f13.net

Has anyone here gone through the trouble of a custody battle concerning children?  Seriously, I just want stories good or bad.  Please.

As the child or the parent?  :-P

My parents were divorced when I was 7. It was ugly.

My step-uncle, who has been divorced as long as I have known him, recently had some ugly business having to do with college tuition for one of his kids.

I won't go into any of it less someone Really needs me to.

Suffice to say, divorces can be pretty ugly for everyone.

My parents divorced when I was like 15 years old. I don't have any experience of custody battles since my parents didn't have any, me and my younger brother got to decide for ourselves where we wanted to live. I stayed with my dad at his house while my brother moved with my mom to an apartment not to far away.

Anyway, if you're into this kind of problem my advice is to listen to the child ( if he's old enough ) and don't play the "spoil war" ( if it comes to shared custody ), that is to try and buy the child over with stuff and loose rules. Allthough my parents didn't trash talk each other a lot I've always hated that as well.

Since my parents don't really hate each others guts I guess it went fairly well for me, even if I really want them to be togheter again. If it had come to legal battles I guess it would've been way worse.

I think Abragadro works or has worked in that shit pile of law cases before. Someone else on here works as a lawyer in family court in Texas too (forgive me for forgetting who). Both should be infinite sources of fun stories.

I hope you're not having problems, Cheddar.  I know how much you adore your children and they sure seem to adore you right back! 

There wasn't really any battle on my case.

My ex-wife disappeared for 2.5 years, came back, filed a court case without telling me, and my daughter disappeared one day while I was in school.  I was 24 at the time, in college.  Came home, stopped by the baby sitter, and my child was gone.

I tried to get her back, but this was back in the "olden" times when even though the mother had abandoned her child, when she came back, they decided the child was better off with her.  Over the years she was subjected to being locked in a room all day as her mother was stoned out of her mind, in the living room etc.  I had proof, and submitted it to the court, with credible witnesses, but still was unable to get full custody of my daughter back.

I never once bad mouthed my Ex in front of my daughter, nor did I use "spoil or loose rules" to try and win her to spend her time with me.  Over the years she figured out the differences, and now spends more time visiting me than her mother.

Basically about 5 years ago when she was visiting, she explained that her mother had bad mouthed me all the time, but that she(my daughter) had remembered living with me, and couldn't remember me doing any of the things her mother was making claims about.  And then she also explained that she appreciated me never bad mouthing or making any bad claims about her mother.  In the end she figured it all out.

But the fun stuff was, and still is trying to get the child support stuff straightened out.  And this is after my daughter is 22 and has 2 children of her own.

Having 3 states involved in the support battle can be a real pain.  Especially when the Ex didn't close down one case before she opened a new one everytime she moved.

At one point the state she was living in was trying to collect on 4 different open cases.  It took me a very long time to get them to realize that I have a single daughter, not 4 of them, and that it was unreasonable to be paying 4 separate child support payments a month.

I'm still trying to get the money back that they took wrongfully, 3 years after my daughter was 18, and out on her own.  One day I check my bank account, and it was 30k less than it was the day before.  With no notice to me, they had collected a few years of "back" support, even though I had payed all support required.

It's a long and frustrating battle, when not both sides of it are doing what they are supposed to.  The Ex still hasn't closed down some outstanding cases she had opened, and so occasionally as they run year end checks I'll get a notice that I have to respond to, to make sure I don't get screwed again.

Meanwhile I have a good relationship with my daughter, and 2 grandsons, 3 and 1.5 years old.

 :-o

Parents divorced when I was 10.  No battle, but the backstabbing and child support stuff was just nasty.  Visited my dad every other weekend and he bought me whatever I needed or didn't need.  My mom did everything she could with the system to make my dad pay more than was ruled. (Whoever ends up with the kids can really screw the other if they want to very very easily.)  Hell, he still pays the old fashioned idea of alimony even today (26 years later!)  He pays per year, for life.  Yes, my mom had a good lawyer.  It isn't enough to live on, but I think she enjoys seeing him pay it.

All I can say is divorce is the absolute last thing you ever want to consider.  Do everything you can to resolve your issues first.  Generally, if you think you'll be happier with the divorce, your results will be bittersweet at best.

