Unable to call my daughter

[lindsayilene]

Children's Rights! Right on! That's what I am talking about!

Thanks for the info.

I am digging Gonwin's suggestion.

Running that one by her Dad. Hopefully he will agree, because I detest court proceedings.

Thanks again.

 

[stealth2]

I can't believe you are limited to the number of calls you can make while she is with her dad!!! Do you limit the amount of times your X calls your daughter??? Do you limit how many times your daughter calls her daddy???

I am. One phone call a week during the summer (weekend visits, I'm allowed no phone calls). If they are not home, they'll call me back - I am not permitted to place more than the one call. That call is limited to 5 minutes for both kids. Over 5 minutes? Dad is allowed to hang up - and he has. Phone calls are proscribed to only the children's activities in the past week. They are not to ask/discuss anything I may have done, nor am I permitted to mention any other family members.

Why? My ex feels that the kids should have no contact with the other parent. So when they're with me, he will not call them. Therefore, I should have no contact with them when they're with him.

When they're with me? There are no restrictions, beyond that we don't answer the phone during dinner or if it's an unidentified called. Otherwise, the kids can call or take calls from Dad anytime.

 

[AmIUnreasonable]

I had a similar problem. My kids go to their moms thursdays at 5pm until mondays at 5:30 am. I went months trying to call the kids on the weekend to see how fridays went at school and just in general how they were doing. I never got through. I told my x that she could have them return my call whenever she found the time but to no avail it never happened. My kids would come back saying mommy turned her cell off (the only number i had for a long time) because "the annoying one called." I went to the judge to ask for a phone order and even stood in court and said that my x could pick the times i called or whatever would make her happy. the judge told me she would not make a phone order because it was my way of controlling things. Controlling things??? That is rediculous. What is wrong with 10 minutes out of the day???? She litteraly said that if she made a phone order and the x had an emergency and needed to run out and get milk, i could use it against her. I told the judge yet again that the x could pick what ever time she liked and the judge stopped me and said NO! so much for trying to keep both parents active in the kids lives. Now i dont even try and call the kids on the weekends because in reality, it gives the x pleasure knowing i want to talk to the kids and she doesnt have to let me. BUT i will not play that game, if she calls for the kids when they are with me, the kids ALWAYS return the call. I have told the kids that the polite thing to do when someone calls for you is to return the call.

 

[Gonwin]

Stealth/AmIUnreasonable

That's unfortunate that your X's have to be so petty. Stealth - your kids must feel horrible when he hangs up on you - how rude!!! You're clearly the bigger person(s) in allowing your X's to call whenever they please. Your children will remember that...

 

[lindsayilene]

Stealth

I cannot believe that you agreed to that! That is some unreasonable ish!

My daughter asks to call her father, but she can't because I do not have his phone number. He never calls her either.

 

[stealth2]

I cannot believe that you agreed to that!

I didn't - he convinced the judge that it was disruptive to his parenting time to have the kids talk to me. All those subversive topics we discuss, you know. Like baseball.

 

[stealth2]

Nope, he's not.

 

[caligirl73]

How sweet ex's are

I have a similar situation. My ex has vistation with my daughter every other weekend, but he does call her on the weekends and during the week when he does not have her. Our court order states, "open telephonic access for each parent". It does not give certain times to call, or how long the child can or cannot be on the phone. I dont like that my ex calls as much as he does when he is not with her, but I dont stop him from calling though. However, when she is with him for the weekend, I do not call unless God forbid I absolutley had to. Even then, he has caller ID and wouldnt always answer his cell phone if he and his new wife knew I was calling. I dont have his work number and the only reason I have his new home phone was I copied it off of the child support check he sent me. He has my work, cell and home phone numbers, I do not keep that from him. I do rely on email more than calling sometimes, but even then he does not answer his email, his wife does. How convienient. I have even asked him not to call my cell phone to talk to my daughter, because he is not paying for my minutes that he is using! I have asked him to call my home, when he knows my daughter is home after 5pm. on the weeknights.
I cannot believe that the court would limit a parent to 2 phone calls at how ever many minutes a piece. That is ridiculous!!!

