ChiliPalmer
Member
What is the name of your state? WA
In reference to this thread:
I know the courts do not like to change an order for joint custody unless there is enough evidence to paper Highway 55 so please vet this for me. No sense in asking for the modification if there isn't enough to make the effort worthwhile. Case to date: order for joint legal and physical custody entered in 2001, father currently requesting major modification. My attorney believes he'll never get it past the adequate cause hearing.
The new stepmother interferes with the parent-child relationship (not sure if that is the correct phrase?). And I have it documented. Phone records showing calls from her cell phone to my house, up to six calls in a single day, when the children were with me. School enrollment forms where, in her own handwriting, she lists herself as the female parent/guardian with no mention of me, dated before she married the children's father. She attended the IEP meeting of my eldest child - no relation to my ex - without my permission or foreknowledge that she would be coming; paperwork from that meeting bears her signature. Further, for the requested modification that my ex currently has filed, she submitted a declaration in which the interference is spelled out by the stepmother herself. She refers to me only as "the woman who likes to think of herself as the children's "mother", says the children are now calling her "Mom" eight days after they went to visit their father for the first time in a year and outlines how she thinks she is more their mother than I am.
Mental instability. Last October I learned that the children's father is now an alcoholic, and the stepmother receives a Social Security check for which she has been deemed mentally incompetent to handle her own finances - her mother is her payee. Again, documented. Their father has served jail time for an alcohol-related wreck and now attends AA.
Financial instability. This one is harder to prove and I'm not sure the courts consider it even when amply documented. There was an original order for child support where the ex's income was stated to be imputed for voluntary underemployment. Since the seperation in '99 he lived with his mother and only moved out two years ago to move into a house owned by his new mother-in-law. He has never held a stable job though he has employable skills. He currently works as a handyman for his mother-in-law. The stepmother has never worked and receives a Social Security check which goes to her mother.
Hostility/Refusal to Cooperate. Eh, this one will be a stab in the dark - I don't think I have much, to be honest. After five years of joint custody, to which we agreed without court intervention, we're suddenly in a custody dispute for the first time. Because of the alchoholism and father's financial issues, we had agreed last March to a summer visit with their father and a return to me for the school year to give him time to get those issues straightened out (documentation: almost nothing. A lease DH and I signed in June '06 and good through June '07 with all the children's names spelled out.) I wasn't aware of it but he never intended to send the children home (documentation: declarations were being written by them within days of the children's arrival for the summer.) During the summer visit, they wouldn't allow the children to talk to me when I called (documentation: phone records where I called the house.) And last week I went to the school where the children's father had enrolled them, for an appointment with my eldest's (unrelated to ex) former teacher. Appointment was arranged by the teacher and I arrived at the time she requested but by the time I was leaving the ex had called the cops claiming I was there to steal the children, and that afternoon filed for a restraining order. Documentation: declarations from every school staff member I talked to, all confirming I had an appointment and made no effort to contact the children, plus his request for ex parte restraining order which lists cause as I will kidnap the children from school unless prevented from doing so.
Well, that's it. Is it enough for a major modification? I don't much fancy the idea, myself, but a dismissal of his request for modification will probably only see us back in court again soon after. It seems rather as if I'll have to get him over a barrel and make him cry uncle if I want to get things back to some semblence of mutual cooperation.
In reference to this thread:
I know the courts do not like to change an order for joint custody unless there is enough evidence to paper Highway 55 so please vet this for me. No sense in asking for the modification if there isn't enough to make the effort worthwhile. Case to date: order for joint legal and physical custody entered in 2001, father currently requesting major modification. My attorney believes he'll never get it past the adequate cause hearing.
The new stepmother interferes with the parent-child relationship (not sure if that is the correct phrase?). And I have it documented. Phone records showing calls from her cell phone to my house, up to six calls in a single day, when the children were with me. School enrollment forms where, in her own handwriting, she lists herself as the female parent/guardian with no mention of me, dated before she married the children's father. She attended the IEP meeting of my eldest child - no relation to my ex - without my permission or foreknowledge that she would be coming; paperwork from that meeting bears her signature. Further, for the requested modification that my ex currently has filed, she submitted a declaration in which the interference is spelled out by the stepmother herself. She refers to me only as "the woman who likes to think of herself as the children's "mother", says the children are now calling her "Mom" eight days after they went to visit their father for the first time in a year and outlines how she thinks she is more their mother than I am.
Mental instability. Last October I learned that the children's father is now an alcoholic, and the stepmother receives a Social Security check for which she has been deemed mentally incompetent to handle her own finances - her mother is her payee. Again, documented. Their father has served jail time for an alcohol-related wreck and now attends AA.
Financial instability. This one is harder to prove and I'm not sure the courts consider it even when amply documented. There was an original order for child support where the ex's income was stated to be imputed for voluntary underemployment. Since the seperation in '99 he lived with his mother and only moved out two years ago to move into a house owned by his new mother-in-law. He has never held a stable job though he has employable skills. He currently works as a handyman for his mother-in-law. The stepmother has never worked and receives a Social Security check which goes to her mother.
Hostility/Refusal to Cooperate. Eh, this one will be a stab in the dark - I don't think I have much, to be honest. After five years of joint custody, to which we agreed without court intervention, we're suddenly in a custody dispute for the first time. Because of the alchoholism and father's financial issues, we had agreed last March to a summer visit with their father and a return to me for the school year to give him time to get those issues straightened out (documentation: almost nothing. A lease DH and I signed in June '06 and good through June '07 with all the children's names spelled out.) I wasn't aware of it but he never intended to send the children home (documentation: declarations were being written by them within days of the children's arrival for the summer.) During the summer visit, they wouldn't allow the children to talk to me when I called (documentation: phone records where I called the house.) And last week I went to the school where the children's father had enrolled them, for an appointment with my eldest's (unrelated to ex) former teacher. Appointment was arranged by the teacher and I arrived at the time she requested but by the time I was leaving the ex had called the cops claiming I was there to steal the children, and that afternoon filed for a restraining order. Documentation: declarations from every school staff member I talked to, all confirming I had an appointment and made no effort to contact the children, plus his request for ex parte restraining order which lists cause as I will kidnap the children from school unless prevented from doing so.
Well, that's it. Is it enough for a major modification? I don't much fancy the idea, myself, but a dismissal of his request for modification will probably only see us back in court again soon after. It seems rather as if I'll have to get him over a barrel and make him cry uncle if I want to get things back to some semblence of mutual cooperation.