My parents got divorced when I was a baby and set up a joint custody arrangement (I'd go stay with my dad on the weekends), so I have no memories of them ever being together.  Tough to say whether having divorced parents warped me significantly, since I have no basis for comparison, but having seen a couple of unhappy marriages my feeling is that divorce is a better option for all concerned.

I'd definitely second all the recommendations to not vent negative feelings toward the other parent at the kid(s) - both of my parents did this at one time or another, and even when I was little I could tell that I wasn't getting the whole story.  The parent doing the talking would always come off worse than the one being badmouthed.  Thankfully, they both got over that after about a decade.

I once heard a quote that struck me profoundly:  "You never really know who you marry until you divorce them."  For some reason, divorce has this tendency to bring out the absolute worst in people. 

I've been involved in custody battles as both a child and a parent.  The best advice that I can give you is to take the path the leaves you with the fewest regrets in the end.  The separation of two parents is traumatic enough to children.  The fighting and battles over money just make it worse.   

My two cents are only based on experiences nannying kids with split-up folks. One little girl was being raised by her mother, who was basically training her daughter to have complete disdain for the entire male species. As a father, your obvious goal will be to be a positive male role model for your daughters and to foster in them a respect for themselves and others equally. Their mother may have other ideas in mind, but as long as you take the high road you're the winner. Also, if you create a "daddy spoils me" dynamic with your girls, you may be setting them up for unrealistic expectations in their adult relationships.

All of the friends I had growing up with divorced parents were very well-adjusted, intelligent people who seemed to have gotten the best from each parent, so hopefully that'll set your mind at ease a little. And the tide has definitely been changing with regards to how the father is treated in these kinds of suits.

I don't like the advice to try to avoid divorce.

I'm kind of a fucked up individual and at least some of that is due to my parents divorcing, but had they stayed together I probably would have been even more fucked up. Having your parents constantly argue to the point where neighbors call state troopers to come over and make sure a homocide isn't occuring isn't any more fun than just having divorced parents.

Do you think that it's easier to get "the best from each parent" if the parents are split up?  I've always thought of my major life choices as striking a good balance between my two parents; my dad is a complete slacker and my mom is a workaholic, and growing up I saw all the plusses and minuses of those two lifestyles, in terms of not having enough money vs. not having enough time to enjoy yourself.  I'd never considered that having them split up might have made it easier for me to pick those things out, though.

I am already divorced.  I was just wanting to read some stories; worry about my personal life not.

Not necessarily, I was just assuring whoever that the divorce of one's parents isn't the death knell of a child's personal growth. As a person who's parents did not divorce (but REALLY should have) my childhood issues, while mostly attributable to my father, are really a mishmash of experiences stemming from two people who weren't really ready to become parents when they did. Because my parents stayed together, I was never really able to see how strong or smart my mom could be, or how compassionate or protective my dad could be. They brought out the worst in each other.

I always worry about you, Yoda.

Maudlin I have been lately.  Winter I blame.

I dunno, my schedule has been a pain and with certain things going on, I guess my internet persona is not as happy as usual.  I am fine, of that you can be sure.

Your sig makes me cringe :(

I was trying to taunt schild with my big sig.  He seems to be untauntable lately.  I'll have to come up with something else.

I gave you a new avatar to cheer you up.

I wasn't going to write a 50 page explanation, but for the most part, my advise goes way beyond "just avoid getting divorced."  I didn't say ignore the problems.  The obvious thing to do would be to fix those too.  Everyone can change their attitudes, which many times is all it takes.  Most of the time it just means stop thinking "What can she/he doe for me?" and start thinking, "What can I do for her/him?"  If a person feels that is just too hard to do and their priority is with themselves, then divorce is just around the corner.  My point is, that won't fix it either.  It is like morphine, it just masks the pain.

I am the family law practitioner in Texas referred to by Haemish.

I'll just share one of my 75 cases from yesterday. 

3 children. Mom has been ordered to pay Dad for child support on all 3.  It turns out that they were divorced in 1995.  All 3 went to live with Dad after the divorce.  One year later, one of the boys went back to live with Mom as Child Protective Services opened a case against Dad for molesting the boy.  In 1997, the daughter went back to live with Mom.  Then, Dad called the cops on Mom due to her habit of using/abusing drugs.  Mom was in and out of prison for the next 4 years.  Dad is also a frequent visitor to various Texas County accommodations.  Mom now owes ~$39,000 in child support.  Dad is an over the road trucker and the children actually live with he and his mom since he is on the road for weeks at a time. 

