence? This would ensure the pick-up is timely.

Associate of Daniel · January 04, 2020, 01:26:53 PM

In my experience pickups at each others' residences has made no difference to the lateness.

I would stick with public places away from the residences as well.

It means possibly witnesses if there is an altercation and less liklihood of there being one in the first place.

Pickups/dropoffs are the pits. But as the children become older they can organise themselves to be there on time and even get themselves to the different abodes by public transport.

How old is your child? Perhaps pickups can be done at school, resulting in there being no need for the relinquishing parent to be there.

AOD

mj · January 04, 2020, 03:10:07 PM

Why does picking up at the residence make no difference? Isn't that generally preferred unless there are verbal or physical altercations? In our case, there are none. He knows better than to get arrested again. This was a false accusation of his and couldn't have been prevented by witnesses, as like I said, nothing happened. It was a complete fabrication. I'd like to side-step the crazy and just come up with a way of ensuring timeliness.

Poison Ivy · January 04, 2020, 05:20:03 PM

I don't know what to suggest that would ensure timely transfers. If you are allowed to pick up from the residence, your child's father can delay things by sitting inside the house and not coming to the door.

mj · January 05, 2020, 12:20:58 AM

The truth is I have terrible anxiety when it comes to picking up my child. He made a threat against him when he was still a baby and the fear that something that could happen has never left. I hate waiting at a half-way location or at my house for him to be dropped off. The waiting 5-10-20-30 minutes late without a text message leaves me with so much anxiety. I feel better when I'm at least driving. I know it's the illusion of control over a bad situation but there it is.

notrightinthehead · January 05, 2020, 03:29:21 AM

As the others have said, he might find another way to cause you anxiety. It might be a good idea to tackle your anxiety and learn to handle that.

Penny Lane · January 06, 2020, 02:19:33 PM

mj, chiming in to say that my DH picks up his kids from his ex's house (their situation is somewhat reversed as she refuses to meet in public). He is constantly waiting 5-20 minutes for them as well. It's long enough to be really frustrating but too short to call the police. Bottom line is there's very little recourse as maddening as it is. Do you have a court order that details handoff location?

athene1399 · January 08, 2020, 08:14:42 AM

We also picked up SD from BM's and would have to wait about 20 min. We would agree on a time the day before, then text when on the way, then text when we were there and still had to wait. I don't think there's a way around the wait. I just brought stuff for me to do in my car, like a Sudoku book. Instead of getting frustrated, I made it my time to relax while waiting for SD to come out. I didn't want to give BM the satisfaction of knowing we were upset with the wait time.

Penny Lane · January 08, 2020, 12:00:18 PM

mj I wanted to add ... we're not saying that you're wrong to be frustrated! I promise, everyone here gets that anxiety. Really. All we're saying is that changing the drop off place is likely to not solve this specific problem, unfortunately.

athene1399 · January 08, 2020, 12:52:53 PM

MJ,

You can always check with an L and see what you can do to get the pickup place to be moved to your ex's home. If he doesn't want you doing pickups there though, I would imagine that you'd have to go to court to fight to have it put in the agreement. But I am not sure. Our L made it sound that if both parties don't agree, we would then have to go to court over the issue.

I know when we ran into issues with BM, there was usually a third option that we didn't see at first. So maybe there's another option that your ex will agree to that will be good for your anxiety? And if not, there's nothing wrong with checking with an L to see what needs to get done so that you can have the pick up location that is better for you.

Maybe someone else has experience with changing the pickup spot?

pushit · January 12, 2020, 11:24:06 PM

What about documenting all of this (text messages to him "I'm here at X time for the exchange, are you here yet?") and then once you have a bunch of these have your L send a message to his L about it? I had a recent experience where an email from my L to her L brought her back into line after she violated our parenting plan. IME, exposing the behavior to the outside world usually helps. Good luck to you.