Is there a CO in place?

Sadly the courts seldom take biodad's side, especially if he's NCP (which is most often the case). This DESPITE BLATANT abuse of the CO (denying visitation time, making the children "suffer" for wanting to be at dad's house, etc.) on the part of the BM

GG has also resigned himself to just paying half of his salary for the next 13 years (8 down 13 to go; in NYS it goes mandatory to 21)

But a glimmer of light! He's starting to RESENT paying that much for so little in return, aka feral children who aren't being parented and who want nothing to do with him, other than when their hand is out for MORE money.

Back in the early years, he used to justify it in his mind (although the BM was PASing out all three in broad daylight) "it's for the children" blah blah.

Now he sees all three academically failing due to the BM wanting to blame the failure on the divorce and have three perma victims so she can phone in the non-parenting.

He sees them buying houses, cars, going on vaca constantly and the oldest kid, SS stb 15 is starting to hang out in front of bars with others his age.

He even said "I want to relinquish my parental rights and stop paying CS" I told him "it doesn't work that way!" Of course he NEVER listened to me in the early years when I told him to put his foot down on the Behemoth (BM) and not ME!!

Having a psychotic bitch of a bm to deal with myself, I can totally understand your DH's frustration and hopelessness.

What I get concerned about is the affect this will have on SD. BM is free to tell her whatever she wants about why her dad isn't seeing her anymore. And BM gets the satisfaction of telling anyone who will listen what a POS her ex is.

Sometimes a more specific CO will help. Sometimes that is just a waste of lawyer money.

What helped the most in our situation was putting in a "No Contact" order in the CO. Although it didn't ELIMINATE unnecessary contact, it did make BM back way off. And although we still didn't get to always see the skids according to what the visitation stated, the skids will know that we always tried. AND we have a Contempt of Court charge against BM for "Willful violation of visitation" that we can show the skids if they are interested.

I honestly don't know what answer to give.

If there is a CO in place, throw it in her face and when she violates it, document it. My heart aches at the thought of one more child having to not have their Dad in their lives. I also know BM is not a good person and is making things hard on everyone.

My thoughts & prayers are with you, DH and SD.

*DUPLICATE*

Awwww poor little girl. In the end she is the one that loses in the end. I honestly don't know what is right and what is wrong, but your husband will need your support so love him no matter what. Good Luck.

This is a rubbish situation. My heart really really goes out to you. I think, ultimately, this is your husbands decision. Your husband has decided that there really is only so much he can tolerate. Stress can ruin peoples lives, and deciding where to draw the line is a decision many people do not make for the love of their children.

The problem is that human beings can only deal with so much stress before they get to breaking point. This is why there are hundreds of step parents (and parents for that matter) on the verge of utter break down because they feel unable to draw any line. They take the pain and frustration until they literally fall apart.

Take a deep breath. Your husband may not even decide to carry this decision out. If he does, take a little reassurance in that this is not a sign of weakness or fault in your him. This is the fault of his ex partner and her point blank refusal to do what is right by her child, and a legal system that is unable to deal with matters like this effectively.

My heart goes out to you, your job now is to make sure your husband knows he really understands what this decision means, and whether he will live to regret it. Thats your main job at the moment.

Delilah

His daughter is not worth a short drive? That is sad. While it sucks having to do all the driving, it would be sad when the BM tells her daughter that daddy doesn't want to come get her. While it's not right, that is likely what that little girl will here and believe that she wasn't worth a drive. Sad really... your BM sucks. Each should be driving one way.

Maybe taking her back to court to establish some more concrete rules to force to help with the driving would be appropriate.

Last I checked, There's SEVEN days in a week. And if you already have her on that weekend anyway, your "vacation" begins on Monday and should go til Sunday!
I'd call her bluff. Let her call the cops! Maybe call the attorney and ask for specifics? And if your weekend usually starts on Friday, I'd go get her! Maybe call for a police escort to be present when you go to pick her up. Would that be too dramatic? I'm done with these b-tches! DONE!

What's wrong with these crazy BMs? Our's just got a boyfriend! Maybe she'll stop being so difficult now that she has a life of her own. maybe.

It's all the court system and the current laws in place.

The following changes should be enacted:

1. Divorcing couples get mandated counseling

2. 50/50 physical custody automatically applied with no CS changing hands; if the mom was a SAHM and is filing, then she'd better get a job post haste. Only in EXTREME abuse cases should 50/50 be not applied; counseling to cover said issues

3. PAS will be investigated through a series of testings. If parent is said to be instigating PAS, then it will be prosecuted as child abuse with sole custody going to the target parent. The instigator parent will lose custody, be in mandated counseling, and lose any CS if applicable. If after several supervised visitations with the instigator parent, if it is still proven that said parent is STILL PASing, then visitation shall be permanently suspended and I go so far as saying they should be sterilized to prevent such abuse from taking place in the future.

