[quote=“Edward_The_Head, post:20, topic:637910”]
You are probably right that a lot of guys don’t care,QUOTE]
Absolutely. But we’re not talking about them in this thread. TruCelt and Cinnamon Imp you’re free to start all the deadbeat dad threads you want. This thread isn’t about those guys.
My farrier is a guy who begged for visitation with his kids. The son would rather sit at his mom’s and play video games - the mom’s response is “I can’t make him go to your house”. The daughter would rather hang out with her friends. Meanwhile, the ex-wife had a baby by another man, then went to court to have his child support increased. The courts look at the number of children living in the home, not the children he’s required to pay for. He went to court to get visitation enforced, and the kids went with him to family therapy. It took several years, but now the kids are spending time with him and the son has asked to move in with him.
Another friend of mine literally bankrupted himself to get full custody of his kids, including one that wasn’t his biologically. The wife had them in all kinds of bad situations. Even her parents said she was unfit.
StG
That is when you are going through the courts. In my experience with other divorced dads is that even if you can avoid getting hosed too badly by a system that favors the mothers, there are many, many, ways that mothers (who generally get primary custody) can interfere with their childrens relationship with their father. Some have been mentioned upthread, like scheduling activities mostly during the fathers time with the children, simply “forgetting” constantly, or actively poisoning the children against the father. Good luck trying to fight any of these passive-aggressive methods in (the already biased) court system. My friend is out six grand in lawyer fees, and he still hasn’t seen his kids in months. He’s one of the most honorably men I know too, he won’t even consider withholding the child support checks to gain leverage.
Note that I’m not saying that this is representitive of all divorces. I’m not defending dads who don’t want to be involved in their kids lives. But the social stigma of being a “dead-beat dad” exists. There is no social stigma towards these women pushing the fathers out of their kids lives.
A question for Edward The Head, Scumpup, and other guys who go through this: what kind of recourse do you have, if any? I’m lucky enough to know exactly zero about this stuff, but it seems to me that at least some of these actions, like scheduling activities during visitation times or requesting early returns, should be considered a violation of the custody agreement. And even something like refusing to meet halfway or alternate driving seems like it could be considered, I don’t know, a lack of a good faith effort or something. Is this something you could take up with a family court judge?
Just to be clear, I’m not trying to blame the fathers (or mothers) in this position for not fighting hard enough for their parental rights. On the contrary, I’m saying they shouldn’t have to fight, because what their exes are doing is wrong, and it shouldn’t be permitted.
ETA: I see Mithrander has already addressed this a bit - and that sucks for your friend; I’m sorry. I’d still be interested to hear from others as well.
And how many hours of laundry did you do that week? Meal prep? Soccer practices? Do you really think that driving even begins to compare to the parenting effort that she puts in?
I’m not arguing that these women don’t exist - I’m just saying that most of the anecdotes (vice personal experience, which I don’t question) being shared are dubious IMHO.
And HofD has nailed it. If I did any of this crap you all are describing I’d be in jail before the week was out. The courts are fairly well serious about Custody and Visitation Orders, and will yank custody in a second if one parent is shown to be “alienating” the other.
Basically, you can go back to court. That, of course, is a somewhat less than instantaneous solution to the problem. Then, too, there is the problem of actually enforcing any court orders. Local police might deign to get involved if you are a custodial mother and your dirty rat-bastard pervert of an ex has “kidnapped” the children. If you are a non-custodial father and your ex decides to take the kids to visit great-aunt Edna on your visitation day, the po-po aren’t even remotely interested. Sheriff’s office, as an arm of the court, should handle these things; but they are too busy serving papers, transporting prisoners, and such to give a shit that daddy isn’t getting his week-end visit with his daughter.
As for the appointments, classes, etc. on my time, all she has to do is shrug and smile and say that those were the only days those things were available and that the child wanted to be in Saturday lacrosse and Sunday church group.
There is other passive-aggressive bullshit, like perpetually being unable to meet me at the court-specified meeting point, for which there is basically fuck-all in recourse.
