I used to be in your shoes. If it were the other way around, not only would they have given the child back to the woman, the woulda carried you to jail. After years of injustice in the courts, it seems the favor the mother no matter what the circumstances.
Whoa! It’s Tuesday, and she was supposed to be returned to you two days ago. What are you doing “behind the scenes”? I’d recommend calling the media, filing an emergency motion in court, and camping out at the police station until they put an Amber Alert out for my kidnapped child. That’s outrageous!
Good luck and keep us posted.
P.S. Cool that you’re a local grad! I’ve only lived here since '94, though, so we wouldn’t have known each other.
Well, I know where she is… and she is safe… although her mother is wacky, not dangerously so. SO her safety and mental stability is more important to me than whose house she is living at. “Behind the Scenes” is lawyers and courts and whatnot.
“You tellin’ me how to do my job, boy?”
There are situations where law enforcement and other civil authorities can be sued for doing things like exceeding their authority or violations of civil rights. I think we would need a lawyer to chime in as to a LEO’s responsibility as far as something like a TRO and a psycho ex.
Did the ex come demand another visit or did she refuse to return the child?
Well, I am a lawyer, and I’m pretty confident on this one, although it would be dumb for anyone to rely on what some chick on the internet says without doing research on the matter if it was more than a purely academic question. I haven’t done that, so I don’t have a case cite. GFactor probably knows it off the top of his head, but I don’t. (But I bet I can name really obscure patent cases that he doesn’t know…)
Abso-friggin’-lutely!
If I, as a non-custodial, refused to return my daughter at the appointed time and place, you can be rest assured that a situation like that would have had her back to her mother and me in jail quicker than you could say “would you like another donut, officer?”
Must control ranting urges! Must not post in the pit! I feel the hate swelling up inside me!*
By the way, an anecdote:
The ex was living in squalor in some other guy’s house (the third live-in BF in two years – the 8th address change in 4 years). How she was living in squalor on my $900 a month, I don’t know, but I digress. Anyway, in the ensuing custody battle the judge tells my lawyer and me (no joke):
“It’s not illegal or detrimental to the child for the mother to be a loser”
He then threw the case out.
Well in terms of fairness… as a bonus… I had to “settle” for paying her 400 a month… while I have primary residential custody of the three children… her child support responsibilities? Exactly zero dollars and zero cents… or is that sense… whatever…
I have a friend who lives in Colorado and has told me many of the horrors of how horrible Colorado is with enforcing a lot of this stuff. So, sadly, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
If I were you, as others said, I’d take note of this situation, and get a copy of the report you filed with the police as well. The cops may big complete idiots and not be willing to enforce it, but I seriously doubt the judge will look so kindly on the other parent who really should know exactly what the order says. It should give you some nice evidence to help next time you go back to court.
And, frankly, I have to say, looking at the order as you wrote it out, I really don’t see how anyone who isn’t a complete idiot can interpret that as anything other than through. I’m surprised that the competence of the police force could possibly be lower than I’d already thought it was.
Yeah well, I think it was more didn’t want to be bothered than incompetence. Though when I told him that his reason for being unable to enforce the order was pedantic, he said… and I quote… “I am not that, if I knew what that meant.”… As he left i told him to buy a fucking dictionary.
I’ve been in court four times for this very thing. In ALL instances, they judge gave the ex a verbal slap on the wrist, then turns to me and says, “when would you like your make-up visitation time?”
I work during the week with no day care for a part-time parent. When and how the F am I supposed to do this? Take a week off of work? Then I wouldn’t be able to pay the ridiculous amount of CS that I do.
DISCLAIMER:
I have NO problems whatsoever paying to support my child. I DO have problems with paying the amount I (and so many others) do, and to a person who’s living off of those payments with no other income. Does it really take $900/month to raise a child? I think not.
I sure hope the issuing judge is thrilled to see his order ignored in such magnitude. I hope you’ll follow up on what he has to say.
Pfffft. My boss pays $2,500/month – for ONE child. And the ex is remarried, living in a huge house in a tony area, travels all over the country and the world. . . and doesn’t work.
I’m sure there are plenty of women here who can tell horror stories about deadbeat dads, but it’s entirely clear that the courts are so biased in favor of mothers that they screw men over as a matter of course. It’s truly appalling.
CircleofWillis, let us know when you get your daughter back.
Unfortunately, after having talked to my lawyer this morning, she may not be coming back. Apparantly, my ex is putting up a huge fight. My daughter doesn’t want to hurt mom so is not really “making a choice” where she wants to live. So I have been threatened with a prolonged divorce, huge alimony payments and STILL losing my daughter or letting her go, setting up visiting with her and still be able to support the other two at home. Lot’s more detail and whatnot, but that’s the gist of what I got this morning.
