What exactly is No Contact?
So, I'm dealing with a crazy BM. I know all this was mentioned in another topic, but my FDH just found out he has a son through a lawsuit and a paternity test (it's not been pretty). Someone on here mentioned that FDH could ask for "No Contact". What exactly is this? Is it a court order? Is it a request?
FDH and BM have mediated and agreed to a visitation schedule. As of right now, there's a month of once a week meetings where FDH goes to visit his son. Both FDH and BM have mutually agreed to allow me to attend. After that, its either a month or two of one overnight visit each weekend. After that, its the typical visitation schedule: every other weekend, every other holiday, etc. We're still in the once a week meetings stage. Can FDH request a No Contact? It would probably make our lives so much easier.
My Dh had a "No Contact
My Dh had a "No Contact Order" added to the court order because of BM's harassment. When I met him, there was no parenting schedule, just the order stating how much he was to pay. I made him see that he needed to have HIS rights outlined too.
The No Contact was a non-negotiable part of that order and, ironically enough, the one item that BM fought against the most.
In the end, it was granted by the judge even without any proof on our end. The actual order said no contact except in case of emergency and they were also ordered to do drop-offs/pick-ups at a neutral third-party where they did supervised visitation for those needing it. We didn't have to see her ugliness for a few years, besides court.
Funny because no contact was
Funny because no contact was the main thing our BM would not negotiate on in mediation (we wanted it, she did not). When it went to court, no matter what question got asked, she always brought it back to the subject of "needing" to be able to communicate with DH. Our judge granted it anyway. Guess he saw why we needed it
Why are you looking for no
Why are you looking for no contact?
Truly the best thing for the child is if the parents can work together. While I understand how difficult that may be for the grown ups, I suggest trying for a while before you go to that place, because once it gets ugly like that, it will always be ugly.
Since this is so new, I agree
Since this is so new, I agree with yhatzee above. Just deal with it for a little while through this initial getting to know each other phase. Who knows, BM may chill out when she gets used to the idea of having bio-dad in her son's life. If she continues to be "crazy" after the regular visitation schedule is in place, then maybe start thinking about no contact. Since you all just when through court & came to an agreement, it would not look great to a judge for your DH to immediately be trying for no contact without a proven history of harassment. My DH put up with BM for nearly 5 years before he pushed for no contact. It wasn't fun, but we got lots of documentation to show the judge that we had honestly put forth an effort to co-parent & it wasn't possible.
BTW, you didn't mention child's age or what you meant by "crazy". Why didn't DH know about this child? This sounds a bit more complicated than your post made it seem. More details may get you more help on this board.
In our case, BM would call at
In our case, BM would call at least once or twice a day and scream at DH for 10-15 minutes then hang up on him. He never said much to her and never tried to defend himself. He just took the abuse. It was never to do with the skids, it was always to do with the Almighty $$$ (even though he paid CS faithfully).
The last straw was when she took the skids out of state and out of school for a MONTH long vacation without notifying DH. We just went to get the skids and nobody was home.
Oh yeah, and her coming out once after the skids were already in the car and we were getting ready to leave and screaming her head off like a darn fool ijit. Not sure why. I was in the process of pulling away and just froze because I had never seen someone lose it like that in public. I soon regained my senses and just drove away. The skids didn't say a word and sat wide-eyed for about an hour afterwards.
Those two things were what finally made DH agree with me that he had to go to court. Otherwise, we would have been dealing with her abusive phone calls and having total control of when he got to see his own kids for a lot longer.