Suggestions on getting < parenting time > from STBX

[TJP123]

she had no intentions of giving her to me. that was just her first response. 5 minutes later she was on the phone with her lawyer and told me not to come to the house and i wouldn't get my daughter until after mediation/trial. i thought the same thing...i shoulda just taken her, i shoulda just taken her. but i spoke with someone tonight about it and they told me pretty much what i already knew. the only thing reliable about her is the ability to say one thing then do another. if i accomplished anything tonight, it was more evidence stacked against her, keeping a little girl away from a loving father who wants to spend time with her.

my immediate goals are to get a "mediation" appointment set up ASAP with the counselor we've been seeing since March. he is an independent 3rd party who is experienced in dealing with family issues, and we just need someone to sit down with and get us to hammer out an agreement. i don't know what the purpose is of spending $2,500 on a "mediator" who has never met us before and doesn't know anything about our situation to come in and help us agree on a custody plan, when it's something our counselor is very capable of doing. actually, i do know why...she wants someone new because he's known her well enough and seen her sporadic patterns of behavior so she won't be able to fool him like she would someone brand new. so immediate goal #1b is to get mediation set up, go ahead and let her deny it, and she can explain to the judge why she refused mediation (with the counselor she picked out back in March).

[jumbledone]

she had no intentions of giving her to me. that was just her first response. 5 minutes later she was on the phone with her lawyer and told me not to come to the house and i wouldn't get my daughter until after mediation/trial. i thought the same thing...i shoulda just taken her, i shoulda just taken her. but i spoke with someone tonight about it and they told me pretty much what i already knew. the only thing reliable about her is the ability to say one thing then do another. if i accomplished anything tonight, it was more evidence stacked against her, keeping a little girl away from a loving father who wants to spend time with her.

Whoa? So your taking your legal advice from her and her lawyer? Time to MTFU and get over to the house. Time to put the screws to her and paint her to be the unreliable, parent alienating one. You cannot allow this to go any further. You need to start showing up, demanding that your daughter has HER time with you. See, this isn't about you, or NJ. This is about the most special girl in the world - your daughter. What would you do if she was being harmed?

Now, think about it, her dad is being removed from her life. She's being harmed. Whatcha gonna do?

[TJP123]

i wasn't taking advice from her or her lawyer, just sharing what her response was. i.e., even if i said "sure, you can have her Sunday" 5 minutes later she would have told me not to come after talking with her lawyer. i called my lawyer as i was in my car, debating whether to go knock on the door or not. he said "i can't tell you what to do, but my advice would be to not go. she has already told you explicitly that you are not invited/welcome to the house and not to come. if you go there, she'll call the cops which is not going to look good for you."

and if i did barge in the house trying to get my little girl, what happens if there's physically a tug-of-war? my lawyer had 2 cases last week where that exact thing happened. i can't imagine that looks good in court, and more importantly i'm not subjecting my little girl to that trauma. or seeing her dad led away by police. there is something to be said for going to the house, MAKING her call the cops, then leaving when they ask me to, if for no other reason than to have it on record that i was there trying to get time with my daughter, AND because i'm sure her dad isn't thrilled about having cops roll into the driveway at his million-dollar lakefront home. but i can't risk putting my little girl in the middle of a potentially explosive situation like that.

my whole case rides on me collecting, documenting and showing patterns of reckless, manipulative, dangerous and unhealthy behaviors from my STBX, while at the same time making sure i'm acting in a stable, secure, sane and healthy way. i've got the counselor we've been going to willing to testify on behalf of "the truth", i've got her daycare provider willing to testify about how her actions are not healthy for the baby, and she's inconsistent/irrational/etc., i've got a video showing my wife blocking my car with hers in the middle of the road and taking the baby from me, all because daycare said she was sick and I was trying to take her to the doctor, and STBX thought I was trying to "take her" on a night that was hers. I've got her lying about taking her from daycare completely (which she did) because she can work from home (which she said), only to find out she's still been going to work, almost 90 minutes away, and taking my daughter to some crappy little daycare center there by her work.

everything she's doing is the complete opposite of what my lawyer is suggesting, or what i've read in books about trying to present yourself as the "stable" parent. it's like her actions are purposely trying to torpedo her argument for custody, and I don't want to give her a hand if she keeps tightening the noose around her own neck. But in the meantime it is completely unacceptable that she not let me see my daughter.