4. Voting and alcohol rights shall be suspended for any "child" whose parent is collecting CS for them after the age of 18 (which is wrong to begin with)

5. In the rare case that CS is instituted, a mandatory self support reserve shall be enacted so as not to impoverish the payor (ex. an NCP biodad should NOT be paying $1000 a month when making $15 an hour)

Sadly, too many cottage industries survive off the divorce machine:

1. greedy lawyers
2. several "women's groups"
3. gov't agencies (CSEU) who gain fed dollars for every CS dollar collected

My DH got there to. He quit trying, because BM made everything so difficult. We still have 50/50 of SS12, but we are now requesting him full time. But as for SD15, DH has nothing to do with her. It is all in her hands, since every attempt he has made BM has undermined. She even went so far as to tempt her with massages for her friends instead of seeing DH for lunch, which of course she did and then lied to DH and said she lost her phone when she never called him back. This was only the third such meeting in over a year. Now he is done and has left it up to her if she wants any type of relationship with him...Sad yes, but DH is at least starting to see her and BM for who they are. He is starting to have some peace with his decision. Your BF is doing what he needs to to protect himself. Imagine how hard this will be when SD is a teenager. Honestly it is better to do it now for everyone...

"We also do all of the driving for SD5 and it is not fair. If I could go back to court and do it all over I would have BM drop off SD5 and DH bring her home. If it were the other way around, BM wouldn't pick her up forcing us to keep her or bring her home. And if she wants some kid-free weekend time, she'll start to be happy dropping her off."

See, my court order says my ex is responsible for transportation to/from visits-HOWEVER I'd say 90pct of the time I've always done one way (drop off) to make it more equiptable. It's just more reasonable-the problem I had w/my ex is that the 10pct of time I'd ask him to do both because of something I was tied up with he pitched a fit-until I OUTLINED the parental agreement he signed.

With my bf-there is no stipulation about who does pick up/drop offs-yet she expects him to pick her up/drop her off EVERY single time on the EOW schedule. Says he's supposed to (really, by what CO?)...BUT if she's throwing an unscheduled week or three in the mix she has no problem dropping SD off at his parents w/out blinking an eye...funny how that works.

I SEE and understand your DH's point, and I'm so sorry-I know how pained he feels-my bf is suffering w/that right now-it's just so hard he's ready to walk-I can see why many men do this now whereas before I didn't.

One week vacation is 7 days-incorporate that into your wknd and that's 9 days. Screw her, let her take you to court, doubt a judge will be to pleased. Doubt the police would do much. She is being unreasonable and blocking special family time for you. Family law NEEDS to change, pronto...or else you will see more family/2nd marriage dissolutions take place.

We do this all the time! We make sure it is dh's weekend when we want to leave so that we don't have to have them back that following fri. We can use all 9 days! I see no reason why he can't have her if it is his time! He needs to just take his time and let her take him to court and the judge will not like it at all! I mean she will be taking HIS time away!

Sometimes it is the way it falls such as dh has the boys every 1st 3rd and when available 5th weekend of every month so that means that if we have them for a week vac. then we plan it on the weekends that he will have the 2 weekends in a row. Does that make sense? That might be what the op is referring to.

Unless it means that Fri-Sun is their normal schedule and they have one week of summer time starting Sunday evening and running thru the following Sunday. It just depends on the court order.

When we had custody of ss-bm used to take 2 week blocks in the summer-she would pick up on Friday night as usual per the schedule and after two weeks and 2 day we would pick him up on Sunday-as that was our usual night to pick him up. It was too hard for us to start switching up pick up/drop off days and such.

Zoie, it sounds like your SD hasn't PASed out yet - is your DH certain he wants to step back?

When my SD15 was 10-12, I was CONVINCED that she would turn into a BM clone. (I'm pretty sure I said so in my earliest blogs) However, she actually started having her own opinions and BM was too rigid to deal well with it - so SD grew progressively more unhappy. Now she wants to live with us rather desperately.

DH used to jump when BM said frog. He flew SD to him at least 3 times a year, and would drive 15 hours one way to see her at least every other month. After we got married in '06, he eased off on the visits and quit letting BM run rough-shod over him. She also got re-married, so she quit nagging him for money. (although now she tells SD that her father and HIS WIFE can buy everything for her) I asked DH yesterday when the last time BM went psycho on us was. She tried to claim we were emotionally abusing SD in December of '10 (but didn't try to stop Christmas visitation) and before that was a little drunk texting in May of '09. Other than that, she's mostly left us alone.

I agree with Mazzy - you can't win when you're a NCP. Either you're "creating drama" by taking rightful visitation, or by trying to avoid the drama you get seen as giving up your rights. Document, document, document! We're going to be trying to get custody, and we don't (yet) have any proof that the household SD15 is in is unhealthy or abusive. We will, but it'll delay everything.