Mom, who was in custody at the time, waived her right to an attorney in 2004 and a judgment was granted against her for child support owed even though she had actual custody of the kids.  For some reason, Dad won't agree to forgive any amount of money owed by Mom even during her periods of actual possesion.  Mom is on child support probation for 10 years.

Dad lies about his income and won't produce any documents showing how much he is getting paid.

So, yesterday, Mom, her attorney, Dad and I sat down in an antechamber of the courtroom and tried to negotiate an order in this case.  Mom now has 2 kids.  Dad has one.  Mom wants to have a visit from the one with Dad after Christmas as she isn't going to buy the child any presents.  She Just wants to spend time with "her baby."  It took 20 minutes for us to work out an exchange on the day after Christmas at the Walmart so that no one gets their ass kicked during the exchange.

Oh, for some reason the Dad always wears orange to court.  He tells Mom when none of the attorneys are around that he does this because he enjoyed seeing her in the orange jail jumpsuit so much and that she is going to be wearing orange again when this case is over. 

I love child custody disputes.  The children always win.

P.S.  I love my job.

People are always saying "for the sake of the kids" they won't divorce until they're grown.  Maybe people should wait until the kids are grown to get married. 

You know, this isn't exactly a Christmas, wonderful-life type thread.

I approve.

More heart rending stories of human horror please.

We're ramping up for the Festivus airing of the grievances thread.

Er, yeah.  I'd forgotten about that.  I may give this a miss this year.

Hey, since my parents are divorced I get to celebrate christmas twice! :-P

Wife separated two and a half years ago.  Divorced officially this past June.  We have joint custody of my five year old son, I have primary.  No child support, no alimony.  I have not, nor will I say a negative word about her in front of him.  I have a good relationship with her parents and grand parents.  We are having Christmas with her grand parents this year, my folks are driving into town.  I hope the impact on my son is minimal, but I know it will never be.  My parents were both divorced before they married, but are still married to this day.  I have a half sister that I have probably spent less than a month of my life with over my short 36 years.  Her mother was in and out of asylums for the first 8 or so years of her life, but somehow her mother was deemed a better parent than my dad.  Her mother and grand parents cast my father as the Evil.  I have no understanding why anyone would cloud a child's mind like that, just drives me crazy.

Being a single parent is work, hard but very rewarding.  I am thankful that my x is not into drugs, nor insane.  She unfortunately does not want to be a mother and has only gradually entered back into his life on a regular basis.

Only done it on the child side.

Parents divorced when I was ~10 and sister was 2.

Dad cheated on mom, both argued non-stop.

Honestly I have like no memories of my life prior to about age 13.  I dont remember who I lived with, or where my mom and dad stayed, being 100% serious here.  I may or may not have pushed my little sister out of a 3 story window (she survived but ruptured her stomach and was in the hospital for awhile and still bears a big scar).  My memory of the day doesn't make sense because it has always involved a cat, and I dont remember my mom having a cat in SF at all from any other memories.  My dad is allergic to them so it really seems unlikely.  I quickly decided to live with my dad, spent some time visiting mom on most weekends and breaks.  When I got to about 15-16 I had enough of that, never got to spend time with friend's from school because I had to go to Marin (dad had reclaimed family home) to see mom.  I stopped seeing mom, she has cancer in her lymph nodes now, but we dont really have a relationship -less in a bad way, then I we don't understand each other way. 

The real problem is with my sister, after loosing me mom was hellbent to make sure she never lost her.  They have gone to court several times and almost had the full blown slapdown dragout type custody battles.  Dad pays mom money he isn't even obligated to (to my knowledge) so that he can see her.  Currently for her own good (school wise) she is living with dad during the week.  But another war is brewing over where she will go to high school.  Both sides talked mad shit about the others, causing allot of grief for both of us.

All in all, just a typical modern American family as best as I can figure from the people I know.

P.S.  Kind of fun to post that, usually I dont go for this type of soul bearing shit on the intraweb, but I did just end a 4 year relationship with gf so I'm in an odd place these days.  Go Go XMAS!!

I'm going to have to stop reading this thread until after the holidays.

