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Transportation for visitation

nengooseus's picture

Infuriating BM moved out of what had been the marital home when they split 4 years ago to a neighborhood about 20 minutes away (40 minutes roundtrip). BM has primary custody, so kids are in school there. They are dropped at their babysitter's after school, which is about 5 minutes from BM's house.

DH and BM are extremely HC (she's an alienator extraordinaire). I have picked up/dropped off kid(s) for visitation on my way home from work for the last year or so, but DH and I have agreed that I will no longer be doing that because BM keeps showing up at the babysitter's house, and it upsets me. CO is silent on transportation, other than that DH must return them to school on Monday AMs.

We told BM last week that beginning with this week's visit, that we aren't able to pickup for visits on Thursdays, and asked what time she would be able to drop them off. Not surprisingly, she is refusing.

We're already headed to court on her BS motion, and DH has agreed to talk to another attorney, who hopefully won't be as expensive. But what should we do in the meantime? I will NOT be participating in the BS...

Comments

Glassslipper's picture

Can DH pick up?
If it were me, I would inform BM that you are contacting a lawyer to add a stipulation to the CO in regards to pick up and drop off locations and time, that you will be addressing this because of the concern that she is showing up to the nutral exchange location (babysitters) and harassing Nengooseus during pick up and thus causing undue stress on the child.
I don't know what other BS court stuff you have coming up, but you might be able to tack this on to that.
Can you imagine? Your DH saying, "I would like to add a stipulation for pick up and drop off to be through the school or babysitter without BM there to supervise the pick up/drop off. You see judge she keeps showing up like she needs to supervise the exchange and it's upsetting to my child during the custody exchange time"
Really, if it was one of our judges here, BM would get her A$$ chewed for interference with the fathers time and told to stay away from the babysitters during DHs exchange time.
Our judges exact words would be "you picked a nutral location for a reason, can you not control yourself, do you not understand, stay away, can't you figure that out?"

nengooseus's picture

We live in an area that is essentially surrounded by a beltway. DH works on one side and babysitter's/BM's is on the extreme other side. DH *can* pick up, but to do it, he would have to drive almost 40 miles out of his way, which would put him in the care for more than an hour every time he has the kid(s).

He's more than willing to do that on Fridays and Mondays, which *are* his parenting time, but it seems reasonable that BM would drive the kid(s) to him for the start of his visitation. She's literally not doing ANYTHING at this point to support visitation--unless you count PA...

As far as court goes, she's not worried at all. I don't know why. I'm custodial to my biodaughter, and I would be terrified if I had the track record she has about supporting visits. I have it written in to my CO that EXH has to do all the transportation, so I don't do any of that, but if he asked me to, I probably would!

WTF...REALLY's picture

Wait....WHAT!!!!' I am sorry. But your complaining that your husband has to do all the transportation with his kids but you make your ex do all the transportation of your kids? Pot...meet kettle.

WTF...REALLY's picture

It's so hypocritical. And she goes on further to say I "probably would". holy crap on a cracker. Karma train is at her home. Sounds like he married the same type of woman he divorced.

misSTEP's picture

Make sure to emphasize that she moved. Usually that will get the judge to force her to do at least half the transportation.

Glassslipper's picture

If babysitter is a nutral 3rd party place for pick up and the school is a nutral 3rd party for drop off, then WHY is BM showing up during your pick up?
Why is she there?

nengooseus's picture

Because she and the babysitter are BFFs and because she wants to monitor pickups and drop offs. It's mostly drop offs, to be honest. She's routinely there at the bus stop and/or inside the sitter's house.

She doesn't do anything to harass me, per se, but she's there and she glares at me, which upsets me, which sounds stupid, but it's a terrible way to start or end my day. And it upsets SD 11, too. She actually gets mad when she sees her mom when it's DH's parenting time. BM has a tendency to "interrogate" SD after visits.

Picking up at school isn't an option because of timing. The kids are out of school at 240, and DH doesn't get out of work until closer to 4. Then add the hour of commute time.

SD will be in middle school next year, so she won't get out of school until closer to 4, but SS (if he ever decides to participate) will still get out of school at 240, so we need to address this before the fall, no matter what.

Glassslipper's picture

Sounds like BM is there harassing you to me, She us there to intimate you and act like she is supervising the pick up, and her presence is disruptive to the custody exchange.
If it were our county judge, BM would be ordered to stay away from the babysitters and bus stop for pick up and drop off.

nengooseus's picture

I think it's all ridiculous, to be honest.

DH sent her this:

As I said on 2/8/2016, it is no longer reasonable for me to do all the transportation for my scheduled visitation with the kids.

Under the terms of our current custody order, my parenting time starts after school every other Thursday and lasts until the start of school on Monday. Since it is not reasonable to ask you to pick the kids up on Monday mornings before school, it makes sense for you to drop the kids off at my home for visits, beginning with my 2/18/2016 scheduled visit.

What time is convenient for you to drop them at my house on those afternoons?

I will not be doing any transportation anymore. At all. And I *was* doing it to be nice. The babysitter is not that far from my work, so it wasn't a big deal, except for BM's bad behavior. We even brought it to her attention that she was present and that was a problem, and she admitted it, but she told us it was because the kids "wanted" her there. We would be more than willing to compromise, but she doesn't want to have to do ANYTHING.

Apparently, he's planning to just leave the kids at the sitter's tomorrow if BM doesn't bring them to us or make some other arrangement.

Glassslipper's picture

I think leaving the kid at the sitter is a BAD IDEA!
I would imagine any BM or lawyer would turn that into an abandonment accusation and matters would get worse.

nengooseus's picture

BM is doing her best to alienate both kids and in the process has hurled some ugly accusations at both me and DH, both through the kids and just to us. I certainly don't want to be glared at by the woman who's hurling ugliness when I'm just trying to help. This isn't my circus, so I don't want to be involved anymore.

I agree that DH shouldn't just leave the kids there, but I think BM is being ridiculous about transportation, too.

simifan's picture

While I would definitely have it addressed at the motion hearing. Your DH has been doing transportation - BM has status quo on her side, your DH is in a losing battle with the way visitation is set up. If BM doesn't cave then what - he loses visitation.