He has a decent relationship with his dad, but hasn’t spoken to his mother in a long time. One reason, among zillions, is that although he himself does not know where his child is currently living, his parents do. In the interest of not being cut off herself from her grandson, his mother has sided with his ex against him.
(He sees his son via his dad: BabyMomma drops off Kid, he’s notified and can come over and see him.)
And it’s actually the opposite, Bob. He describes his mother as extremely weak, cowardly, unable or unwilling to stand up for herself or anyone else. Also, he was 19 when he met BabyMomma, and who among us can say we were paragons of wisdom and perspective at that age?
Are you sure he deserves better? You aren’t in a relationship with him. You don’t know how he relates to women, not really. You’re only hearing HIS SIDE of the story. Not that she sounds like a wonderful woman or anything. But you have no idea what happens in a relationship behind closed doors.
There’s a reason the court didn’t grant him shared custody. Do you know why?
[armchair psych alert] It sounds like he learned terrible taste in women from his shitty role model growing up, and I believe he should stay single for a long time. Date around, sow some wild oats, have some fun. And get a better job asap.
ETA He married someone he met when he was 19? Christ, talk about terrible judgment. No surprise the relationship went down in flames.
Tell your friend this is what worked for me, a long time ago in a world so far away from the one I live in now. I have not moved but the world changed around me as I waited.
Kill her with kindness. Refuse to become an asshole of her making. You have quit the relationship, now you have to quit playing all the games that go with it. If you believe yourself to be a good man, as purplehorseshoe does, then be that good man in spite of whatever she throws at you. Do not dance at the end of puppet strings or you will make mistakes that will leave you wondering WTF happened.
Your son is in the middle of two people that will hopefully be in his life for all his life. Whatever the problems of the marriage were, he isn’t the cause. Don’t make it hard for him. Say nothing bad about his mother no matter what the temptation.
And finally I would tell your friend to take the long view of things. It may be unthinkable now but you may be picking your son up at the ex’s one day and having a beer with your ex-wife’s new husband and watching the game while he gets ready to go.
You might all be sitting together, you and your new partner and she and hers, laughing and crying at graduation some day.
You can’t do much about the behavior of your ex wife, but you can control your own behavior and let the air out of the “bad ex-husband” image she might want to cast you in.
And all along you will gain respect for yourself. Life is short, but the days are long, and things change. You cannot know what 5 or 10 years down the road will be like.
If I were his friend, these are the things I would tell him
Is his ex-wife independently wealthy? If not, how the hell did he let her get full custody with no visitation? Sounds like he didn’t fight to be the kid’s dad. I got no advice for someone that would let their kids go like that.
That’s a bit of an arsehole thing to say. There’s all sorts of things that might have fed into a decision to, as you put it “not fight to be the kid’s dad”.
From a lack of resources, to poor advice, to a decision that didn’t go his way, to a fear of conflict / losing to many more.
What, exactly, are you supposed to do to fight to be a dad? Is the John Q Public model enough? What about kidnapping? What about going bankrupt? How about a genuine belief that avoiding conflict is better for the kid in the long run?
Er… most married people I know married someone they met at that age or younger. The amount of relationships that have gone down in flames is quite low, even including those who are separated and have no intent to divorce. Most of them got married between 4 and 8 years after they started eyeing each other (which is not the same as “before they met”; some met in kindergarten). He met her when he was 19; he did not marry her when he was 19.
That said, I do agree with you in that he needs to figure himself out before he launches into looking for Ms Right again. And with Dallas’ advice. Also, how official is the arrangement to see the kid thanks to visits to Grandpa? I’d like to make as sure as possible that the ex wouldn’t have a little toe to stand on if she ever tried to use that as an excuse to cut Grandpa off.
Money is not the issue here. Unless the guy is a convicted drug addict or pedophile, most judges will grant regular visitation rights and even grant joint legal custody of the kids to a father. You don’t need a fancy lawyer to get what is considered standard parental rights.
Unless there’s more to this story than the OP has let be known, or that she may know, the father in this situation, just let his ex wife run right over him and he just stood there and let it happen. That’s not being a good dad.
The courts in some states are more biased towards mothers/against fathers than others. Also, the dude’s functionally homeless: he’s crashing on our couch. Even he himself has said that it’s better for the kid, for the time being, to be with her.
Of course custody is not the same as visitation. However, I find it hard to believe that this is the first divorce in the history of humanity where one parent isn’t seeing their child as often as they would like. Anyway, as I stated in the OP:
so advice about what he should HAVE done is rather unhelpful at this point.
Texas is not known as being extremely biased against dads.
I would advise him to see his kids as often as he can when they are at his dad’s. And that once he is back on his feet, that he get a lawyer and petition the court to get some sort of visitation.
ETA: and for the time being stay away from women. Work on getting his kid back in his life.
Step 1.
He should make an anonymous call to authorities that he thinks his ex is selling drugs and prostituting out of her house while his son is home.
Step2.
?
Step 3.
Profit!
This post should be taken as a joke as it was intended and in no way should anyone do what Step 1. suggests.
This is turning into a real problem for him, emotionally. He’s terrified of being replaced in his son’s life. (The boy is … eight, I believe.) If any divorced Dopers (or children of divorces) would like to chime in on that angle specifically, I’d be grateful. Of course the more time he spends with him the better - the problem is that he’s not getting to do that much right now.
He should call his ex regularly and ask if he can pick up his son and take him for the afternoon or evening, as often as he can. The worst that she can do is say “no”. If he asks enough times, she might say yes. And it shouldn’t be Six Flags type things, everyday type things. Going to the store. Getting dinner. To the library. Take him hunting or fishing. Enroll the kid in a Y sports league. Once school starts he can take his son to the local high school football games. These types of things are not expensive.
Absolutely. He should try and get his time with the kid any way he can, even if it has to be on BabyMomma’s schedule. Eventually, the grind of single parenthood is going to get to her, and she’ll wind up delegating to dad if she thinks he’s a suitable free babysitter.
The “Selfish Custodial Parent” does have a Achilles heel, after all. Might just take a little while for him to be able to capitalize on it.
Although, I do detect a hint of a big untold story - Why does the ex not allow him to know where she lives? That raises a big red flag in my book. (And not just the, “what a bitch!” kind of flag) Is the ex afraid of him for some reason?
I must have missed this earlier. Just because he doesn’t have physical custody and no visitation, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have parental rights. Those just can’t be taken away via a divorce, unless, again there’s stuff he’s not telling you. One of the rights as a parent, is to know where your kid is living, especially since he’s paying child support. He has a right to know this. I would have your friend contact the judge’s office that signed off on his custody arrangement and advise the judge that the kids mother will not reveal the kid’s whereabouts.