sphere wrote:
She received a response from his lawyer today detailing his allegations and what he is asking of the court. He is asking for physical custody for the entire summer, from the day after school lets out until the day before it resumes, giving mom visitation every other weekend.
He's throwing absolutely everything he can at her to smear her as a bad mother, and me as contributing. Things like poor dental health (oldest needed tooth extractions for crowding, the younger two have had one cavity between them), poor diets (he cited noticing the middle child making a Nutella sandwich during a facetime session and having had "breakfast for dinner" with cereal and muffins, which we do on rare busy night occasion), and generally painting her as a terrible human being and mother. He had set up his phone in the car to video tape the kids talking about being hungry for dinner when he picked them up at 5pm one Friday, after getting home from school at 4, snacking and playing outside. He offered this as evidence--presumably with video--of her being a neglectful mother and punishing them with hunger to make their father pay for dinner.
He is asking the court to mandate that she always and only refer to him as Dad in her home and that they never use any iteration of the word in reference to me---all the while having his kids call his wife "Mama A**y"
This is so far from normal I can't even wrap my head around it. I cannot imagine taking my kids away from their mother for three months for any reason whatsoever, especially if it was my own fuckery that led to divorce and my choice to move nearly 3 hours away.
The summer request is pretty reasonable and is a popular summer schedule for non custodial parents. As an outside observer, there’s a good chance this change will happen. You may want to counter offer because Sphere and Co would also like to take a family vacation during the summer. Also, you’ll need a few days to get ready for school to start.
For example, after my ex moved, the kids were with me the whole summer, 1 weekend per month with her, and two 7 consecutive day periods with her. Usually my ex rolled the monthly weekend into her 7 day periods. Most years she used the second week for the week before school started. This worked well. Maybe for your offer, do every other weekend, and 3 weeks during the summer.
Plus, this is a trap that the other lawyer set. If your wife is ok with the kids seeing dad just every other weekend during the school year, she should have no problem with her seeing the kids every other weekend during the summer. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. My judge did this to my ex when she suggested that I be an every other weekend dad when she moved with the kids out of state. He told her he assumed she would have no issues with seeing the kids every other weekend. Her head nearly exploded.
- have the records for the twice yearly teeth cleanings. None of you including the judge are dentists. The ex would have to haul the dentist into court to testify that your wife promotes poor dental hygiene. Which, someone will have to pay for.
- if he’s so concerned about poor diets, he needs to call CPS. Remember, the judge probably has half a dozen cases on his docket dealing with true neglect. Heck, half of the judge’s cases probably involve an accusation that one parent only feeds the kids frozen McNuggets.
- I think the video tape will blow up in his face like a hand grenade. All your wife has to say “ yes your Honor, I just give the kids a small snack after school because I didn’t want to spoil their family dinner with their father.” Then the judge will ask the ex why the F did he create a hostage tape with the kids?
- the dad stuff is unenforceable. To really frick with him, tell the court he should only refer to Sphere as Batman
My fear for you is with his relatively vague accusations, the judge is going to ask for a custody evaluation. More money, more $100 bills lit on fire. Reality is, with him 3 hours away, other than the summer schedule, there isn’t much that can change.