Confrontations

Started by Whiteheron, August 30, 2019, 07:24:50 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Whiteheron

No call to CPS. Yet.

They will call the GAL though, which hopefully helps DS. Didn't see enough flags to warrant no time with stbx - since stbx isn't 'bad' 100% of the time, DS is usually ok with him. It's just when stbx is 'bad' he's really bad and it causes serious problems. A shame it's unpredictable.

They will also call stbx to tell him what he needs to do to have a safe house. If he doesn't listen to them, then maybe I have a little bit of ground to stand on. He doesn't like being told what to do and believes he knows best (claims kids know better than to touch his stuff, therefore he doesn't need to lock it up).
You can't destroy me if I don't care.

Being able to survive it doesn't mean it was ever ok.

hhaw

:: crossing fingers, toes and eyes for good progress, WH.::.

hhaw



What you are speaks so loudly in my ears.... I can't hear a word you're saying.

When someone tells you who they are... believe them.

"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."
Nietchzsche

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
Eleanor Roosevelt

Whiteheron

Adding to my Family Therapy post because I didn't want to hijack my own thread.

For now, custody will remain the same. New judge is big on not causing disruptions to the kids' schedules/activities/time with friends. Judge wants this to be as stress free for the kids as possible, so says we will go with what we've been doing for the time being. stbx has been pushing to get back on the old schedule asap (which included overnights), so I'm sure he's less than thrilled.

Judge agreed that DS's mental health is paramount and takes precedence over everything else.

Judge also agreed with us that stbx needs to keep DS on his health insurance until he's 25 no matter what. Judge essentially agreed that all the sticking points on the settlement agreement are frivolous. I am not responsible for expenses on the house stbx will be selling. There were a few others and the judge agreed with me.

My L says it's a great settlement agreement - the way stbx's L wrote it around custody is very vague, which she tells me benefits the kids. There will be no push to follow a timeline, or force overnights. If I disagree with something stbx proposes, I take him to court, since he won't be able to enforce what isn't written.

Only sticking point - I have to give stbx joint Legal custody or we go to trial. This would last until kids turn 18.
You can't destroy me if I don't care.

Being able to survive it doesn't mean it was ever ok.

hhaw

What do you think joint legal custody is?

What does your attorney say it means?

Do you have the power to make all medical and school decisions on your own?

Could this be a  stepping stone for PD to take you to court anyway, and ask for more more more, but WITH joint legal custody on his side?

hhaw



What you are speaks so loudly in my ears.... I can't hear a word you're saying.

When someone tells you who they are... believe them.

"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."
Nietchzsche

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
Eleanor Roosevelt

Whiteheron

It's medical and religious. Medical is my big concern. If I refuse and take this to trial, I risk 50/50 physical custody. The old agreement was 65/35. Right now it's even less.

Since the kids' wellness teams are in place, stbx can't refuse to let the kids see their doctors/therapists, etc. Anyone new would have to be jointly decided on. Until the kids are 18. My L is very doubtful I would get full legal custody even at trial. It's generally not done in my state. The kids' school is set and it's in the agreement that stbx will continue to pay their school costs (private) and their college costs. 

As of now, since it's not in the stipulation, we technically have joint legal custody. There are provisions in the mediation agreement that prevent stbx from trying to access the kids' therapy records - which was the major concern in the first place. If stbx starts denying medical treatment, I take stbx to court.

I will speak with my L about it just in case I'm missing something. We have a meeting to go over all of this next week.

Since court, stbx has been acting weird - almost nice, and joking through text. My alarm bells are clanging. IDK what's going on. DD just texted me from her dad's house and told me that his guns are still out in the open. I will have to tell my L, have her tell the GAL, I will tell the T and the new professional. IDK what else to do. He was told to make his house safe, he hasn't (I honestly didn't expect that he would), and now DD is anxious and worried abut her brother.
You can't destroy me if I don't care.

Being able to survive it doesn't mean it was ever ok.

Dear Abby

#65
What about calling the police, Whiteheron? If you have court papers that say he needs to have weapons out of children's reach, isn't that enough to stop it?  Until next time, then call the police again.  Will establish a pattern of dangerous behavior that may help in your custody trial.

When I can take some direct action against the constant victimization experienced at the hands of NPD/s, I feel better (for the moment, anyway).

athene1399

SO and BM have joint custody with SO as the custodial guardian. Their custody is also vague, "Visitation as agreed upon" which his L also said gives him the power to step in and say "I'm not comfortable with the overnights yet" and to start them up when we were comfortable (this was after a suicide attempt by BM). For a while we wouldn't allow SD over at BM's unless another adult we were comfortable with was there (Like grandma). BM was very willing to comply for some strange reason. Maybe she was afraid if she didn't, SO would try for sole custody? IDK.

The L advised us against going for sole custody becasue he felt it may have been difficult to keep becasue you can only use the evidence from the last court custody agreement to present. Since SO was still using the agreement from when they first separated, if BM took us back to court we could use anything she's done since 2012. Where if he got sole custody in 2016 (or whenever it was), and BM petitioned to change the agreement soon after, we could only use as evidence anything she did from the 2016 agreement on. So if this happened, we couldn't couldn't bring up the suicide attempts if SO won sole custody because those were before the newest custody agreement. I don't know if this varies per state though. Maybe ask your L.  Plus we had other factors that we felt would be against us. Like BM filed a lot of petitions that year so we were afraid once she felt better she may file again. And SD wouldn't say anything bad about BM to the law guardian, so we didn't have a lot of evidence about the verbal abuse to SD. There were two times SD called us to come get her and wouldn't talk about what happened. I feel you have more evidence on stbx's antics/bad behavior, so maybe this wouldn't be an issue. It's just something to think about (if it's how it goes in your state. I have no idea on that).

Maybe ask at the meeting what exactly your L means by the vagueness benefiting the kids. Ask your L if you can say something to stbx like "until the guns are put away, I am not comfortable with the kids visiting." He was told to make the house safe, and until it is you do not want the kids there. Maybe stbx needs to buy a gun cabinet with a lock and then show he's locked the guns up before the kids are allowed to visit. Maybe this is an option. IDK.

Penny Lane

WH, this sounds mostly really good.

I will say that in our situation, joint custody is by far not the biggest problem with H's parenting plan. BM is more functional than your ex to be sure. But my thought is that parenting time with her has a lot more detrimental effect on the kids than her ability to make decisions for them. And there are a LOT of important decisions to be made in the day to day - you'll be the one making those.

In my state I know you can have a provision that designates a final decision maker  if there's a disagreement between the parents. Usually one of the parents but sometimes even a third party. If you could get that into the plan, I'd have no qualms with full custody at all. And like you said, you can always take him to court. The sad reality is that you will likely end up in court anyway.