M
MystiqueNJ
Guest
I was married, divorced and our child (who is almost 3)was born in Arkansas. I have custody of our son with my ex having visitation. In December, the courts allowed me to move with my son to New Jersey. They modified the visitation schedule to allow summer and holiday visitation for my ex, at my full expense. I realize it was my choice to move, but my ex is healthy and CHOOSES to only work a couple days at a fast food place, I am disabled and on fixed income. The offer I made was to either have him pay for expenses incurred for visitation in lieu of child support (he was only ordered $40 a week support and rarely pays it so it's not like our son would miss it) or we could each pay half. My ex only visited when it was "convienient" for him (maybe for 15 minutes every few months) when I was in the same town as him. But he is controlling and manipulative and I'm afraid now that I'm responsible for all costs, he might use his visitation to "stick it to me". His father immediately after this was ordered started figuring and telling me "Well if he drives there YOU have to pay for him to stay in hotels etc". This is how he and his family are..they don't do anything if it costs them, but they take what they can from others. Since we've been here, my ex called my new bf's parent's house collect on Christmas, then called once to see if he could claim our son on taxes (which I said no but he did anyway). There has been absolutely no contact since we moved into our new place Feb. 1 (other than the call I made to them to give new address/phone #). Our son doesn't even know his father or the family on that side because even in Arkansas, he rarely saw them unless I took him to them. Now my ex can get him for 6 weeks in the summer at my expense financially and our son's expense emotionally. I read something last night that said if the non-custodial parent didn't use their scheduled visitation, that it could be modified or even taken away? Is this true? What would I have to do??