curious
Does anyone have any idea how much weight a judge will put on a bio parent's past in making decisions about custody and involvement with kids?
BM left DH and skids in early 2010. DH was doing it on his own, with the help of his parents from that time on. BM parents would pick up skids from school every Friday and skids would spend half their weekends with BM and half with her parents. (verbal agreement)
Fast forward to 7 months ago when DH filed for legal custody arrangement to get weekend access. BM went into court and requested "extended" rights. So the judge gave DH 2 weekends per month, but then gave BM Thursday evenings.
In the time between when BM left and 7 months ago, BM had several jobs, lived in several different places, including a motel room and kids have come back smelling like marijuana on more than one occasion.
DH initially went into court with lawyer who told him that because of BM past, judge would most likely go in favor of DH, but the judge ordered BM request to have Thursdays despite this past. And when Judge ordered the social study process, BM realized she had to move out of the motel and got a cheap rent house.
DH is supposed to go to mediation, but we are fairly certain this will go back to trial at the end of this year.
Our question/concern is that by the time the trial comes back around, it will have been one year since this all started and BM will have presented herself as "more stable" in that year. So, based on your experiences, would you guess that the courts are going to look at that and then consider giving BM more time (i.e. 50/50) or will they look at the fact that DH was doing this on his own for 3 years, BM was living an unstable life, etc; see through BM attempt to fix herself at the last minute and then consider, as we have several times, that BM could revert back to instability after the court makes a final ruling and then order in favor of DH not losing any more time.
PS) while I understand that the 50/50 split doesn't seem like a loss of much time. To DH who was sole caregiver for 2.5 years, even losing Thursdays was devastating. To lose any more time is gonna hurt him quite a bit. He's really struggling with the idea that he did what he was supposed to do and no one seems to be acknowledging that.
Great! That's the feeling
Great! That's the feeling I've been getting since the beginning of the process. The really sad part is that if the judge awards BM more days with skids, she's going to pawn the skids off on her parents more. Heck, the skids already spend half of BM weekends with her parents. So she's just trying to get time away from DH, not necessarily have more time for herself.
Thanks.
Yes, in my limited experience
Yes, in my limited experience and countless hours of sitting in on other court sessions waiting on BM and DH to get things straight - it seems that the courts would prefer an arrangement more towards 50/50 as it is typically best for the children to have access to both parents as much as possible. And they do seem to take it into consideration if a parent has messed up in the past but is doing things to get themselves straight - the judges seem to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I saw an absent father who was now attending AA meetings and anger management meetings petition the court for visitation with his 13 year old son after years of no contact. The judge immediately granted him one evening a week along with day time visits every saturday. The judge said she'd be willing to award more in two months and wanted to start of slowly so the kid could get used to the dad.
The mom didn't attend the hearing. And the father asked how he could enforce it if the mom wasn't taking his calls. The judge told him to show up on her door and bring the police and take his son.
Wow! But, i guess things need to start somewhere, right?
First, each and every time
First, each and every time the Skids come home smelling like marijuana you drive them immediately to the police station and file a report, let CPS interview the kids about the smell and build the facts so you can protect those kids from their idiot BM.
I have zero tolerance for this kind of crap. We used to battle with my SS's SpermCLan not over drugs but over lack of medical care when SS was on visitation.
Since the Judge is proving to be the usual bottom 10%er of the legal profession moron that seems to go in to family law you have to destroy BM in order to protect your SKids. You don't lie, you don't bad mouth her, you build a very comprehensive database of facts regarding her behavior and lack of care for the Skids and you smack her over the head with those facts and with the CO if she so much as twitches out of line with the CO or the law in general.
It works. At least it did for us in our nearly 18 year battle with my SS's SpermIdiot and SpermClan.
Good luck.