Good evening. I'm back again with some related questions. I apologize in advance if this gets long. I will use white space and bullet point as much as possible.
When I posted originally it was only about our 11 year old son. We also have a 17 year old daughter. I didn't mention her before bc my ex was only asking for custody of our son. That has now changed. She has not filed at this point but is apparently talking to an attorney. And she sent me a 6 page document that she apparently sent to him about why custody should be changed. I'm guessing she sent it to me to scare me. In my opinion it's 6 pages of toilet paper, but I would like seasoned opinions. I won't subject you to 6 pages of crap. I'll just hit the high points. She is saying that she wants custody of both children. The 17 year old does not want to move to TX. She is a junior in high school and wants to finish high school here and go to college here.
My exwife claims that my wife and I have told the 17 year old that we will be kicking her out when she finishes high school because my wife is pregnant and we need the room for the baby. This is not true. We've never said any such thing. Now onto her reasons.
1.. Son's grades. We've talked about this before. He is most likely not going to fail this year. He's been working with a private tutor and has improved his failing subject from a 63 to an 81 average. As long as he gets a 74 for this final term he will pass this year.
2. My wife.
A. Exwife claims that my wife is bipolar and should be on medication. This is not true. Not even sure where this came from.
B. Exwife claims that my wife and I fight all the time. We've had arguments, yes, same as any other married couple. Exwife claims that my wife and I seperated for 6 months last year. We did seperate, but only for about 2 months. And the point of that seperation was never to get divorced, but only to gain some space and perspective. Which we did.
C. Exwife also claims that my wife's 12 year old has mental problems and has been hospitalized for them and is autistic and bipolar. Yes, my step-daughter is autistic and does suffer from emotional problems. She is in special ed classes in school and is on medication. Are my step-daughter's emotional disabilities even relevant?
D. She claims that my wife is a crazy driver and she would love to see my wife's driving record. My wife is a home hospice nurse and drives about 90% of the day. Her driving record is checked by her employer every 6 months. She has 1 ticket in the last 5 years. For speeding in 2013. It was actually work-related and the kids were not with her. She also claims that my wife texts and drives, which is not true. How do I prove a negative?
E. She claims that my wife has set up a program on the 17 year old's cell phone in order to read all texts and emails between my exwife and the kids. Again not true. About 3 years ago I asked my wife to put a monitoring app on the 17 year old's phone because she was hanging out with questionable people and got caught sneaking out in the middle of the night and I wanted to monitor her communications. Once she gained my trust back it was removed and has not been on her phone for about a year and half.
F. She claims that my wife grounds the kids if her name is even mentioned in our house. This has never happened. Ever.
G. She claims that my wife bought the 11 year old the video game Grand Theft Auto. She didn't. I did. Yes, I let him play it as well as Call of Duty, but only with me. Isn't this my right as a parent?
The rest is just random things thrown in. I'll try to be brief.
- We don't take the kids to get haircuts. Not true. The boy was shaggy for awhile. He always had a buzz cut and wanted to grow it out. I didn't like it but I allowed him to do it. It wasn't hurting anything.
- The kids supposedly always tell her that we have no food in the house. Complete lie. We spend roughly $900-1000 per month on groceries. There is always plenty of food in this house. It may not be what they want, but it's here.
- That we never cook for the kids and make them cook for themselves 3-4 nights per week. Not true. Some weeks my wife or I cook every night. There are weeks that we both have to work a little later or take the 11 year old to tutoring and dont get home until almost 8:00 that yes we tell them to fix something for themselves.
There are additional stories about how my step-daughter tried to get my son to steal a phone charger that someone had left in a doctor waiting room...never happened. Also a story about when she came into town at the last minute one time and wanted the kids. I told her she could have them for a few hours but I needed them back by 5:30 as we already had family dinner plans that had been in place for well over 3 weeks. Blah blah blah. After we had picked them up, those plans fell through because of a death.
That's pretty much the gist of why she wants custody. Opinions please? Thank you for reading all of that!
Editing to add some additional info I forgot.
She also mentions as a reason to change custody that my pregnant wife continues to smoke while pregnant. How is that at all relevant to custody of children who are not my wife's. Yes, she is smoking. But she used to smoke a pack a day and now only smokes 3-4 cigarettes a day. Her OB is fully aware of this and told her to try to stop completely but not to stress too much because the stress would be worse for the baby than the smoking and that if she at least cut back that was better than nothing.
Also a few "negative" points about my exwife. Not sure if they are relevant or not.
- She drinks 2-3 glasses of wine per night. She has admitted this in email to me when I expressed concern after the kids came back from a visit telling me that "mom drinks A LOT."
- She is not married and lives with her boyfriend of 1 year. I really don't care about it, but if a judge might care then maybe it should be brought up.
Thanks again!
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