Failure To Follow Order

[funnybabyboy200]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania

My ex & I have had a custody order in place since April 2012. I have primary, he has every other weekend & Wednesday evenings during the school year. During the summer, he has every Wednesday from 5pm until Thursday @ 5pm, & every other weekend from Thursday @ 5pm until Sunday @ 5pm.

He followed the order in April & May with a few exceptions.

Since June, he hasn't followed the order during any of his periods of visitation. He has switched things around the past 4 times he was supposed to have our son, either not taking him at all, or not taking him on time, last week taking him 2 days later than he was supposed to.

The first 2 times I didn't really say anything, but the last 2 times I expressed to him that I am frustrated with this because I have to keep changing my schedule to accommodate him. He feels that he can decide to take our son, or not, he can just decide based on whatever he has going on.

I told him that if he doesn't want to have him as much as he has him in the summer, he should file a petition to have it reduced officially. I told him that if he continues to fail to follow the order, I will file for contempt.

I want a concrete schedule that will allow me to not only have a social life, but will allow me to meet the obligations of my job. As it is, I have been cancelling plans & not being able to go in to work when I committed to doing so.

What is generally taken seriously as far as contempt? Should I file for contempt?

 

[Zigner]

You can't force him to utilize all of his visitation time.

So far, you have one instance of him taking the child for longer than the orders allow...and you seem to have agreed with it.

 

[funnybabyboy200]

He hasn't kept our son outside of his ordered time. He was supposed to have him from Wednesday through Sunday of last week, and he picked him up on Friday night, 2 days later than he was supposed to.

 

[breezymom]

Once again, as Zinger said:

You can't force him to utilize all of his visitation time.

 

[TheGeekess]

Find a good daycare to keep him while you're working and have a babysitter on call.

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania

My ex & I have had a custody order in place since April 2012. I have primary, he has every other weekend & Wednesday evenings during the school year. During the summer, he has every Wednesday from 5pm until Thursday @ 5pm, & every other weekend from Thursday @ 5pm until Sunday @ 5pm.

He followed the order in April & May with a few exceptions.

Since June, he hasn't followed the order during any of his periods of visitation. He has switched things around the past 4 times he was supposed to have our son, either not taking him at all, or not taking him on time, last week taking him 2 days later than he was supposed to.

The first 2 times I didn't really say anything, but the last 2 times I expressed to him that I am frustrated with this because I have to keep changing my schedule to accommodate him. He feels that he can decide to take our son, or not, he can just decide based on whatever he has going on.

I told him that if he doesn't want to have him as much as he has him in the summer, he should file a petition to have it reduced officially. I told him that if he continues to fail to follow the order, I will file for contempt.

I want a concrete schedule that will allow me to not only have a social life, but will allow me to meet the obligations of my job. As it is, I have been cancelling plans & not being able to go in to work when I committed to doing so.

What is generally taken seriously as far as contempt? Should I file for contempt?

As the others said, you cannot force him to utilize all of his parenting time, or have him found in contempt unless you have joint physical custody...which would make him responsible for his parenting time. There is a slight chance you could get a judge to order that he was responsible to find alternative care and pay for it if he does not utilize all of his parenting time, even without joint physical custody (I have seen that happen) but its really a slight chance. You also could possibly get his time reduced and get child support recalculated to take daycare costs into consideration.

Realistically though, you honestly cannot force him to use all of his time. You can only potentially make him financially responsible for the fact that he doesn't.

 

[CSO286]

For the other parent, parenting time is a right that he can choose to exercise.

For you, it is your obligation to see that the child is ready should the other parent choose to excercise their right to visitation.

This is one of the the joys of being the primary caretaker.

He is not in contempt if he fails to exercise his right to parenting time. Of course, after a suitable period of time, you can certainly file to modify the custody order to reflect the "status quo", so that the reduced time dad has been using becomes the new order.

 

[funnybabyboy200]

Thanks for the responses.