Hi
Ive got a boy who will be two this summer, his father and i were in a very brief relationship which i ended before i found out i was pregnant. i was hesitant to tell him about the baby but felt he had a right to know and told him. every week i would either get nasty messages about how horrible i was and that he was going to take me to court or messages saying how sorry he was and how much he wanted to be part of the babys life. after a month or two of this i cut off contact and ignored every message or call until my boy was born. he was told the day after i brought him home from the hospital and came to see him. that day we told him he could see milo whenever he wanted provided he give 24 hours notice. we did this because of his 3 on 3 off work rotation. he was incredibly inconsistent coming sometimes 2ce a week than not calling for a month. when my boy was 9 months old i took him to germany to meet his great grandmother, only my name is on the birth cirtificate so taking him out of the country was no problem. i didnt tell the father because i knew he would serve me with papers preventing me from going. we stayed the summer there and offered to skype and sent constant updates and photos to which we heard no reply. upon our return we told him we were back and he picked up with visits just like before being very inconsistent. he asked to have more frequent visits like it was us who were preventing that from happening. we said we would like to keep it to around 2ce a week. this worked ok (sometimes it was once in 2 weeks) until xmas when i took time out of my plans to bring milo to his dads sisters house for 2 hours before having our own family dinner. everything went fine and nice until his dad walked me out to the car and served me with a paternity test with so many lies in the affidavit it made me laugh. i have never denied paternity so it just seemed like a waste of $ to me. more than 2 weeks later he texted saying he wanted a visit. i wrote him an email saying that i no longer felt comfortable with visits until everything was in writing. in february the paternity test was done and on my way out of the doctors office was served with an order to appear in court only 7 days later. living in a small town that gave me no time to find adequate legal advice and i ended up in court with duty council and was unable to show anything i had against him because it had not been "sworn". he was asking for joint custody and guardianship to progress to 50/50. he wanted 2 8 hour days but since i am still BF the court rule 3 3 hour days. he has been late for payments and has canceled with and with out notice around 30% of his visits over the last 4 months. last week he asked if we could switch from a 3 on 3 off schedule to a 4 on 2 off schedule. i thought about it and realized he would be taking milo 5 days a week instead of 4 if we switched and i would be stuck for the whole summer unable to make any real plans with my son. so i very politely declined. he snapped and told me he would take me back to court asap and that if i left town he would call police. i told him that it was what he had fought for and what he had got. i then told him he had 15 minutes to tell me if he was still showing up to pick up milo to which he replied to over half hour later. he came anyways and i told him that the visit was canceled as i had already made plans (to go out of town to get legal aid) he said he was going to call the police on me and left. the police never showed up and i have now applied for legal aid (hoping to qualify considering constant threats of court even though he knows i dont have the means, like his 45K job, to pay for a lawyer)
i dont know exactly what im asking here. im worried that if i dont get legal aid he will bring me back to court and somehow come out on top. there was only a temporary order so far and i want to fight back for sole custody of my boy. the thought of handing him over for so much time to someone who is so manipulative and constantly lies makes me want to cry!
Single Moms Forum » Divorce and Custody
3 months and back to court
(2 posts)-
momofmilo
MemberPosted 1 year ago # -
samchic04
MemberFirst, the police don't like to get involved in family disputes unless there is physical violence happening. So far, I have seen nothing stating that he shouldn't have 50/50 custody with you (Sorry!)--he has not physically abused your son or you. Cancelling his visitation or not paying his support doesn't affect his custody standing like most people think it does. You can go to the judge and request that he be held accountable for back-pay, but the judge can't really MAKE him show up and visit. He can threaten to shorten the visitations, but other than that, there isn't much he can do. NOW, if you can catch him in his lies--then you'll have some goods! Like I've advised other single mothers, pictures and documents! If you can record phone conversations or keep texts or emails or whatever, this could be helpful. Don't keep just the bad ones though, you have to establish a pattern of communication altogether. If you just keep bad ones of things HE's said, it will look like you're directly attacking him. When you talk to him, keep your voice/text calm, don't swear, lash out, accuse, anything. Let him hang himself!
Posted 11 months ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.