The deck is stacked in the mother’s favor. yeah, you can go to court and give your lawyer another $10k for the satisfaction of hearing the judge admonish your ex and hear her give an insincere promise to do better in the future, but I’ve been down that road before. It’s a poor use of resources.
Just one snippet of my brothers situation. His ex told him he couldn’t have the two kids for the weekend because his apartment only had one bedroom. His idea was that the kids would sleep on his bed and he would bed down on the couch. He had to get a two bedroom place. How did he do it? Well it turns out he was paying far more in child support than the law required, so he started paying the minimum required and spent the rest on rent.
Good news - the bigger kid is coming to live with him permanently now.
Rubbish.
You know what? As a teacher, I’m off all summer and have my daughter with me for however much of it my ex doesn’t manage to chisel off of me. So I know about the laundry and meal prep and all that. Here’s the thing: I have to eat and my clothes need to be washed and what have you when my daughter is not here. Those things are not notably more laborious when my daughter is present than when she is not. Do I think that driving begins to compare? Yes, actually I do. With gasoline at nearly $4 a gallon and a 1+ hour drive each way, I absolutely fucking well do think so.
The passive-aggressive bullshit with the classes and such doubly offends me because the ex doesn’t seem to have a problem with making our daughter spend the whole week-end sitting in a car going back and forth from A to B as long as she (the ex) succeeds in breaking one off in me.
I’m not playing this game. My children are young, 6 and 4. She does nothing for them for “soccer” practices, either her parents come get them or they just don’t go.
You have any proof of this? I mean real proof? I live in Maryland, not far from you from your location, the courts are slow, and really what can one do? They are not going to see us because she asks for them a day early. We’re not talking about just total lack of giving visitation, it’s little things here and there. That’s what happens, and sooner or later some guys just give up. It sucks, but I’ve been there.
As for what I can do about it, I have mediation as the first thing I have to do, if we can’t agree there then we can go to the courts. We’ve been twice and it seemed like a waste for me.
Totally incorrect.
My Ex has violated our agreement more times than I can count. I’ve begged police in another state to try and serve her for disappearing with the kids. Not find her. I had to do that on my own. Not arrest her. No way were they going to ever do that. Just serve her the motion I had filed to request the court enforce the agreement. Only to have them tell me that, “Mothers can’t kidnap.” And that they had real important things to do. And I needed to back off. Lord forbid I request that the police actually enforce a court order. If I had walked off with my kids and provided no contact information, there would have been Amber alerts and SWAT teams. She does the same. The police wouldn’t investigate. They wouldn’t arrest. They wouldn’t prosecute. They wouldn’t even serve a notice.
This year alone I spent $40,000 odd dollars in lawyer and court fees. Only to be told that my unemployed, homeless, felonious (she had just plead to a domestic abuse charge) ex would keep primary residential custody because “she was trying.” Whereas when she made up a fear about me being suicidal, the court refused to enforce our decree because of concerns about safety. To even get basic visitation required months and eventually my ex gave it to me. I’m not sure the court ever would have.
The courts are totally stacked against fathers. They are improving. But if you think both parents are equal before the law in the US, you are sadly mistaken.
Despite the naysayers, my husband went through this with his ex. She was pissed off that he divorced her and used their son as a pawn to exact revenge. And just like most of the others here are sharing, the police did nothing to prevent her from being in violation of court orders. Hell, sometimes they would be called and she would flip off my husband behind their back. She knew the situation made him powerless. He lost more visitation time then you’d believe, didn’t get informed of any functions my step-son was in and used any help that was offered to her benefit, not the child. She was a vile, inhuman creature throughout his childhood. The only positive thing I can say, is though we never once uttered a bad word about the woman to him growing up, her reprehensible behavior in general became apparent to him as he’s aged. Now, he sees her for what she truly is and adjusts his interactions with her accordingly. Thank heavens my husband never gave up and continued the good fight against that bitch. He and his son have a wonderful relationship. She, on the other hand, eventually got what she deserved. And yes, I’m bitter about the whole thing. I was robbed of being his step-mom because of her. No, I don’t care if some don’t believe me. It’s the truth.