 

[SMURFEELAW]

This may be a little off the subject, but I just recently posted that my fiance could not get a hold of his daughter because the exs' phone service was cut off. We don't call very often once a week usually to see how she is doing. We have always been careful not to tell her she's missing out on things here and we tell her we miss her but not overwhelming. We ask if she has been good and listening to mom and what she's done (like go to park/friends house). Then we get off the phone. CP on the other hand use to call about three times a week and grill the child. Are they being nice to you? We are going to the park too bad you aren't here? Do you miss me? Are you happy? Is anyone mean to you there? The child would flat out refuse phone calls from mom but (although we hated to do it, because the child would become very distatant for about an hour afterwards) NCP would put the child on the phone to at least say hi then he would try to steer the conversation for her. Tell mommy what you did at nanas and that kind of thing. We finanlly got smart and got a speaker phone. The child is almost five and thinks the speaker phone is soooo cool. now Cp doesn't call at all when we have the child but it only took once knowing she was on speaker to stop the questions. Also we just don't answer the cell if we are at home. On the voicemail gives out the home number to try us at. Hope this helps anyone who has had to deal with an ex causing problems on the phone.

 

[MBMom]

Smurfeelaw

That sounds just like my ex! We're in different states and he's fighting to keep my son (5) in Oklahoma. My son is currently with me here in California, but up until a little over a month ago, my son was with him for a while. I called all the time to speak with him and always made sure to never say anything to make him feel bad or like he was missing out on anything (he has a 2 yr old brother here). If he asked about things like, "When can I go there and go to the beach?" we'd tell him that he would get to go when he came, but we always tried to steer the conversation more in a way to make him excited about what he DID get to do while he was still in Oklahoma. We never grilled him about things because he smart enough to know what's going on and the last thing we wanted to do was put him in the middle.

On the contrary, since he's been here, his dad will call and ask question after question. I started the same thing....putting him on speaker phone. My ex STILL questions him non-stop. What bothers me most is when my son is trying to tell him about something he's excited about and my ex will interrupt him to grill him some more about things. Who? What? When? Where? How long? I can understand if he had worries because of something I've given him a reason to be concerned in the past, but I've never done anything or give him any reason not to trust me. He does this in hopes of finding more things to build his case for our upcoming trial.

Needless to say, it's gotten to the point where my son can't stand to talk to his dad for more than a couple minutes. I wished he'd realize how fast he dampens my son's spirits when he starts in with the questions. When I tell my son it's time to call his dad, he says, "Not again!" He even begs his dad if he can get off the phone, but my ex will either give him a guilt trip, "Why? Don't you want to talk to me...Why?" and if that doesn't work, he'll say he's buying him a new toy. And obviously that would excite my son. But, of course, each time I say anything to try and make him understand what he's doing, I'm slapped with lies that he tells his attorney - I'm trying to interfere with his time and relationship with his son.

 

[SMURFEELAW]

Mbmom

Sheesh your ex is a dandy! His ex was afraid because (even though it didn't help in court) my fiance mentioned the PAS (parent alienation syndrome) and in this state you can record calls so we informed her that the calls were being recorded. She backed off. I honestly don't think that PAS would even apply to this situation exactly but she got scared. Check the laws in CA, I think you can record(????) be sure to check first but then go ahead and do it, or don't do it and tell the ex you are. I would also write him a registered letter make a notarized true and exact copy for yourself explaining to your ex what the phone calls do to your son and that you think it affects him negatively. Then when he continues to do it you have on tape that he obviously doesn't give a crap about the effedt it has on his child. Good luck even with all of this the court may not hear it. Keep up your end though because the child will remember who treated him unfairly (for lack of a better word) I know I still remember talking to my mom when I was at my dads and she would make me feel so bad I would tell my dad I wanted to go home and that if he didn't let me mom says he doesn't love me. Mind you dad was in FL Mom was in AZ. It was terrible, I got over it but I remember and make sure that does not happen to my SD.

 

[MBMom]

That's a good idea. I'll put it in writing! I've already written him two other letters and sent by CRRR. Guess I'll just keep it up.

I can't believe this is what it has come to. Grown adults raising children and communicating by way of letters just to cover your own a**. The odd thing is is that I believe he's taping all of his conversations not really thinking about what his own "evidence" will show about him. Guess I'm not the only one that has to put up with the "mistakes" we meet and chose to get involved with.