OK, so here is my issue and I will try to keep it short and sweet:
My daughter is 15, she lives with me through the week and goes to see her dad every other weekend. It has been like this for 8 years, but our custody shows my ex as primary custodian and me as secondary (though we have never adhered to court papers). Two years ago, my step son touched my daughter inappropriately (they are the same age). So, once I found out, I made great lengths to take care of it (my step son entered therapy, my daughter already goes, I quit my full time job to have a flex schedule to be home when she is here. I can’t very well get rid of my step son, I have had him since he was 2, he is my kid too. So I do all of this, and with the blessing of my case worker (yes my daughter told someone at school who told the counselor who told Children Services), my daughter decides she does not want her dad to know because she doesn’t want to make a big deal of it any more than she has to. I go ahead and do what she asks because I believe that it is her decision and it is less emotional stress for her. Two years go by and everything is great…until my ex finds out. He comes to my house, took my 15 year old out of here, blocked my number from her phone and blocked me from her FaceBook. I learned that he sent her somewhere for a rape kit (OMG), he has enrolled her in school in the county she is in (she is still enrolled here in my county), and I think he must want to punish me and my step son, but there is nothing he can do, I don’t think.
So what in the heck do I do now? Lawyer up? Is she old enough to choose? Go kick his a$$ (mine and my husband’s choice).
Did I make the right choice two years ago?
If I messed up some words, sorry cause I am distraught.
Assuming that this is all true, your ex took his 15 year old daughter to a hospital and told them that she was sexually abused over 2 YEARS AGO and they agreed to perform a rape kit procedure on her?!?
Yup. Lawyer up. You’ve got a court-approved arrangement that (presumably) does not allow him to prevent you from having any contact with your daughter. If your ex wants to change that to one that does [allow him to do that], make him get it through the court.
Possibly the best you’ll be able to get is a situation that requires you to adhere to the arrangement as written, but (still presuming here) that’s got to be better than letting him decide unilaterally to terminate your parental rights.
It’s plausible that he does not accept at face value anything the OP tells him about their daughter not having been touched inappropriately more recently.
More likely the ex left off the 2 YEARS AGO part and simply told them, “M daughter has been sexually abused.” Unless the 15 year old very forcefully refused to go through with a rape kit at that time, they will usually perform it under those circumstances.
My advice to the mother get a lawyer ASAP and gather as many documents as possible to support your side of the story.
I guess that you didn’t read the part where I have been the primary care giver for over 8 years now. I think he lost that “primary” title long ago. I don’t care if he trusts me or not, it is what my daughter wanted and I agreed to in order to lessen her stress.
Let me be clear, my step son touched my daughter, there was no intercourse. No rape kits were done two years ago and the case workers and law officials that met with both my daughter and step son both closed the case because they were both minors and I had the home secured.
No you said the court appointed him as the primary custodian, he let you, for reasons of his own, assume that role, when he discovered you had abused the role, he took measures to correct that mistake.
You may have been the primary caregiver, but you never got that changed, so in the courts eyes HE is still primary no matter who has been primary in actuality. I’d say you need a lawyer.
I am thinking that at her age, 15 almost 16, in my state they are allowed to chose with whom they live. I will visit the lawyer to confirm and get that ball rolling. I just hate that she is missing her school and activities here that she loves!
But isn’t it still legally binding? Isn’t mediation done in the hopes that people don’t go to court, and what is agreed upon there becomes the legal document filed with the courts instead of going before a judge and arguing and having them decide? Or am I off base with that?