[jumbledone]

You are not barging into the house. You are showing up, with recorder, something, listening to talk radio where they announce the time and stories, etc. Which will timestamp it for you, and then you walk up to the door, ring the door bell. She checks through the door, and you say 'I'm here to see Sally', please send her out.

You may not get to see your little one, but you are putting your case together, that mom is unreasonably withholding daughter from you. There will be no yelling or screaming or barging from you, but a slow, calculated pace on continuing to try to see your daughter, and mom's refusal to send her over. Again, no 'confrontation' from you, as that will end badly.

Also, how much do you like your lawyer? Sounds a little too timid. If there are no orders, you have just as much right to kiddo as she does. Your lawyer should be encouraging you to see your kid any which way you can, and if possible, helping you design the traps that will get her in trouble for withholding your daughter from you. Should not be saying 'Do whatever you want.'

But if you are not doing everything in your power (legally) to see your child, it could be seen as acquiesence that mom is a good parent, tearing apart all of your other arguments. If mom is so bad, why did you allow daughter to stay with her?

there is something to be said for going to the house, MAKING her call the cops, then leaving when they ask me to, if for no other reason than to have it on record that i was there trying to get time with my daughter, AND because i'm sure her dad isn't thrilled about having cops roll into the driveway at his million-dollar lakefront home. but i can't risk putting my little girl in the middle of a potentially explosive situation like that.

And therein is the rub. You are a dad that doesn't worry about what the neighbors think, or what the cops think, only that you wanna see your little girl. Be prepared to meet the cops should she call them. It gives you a better timestamp than anything else, as long as you're calm and rational when they appear.

[Fatheroffour]

You are allowing mom to set the playing field and hoping the court will note how unfair it is and do something about it. I wish you the best of luck with this approach but unless she is batguano crazy or feloniously criminal I don't think the amalgamated experiences of this board hold out a lot of hope in that strategy.

The most likely scenareo is she will keep the kid from you until you get to the temporary hearing. You will point out how she has kept the child from you. She will hem and haw and maybe say how she was scared you would take off with the kid or something like that and the judge will issue a temporary order containing the < parenting time > schedule.

Statistically, that will have dad getting every other weekend with a mid-week visit on Wednesday which is about the worst case scenareo whether you irritate the judge or not.

[jumbledone]

FoF, starting to understand why you're brief and blunt. I try taking the soft approach...

TJP, ya gotta take action, some action. Being passive will not get you anywhere, but the EOW screwjob.

[TJP123]

Thanks for the response. What my lawyer has said (on several occasions) is basically "you're a man, you make your own choices so if you want to do XYZ, go ahead and do it. but as your attorney I'd advise against it because it's not going to help your case."

Timid? I don't know if that's the case or if he's more realistic. Case-in-point, I told him flat out, I think she's a bad mom, I think she's got mental disorders, she's yanked our daughter out of daycare, she's doing this, she's doing that." And he tells me that he'd be happy to file that on my behalf, and agrees with me that it is a sound argument, but I'm unlikely to win because the courts won't see it that way. And we can't even speed up our hearing because the courts won't let us because this doesn't constitute an "emergency", and if I want I can still file it, with court fees, the time he has to spend preparing and bringing it to the court and waiting, etc., I'm in it for another $2,000 or so, he just doesn't think that's the best "bang for your buck."

I actually just got off the phone with another attorney regarding the mediation my STBX says she is open to. I talked about things that have been going on and she kind of echoed the same things...I feel really sorry for you but there's nothing you can legally do. So for now I am just sending her emails every 24 hours to document that I am pleading with her to work out a custody arrangement with my daughter, and those emails go unanswered/ignored.

