She put in 'step parents' to our parenting plan?

[Fatheroffour]

The wording is ridiculous in it's obscurity.

Each Parent and/or StepParent shall have the right to visit or interact with said child, while said child is not directly in the care of the other Parent.

Find someone that can tell you WTF that means and they have earned the everloving bejebus out of the $450 an hour they charged you.


The entire thing is ridiculous. "For said purposes a step parent is defined as anyone who's shacked up with someone else for a year."

No it's not. That's a boyfriend/girlfriend.


You can't argue with insane. She isn't getting that from you or a judge.

[Liverpool4evr]

Thanks -

Also, I know this is small but who should keep the child's passport? She has to travel to europe to see her family from both sides so we would both be taking her.

This is also in there -

Daughters passport should be kept with __________ and returned to ___________ upon return from the trip.

[Fatheroffour]

Run it by your attorney because I have no idea other than it sounds good.

You both agree to whatever amount of travel you want to overseas each year. Every other day the passport stays in a safety deposit box. You both agree that for every other day it goes without being replaced in the SDB, it's a 50 dollar fine and a contempt of court. The passport stays in a neutral place, both parents are on the hook and there's some specific method of enforcement with some teeth. Should be a win for everybody.

Just a thought.

[Thoughts?]

You need to put in wording that you both must be provided with an itinerary for any international travel at least X days ahead of time, and that neither party is allowed to take the child that is on a state department warning list.

Keeping the passport? Not sure overall circs, but by all means, if you don't ask for it, you won't get it, so ask for it. Do you have cause to fear flight risk of her? Or her the other way around? Use that if you need to.

[Thoughts?]

And on all that morality clause and step-parent wording, tell her to pound sand. It won't hold water, and it's not enforceable.

[Hopin4daBest]

You need to put in wording that you both must be provided with an itinerary for any international travel at least X days ahead of time, and that neither party is allowed to take the child that is on a state department warning list.

Keeping the passport? Not sure overall circs, but by all means, if you don't ask for it, you won't get it, so ask for it. Do you have cause to fear flight risk of her? Or her the other way around? Use that if you need to.

NJ butt-dialed me a few days ago. Think she was on her other phone with her sister, where she said something to the effect of: "It was nice having you visit with (S8, S1) in Texas."

This happened a few weeks after I found out by chance, that S8 was pulled out of school for a week (I had a gut feeling and called the school to check attendance).

I informed my lawyer of that, as well as the GAL. GAL ripped NJ in a status hearing in front of judge. NJ just yawned and rolled her eyes as judge told her she could lose custody if she keeps up the alienation.

Do I update the GAL of the butt dial, that my children may have been put on a plane and take across the country?

I'm in IL.

[NightSG]

The entire thing is ridiculous. "For said purposes a step parent is defined as anyone who's shacked up with someone else for a year."

No it's not. That's a boyfriend/girlfriend.

The truly odd part is that the other wording doesn't make any concession for marital status; just the six months or one year of "committed relationship." I've known plenty of couples who started successful marriages on less than six months of continuous, committed romantic relationship. (Usually, they had been friends much longer and/or had on-and-off relationships for some time before, but these presumably wouldn't count as "committed.") So, in theory, you could have a situation where the new spouse isn't even allowed to meet the kids until the "committed relationship" has gone a full six months, or stay over during parenting time until it's gone the full year.

If you can't get rid of the clause, I'd at least say get it entirely dependent on marital status rather than time for overnights, custody in the absence of the actual parent (this should be more like a ROFR situation; allow them to watch the kid for short periods, but not more than x hours) and pickup/dropoff. That eliminates exposing the kids to long term shacking up, at least.

[TransAm]

The Parents are restrained from making negative statements about other StepParent

This would be a deal breaker for me. I reserve the right to tell kids what a POS the OM is.

[Trevor]

Maybe you're joking, bandit, but talking smack to the kids about their mother or her f-buddies is bad advice.

[TransAm]

I can refrain talking smack about mom. But my kids are informed of what kind of crook, thief and a fraud SD is. That's simply my line in the sand.

Sorry to highjack. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.