But you WILL be participating in the Festivus airing of grievances thread. Oh you must.

Of course he will... he's still very nearly Christian and I'm sure he will get involved with all the Christmas jelliness that brings joylessness to this Festering Season.

I must be the real odd-person out then.  My parents will celebrate their 44th anniversary on 1/6, I'll celebrate my 13th in May and while one of my brothers is trying to get out of marriage #2 (he's the soap opera of the family), another brother just celebrated his 13th anniversary back in October.

I guess having a stable family life isn't the norm or something anymore.  Weird.

My parents never divorced, either.  They were married 39 years.  Righ's parents are also still married... 46 years or something like that.

You and me both, Rhyssa. My parents have been married over 40 years now, and both sets of grandparents were married until their deaths. That didn't stop my paternal grandfather from being a whoring cockmeister, but still.

Mine were married 30 years before my mom kicked the bucket.

Mine have the big 4-0 coming up.

Sooo... WE represent the stable family bunch? 

uh oh.

Stability, it seems, is overrated.

My folks were together for 27 years before they split up.  They tried the "just stay civil long enough to get the kids all grown up and on their own route", so when they finally separated, my brother and myself were quite relieved.

I suppose it was nice to not have to deal with any of it while I was in school, but they wasted a lot of time keeping the charade going, which left them with years of issues to deal with once they decided to end it, and even in our early teens it was obvious to pretty much everyone.  Lots of irreconcilable differences on both sides.

They both still live in the same place, and now that its been 5 or 6 years seem to have a fairly civil, friendly relationship.  My father's is a horrible marriage, but he refuses to get a 2nd divorce (he thinks God will forgive his 1st failure by sticking this one out), and he leans on my mother quite a bit, even if he doesn't know he's doing it.  I'm extremely thankful I didn't have to grow up with his current wife for a step-mother.  *shudder*

My grandparents celebrated 60 and 55 years married recently.

My parents are 32 years married.

I'm single.

Of course you're single.  You are much too young to be married!  I do wish you would get laid, however.  It's the only way you will become sensible.

I like him better when he's so crazy horny that he keeps posting nice pictures of racks...

My buddy Bob and Terri tried living together after Terri got pregnant with little Bobby, but it didn't fly.  Bob was working as a bouncer, and had just lost the place he was living when I asked him to split an apartment with me.  He found a good, cheap place, and we moved in.  Bob saw Bobby on weekends, when he could, and did what he could to help Terri out, although the two of them can't spend 5 minutes in the same place without sparks flying.  Bob got a good job with the Metro Water District, using some clout with an alderman.  He met a new girl at the club, gave up bouncing, got promoted, got married, and sees his boy regular.  Little Bobby seems pretty cool, no more issues than his old man, anyway.  Sometimes this shit works out ok.

My mom died in February, suicide by cigarettes.  Me and dad shredded her legal files, and in the course of that I realized that people don't go to lawyers because things are going well.  And that was her private practice.  Her county practice was defending crack-addicted mothers who were losing custody of their children.  You don't have to hear too many of those cases before you realize that your life really does not suck.

My parents marriage went to hell before I hit my teens.  The atmosphere was utterly poisonous, and me and my brothers are various forms of walking wounded from that.  They got a divorce, but it didn't work, they just fought in two houses instead of one.  They made a sort of peace, re-married, pretty much in name only, and kept it more or less together until we all hit college, then broke up for good.  Mom took up smoking as a basic 'Fuck You' to our dad and her mother; probably the rest of the world.  Hard to say; I'm not very objective about mom.  She kept smoking even after it caused her to lose several fingers to poor circulation, and caused several strokes.  My brothers and I got to watch her die in slow motion.  Dad has remarried, and is fairly happy.  At least his step-children aren't as screwed up as my brothers and I.  We've mostly reached accommodation with our chaos, but there isn't much left of our family.  With mother gone, I expect that my brothers and I will lose touch with each other.  I expect that I'll remain single for the rest of my life, as I have what are best described as 'intimacy issues'.  I get along with people well, but there is a line that I don't let people come across.  My loss.

Hallelujah (http://www.lyrics007.com/Jeff%20Buckley%20Lyrics/Hallelujah%20Lyrics.html)

I'm tempted to ask monkey boy why he is being celibate, but that would probably just railroad the thread to the den.