This latest attorney did give me some good insight...she said that my STBX's lawyer NEVER mediates, because it takes away how much he can bill his clients. And she said that usually the party he represents has a family member who is able to support her legal bills...for a while anyway, and then when the money runs out, he turns around and sues his clients for unpaid bills, and they are left to go find another attorney because he won't work with them anymore. class act.

[Fatheroffour]

FWIW, my attorney at the time told me the same thing.

My new attorney also ssaid similar things such as "I cannot advise you to...... " but he also followed up with "But if you do, this is what we would argue."

That's what made him a good attorney, IMO. We were both on the same page as far as knowing it was my case to win or lose and his to argue in the best possible way he could with the info and situation I gave him.



I have a question. Before mom yanked up the kid and moved away how involved were you in the day to day care of the child?

[TJP123]

When we moved back in November, I was working from home finishing up some files with my old company until Jan 1st. So Nov/Dec. I was staying at home with the baby all the time. When I went back to work, I would normally get her up in the morning, fed, dressed and off to daycare (STBX has a long commute and would leave early). I arranged for us to meet with the 3 daycare providers we met with. I do/did all the food-shopping, including buying kids food/snacks/etc. I think I'm a very involved dad. Which is why I think she's going off the deep end. She's terrified of being alone, being abandoned, and if she doesn't have the baby 24/7 she will feel worthless, hopeless and helpless. I've got countless pictures, videos from the past 2 years of me and my little girl. Moreso since we moved down here, because I'm trying to share them with my family that we just up and left so we can move down here to this shi...

I asked her back in April what she was going to tell our girl when she got older and asks why mommy & daddy aren't married anymore, and she told me "i'm going to tell her you were a neglectful husband and a horrible father." So I'm completely expecting that to come out again. She accused me as all this was going down (and before) how I don't spend time with her, we never did anything, she was alone with the baby all last summer while I was off doing other things, and golfing with friends, etc. It's all a complete distortion of the truth. If anything, I isolated myself from friends and did nothing but rush home after work knowing if I did anything else, she'd be wondering where I was, why i wasn't home, why I was so late, why I didn't want to spend time with her, etc. Part of the borderline personality disorder. I told her that if I played golf as much as she thought I did last summer, I wouldn't be shooting in the mid 90's and rocketing tee shots into the woods on a consistent basis. She told me that we didn't travel enough or do any fun family trips. I listed off all the family trips we've had since 2008 (trips to florida, cruises, weekend getaways to a culinary resort, different anniversary trips, etc., in ADDITION to all the trips we took to visit her family, usually 2-3X per year). She told me those don't count, we should be doing those every couple of months anyway, but she's talking about trips like our honeymoon to puerto vallarta. She expects that every year.

You asked about "batguano insane," if there were ever a case...I'm not a psychologist, but I've read enough lately and know her well enough to see she's got severe BPD symptoms, and narcissistic personality disorder symptoms. All these "facts" she has are anything but facts. They are her feelings, which she justifies by twisting the truth and distorting it until it fits what she is feeling.

The 2nd lawyer/mediator I talked with today said a couple of times listening to me recant some stories/actions "oh my god...i'm so sorry, that's terrible." Right off the bat. She was also able to look up my file with the court and saw the judge I have, and said that the judge is excellent, and won't put up with my wife's or her attorney's BS.

Sent STBX an email this afternoon, per her request, telling her that I have a 3rd party willing to meet with us to help get a custody agreement sorted out. It's the LCSW counselor we have been meeting with starting in March (haven't been for probably a month though). He said he'd be happy to help and feels qualified to be able to work with us. I know it's just a bluff on her behalf. It's just posturing by her and her lawyer to make it look like they are being reasonable and want to work things out via mediation, but I can't see how that will hold water when I find a licensed professional to help us and she ignores/rejects it. This is the counselor SHE selected back in March, no less. She met with 2 others, didn't like them, then settled on this guy.