I hear you. My boyfriend, whose crazy ex-wife I have written about here several times, goes through the same thing. She’s never worked a day in her life, and the child support she gets from my boyfriend enables her to continue in a nice middle-class lifestyle, in a big single-family home, two cars, big screen TV, cable TV, video games, computers, and all the frills, without having to contribute a single penny to the children’s upbringing. He would gladly take custody of his three children (and is spending big $$ on a lawyer to try) but she would fight it to her dying day because she doesn’t want her “paychecks” to stop.
She’s a lazy leach, pure and simple. It’s so unfair. The system is absolutely, positively skewed toward the women.
Get in your car, drive to her house, pack up your daughter and go home. She doesn’t have legal custody – you do. It’s beyond her visitation, so she’s in violation of a court order. Do not let her intimidate you into giving up on your child. Some day she will grow up and ask you why you didn’t fight for her when she was too young to understand or be able to do anything about it herself.
I want to second this.
It’s neither fair, nor fun, for your daughter to end up being treated as a football by her parents. But if you don’t fight for her, she’s stuck with a couple of potential conclusions (some of them which may be planted and watered by your ex.):
[ul][li]Her mother loves her enough to risk jail for what she believes is right. And the implication is that you don’t. [/li]
Sure this is a totally fucked up way of looking at the world, or at least an adolescent view. Your daughter can be excused for having those thoughts. Your ex, cannot.
[li]Courts and the law can be evaded just by thumbing one’s nose at them hard enough - if you don’t like a legal decision made against you, just ignore it and get intransigent, and no one will really make you obey. This is the lesson your ex is going to be teaching through her examples.[/li][li]The corollary, of course, is that being concerned for other people’s feelings just make you a rug for anyone else who knows what the real way things work. Whether this is the lesson you want your daughter to learn, or not, it’s example your actions are illuminating, at the moment. [/ul][/li]
You’ve already taken the steps to convince a Family Court that your ex is not the best custodian for your daughter. That had to take a good deal of fortitude, and determination. If you don’t follow through with that good foundation - you’re going to be leaving a lot of room for your daughter to learn a lot of life lessons that can trip her up very badly, later in life.
I don’t pretend that what I’m advocating will happen without tears, frustration, and even declarations of hatred from your daughter. But it seems to me that your choices now are all bad, and the least bad one is to continue down the road you’ve already started.
One last thought - if you do not pursue this aggressively, there are Family Courts in the US that will see your behavior, which you are exhibiting out of concern for your daughter’s emotional well-being, as an example of someone who has decided that his parental obligations are too much hassle to continue to fight for now that you’ve gotten a taste of the reality. Which may poison your position in any future custody battles in the eyes of the court.
**
Fight now, while you’ve got all the legal standing on your side**. Don’t lose ground by accepting your ex’s definitions of what your daughter’s good might be, once she’s failed to prove that once already.
I know exactly what she’s going through. I was in the same circumstance for much of my childhood. One parent would drag the other to court, and each one would ask me “wouldn’t you rather live here?” and I continually declined to give an answer. Then again, neither of my parents were unfit. And, quite frankly, as someone who was a child and went through all that pawn crap, hearing these sorts of stories, particularly what your ex is doing, really pisses me off.
I DO think a child’s desire is important. If she wants to live with one parent or the other, and the court can discern that it wasn’t fed to her or coerced or anything like that, then unless the parent is unfit, her wishes should be followed. In this case, it’s different; she’s not saying anything. She should be with the parent that isn’t an idiot, or at least a parent that treats her like a human being and not a tool for getting vengence on her ex.
Do you all have a court appointed or agreed upon therapist for her? Maybe he has a better idea of what she wants. Maybe he can provide some useful insight into which parent will provide a healthier environment for her.
Either way, from my perspective of having gone through it, I’m definitely left with a bitter taste in my mouth about the whole court thing my parents went through, especially since I could never get a straight story. But nothing ever happened that I didn’t want. And even though I was used at times as a way to get that little bit of revenge, I also know that they were both fighting hard because they both loved me. I think Otaku pretty much hit how I’d have felt if one of my parents had given up; as a child, I wouldn’t have understood the practical side of it, I’d have just felt like that parent loved me less.
Of course, YMMV especially in Colorado, and I’m not trying to convince you to spend money needlessly for the affection of your child. But by all means, do everything you can while you can, especially if you’re a good parent and you don’t think your ex is.