If he wants to reply he can start a new thread about it because it will probably end up in politics. I would hope it wouldn't degenerate to the point of going to the den, but with us you never really know.

Reasons for celibacy are political ?  So, religious then.

My reasons for celibacy are marriage.

Good Lord, Ironwood... one of these days your wife is going to look over your shoulder at just the wrong time and you will be in SO much trouble!

It's religious, and no I don't think the forum really cares other than to play the "annoy the nutball" game. So we'll leave it at that.

I care.   :-)

And here I was going to blame the cold air of the mountains.

Ever seen that episode of Family Guy? "I'll give you a dollar if you can find your penis." Yea, that one.

I guess that I fall into the stable category also.  My grandparents are/were still married to each other until death.  My parents are in their 38th year of marriage.  My wife and I celebrate number 15 in May. 

We had our own special brand of disfunction as my parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and I am not.  Yeah, the teen years were fun.  So, staying married does not guarantee any exemption from prolonged family problems.

Wow okay. Short of it.

My mum was married to my "father" or (the man whom I thought was my father until very recently) - for approximately one and a half years before he was sent to prison. She divorced him. He couldn't really do anything considering he lived in Italy and the only problems she had along the years were:

No child support - Well.. $1.00 a year in child support. Go dad.
The "Grandparents" took away a trust fund and gave it to my cousin because I would not do exactly what they wanted. (Arranged marriage to a 50 year old at oh.. 16 or 17) and something else, oh right.. revoked my college tuition.
Never saw any of them except for the random summer when I would be shipped that way.

The man who IS my biological father, she was married to for three years. I never saw him. He never paid child support. He never contested the divorce and he just simply didn't matter and..continues to not matter. This applies to the man above this one as well.

My grandparents (On my mum's side) were married for 51 years until my blessed grand-father's passing in 1995 and on a side note would have taken a baseball bat to the kneecaps of any insane parental figure that tried to take me away from them.

My mother has now been with her current douchebag of a husband for 23 years. They have three wonderfully crazy children and the secret to their warped success is they don't live together. She gets the kids. He gets to make everyone believe he's mentally insane. End of story there.

I'd go into the above a bit further but really, it isn't needed here.

So Cheddar, for whatever you are going through - I don't know your personal situation at the moment but it honestly appears that you absolutely worship those children. It's my hope that whatever it is, you remain a vital and important part of their lives for the rest of yours and far after you are gone.

Cheers.

Got a girl pregnant when I was 18 (she 15), married and a father by 19, divorced by 20.  Went the "no fault" route, which in Jersey took 18 months seperation.  Spent as much time as possible (which was about 80-85% of total time) over the next two years trying to show that I was the more dedicated parent.  As a part of the custody battle we had two psychologist evaluate who was the more fit parent, the independent flat our chose me, the pschologist that my ex-wifes father hired decided, "no decision can be made at this time, both parents should have equal responsibility".

Got to court, judge listened (ok, mostly, he napped occasionally) to all the testamony and at the end sited the "tender years doctorine" and gave my ex-wife full custody (I went from having my daughter 80% to having her every other weekend).  Two years later that judge got brought up on charges of fraud, had a heartattack and died.  I don't really believe in hell, but I hope he's burning.

Ex-wife has had three other men in her life, with two or three fathers added to the mix (I'm not being vague, the jury is out on wether child number 3 is husband number 2's, or man number 3).  Find out years later that husband number 2 molested (innappropriate touching) my daughter when they took her to Canada to live for acouple years (#2 was Canadian, not that that has anything to do with cause of the molestation).

Up until my daughter was 17/18 I kept my mouth shut about what a terrible person I thought my ex-wife was (and to this day I do not use the words, "your mother" when talking about what a fuck-up my ex-wife is), and I'm very glad I did.  You do the same.  In general women seem incapable of this.  You must absolutely be the better person because it will make your kids life easier.

My daughter is now 22, going to graduate school, and an amazing, wonderful person.  She doesn't have much to do with her mother, but she does have a decent relationship with her mother's parents (which I encourage).  All that up till this point hurt like hell.

The point is, you only get one chance to raise your kids.  It isn't easy.  You frequently can't control shit and that hurts bad.  You can control how much you love them, and how much you let them know you love them.  Nothing is more important than that.  Good luck.