Advice
The majority of you on this site have either went through a divorce or are married to someone who has been divorced and a child is involved. I am currently going through a divorce with a 5 month old. My husband does have a child from a previous marriage. What I need are tips to ensure he gets as little visitation as possible. I know that sounds horrible for me to want that right now…and yes all my other blogs have had people tell me I can’t keep this baby from her father….but right now he is not capable of taking care of her. For the entire three and a half years I have been married to this man I have been the sole caregiver to his son who is now 7 ½. I was the one to get him ready for school. Be there right after school. And spend my summers taking care of him since I am a teacher and was off. My husband could never give up anything in his life for someone else; financially and time wise. When this baby was born my husband NEVER and I am not lying got up with her in the middle of the night. He actually never heard her even when she was right next to him in a bassinet or when the baby monitor was all the way up in volume.
His temporary custody arrangement is only every other weekend from 9 to 6 with no overnight stays and every Wednesday from 5-8. During this arrangement since Dec 27th he has yet to pay me a dime, offer money to me for her needs or daycare, or even pay his share of bills he left me with. He is dodging any financial proposal that my lawyer is sending. I even had a no contact order against him for one week and he broke that 4 times and spent a week in jail for contempt of court. Every time he has come to the house to pick her up he has had some other man with him for a witness. I have now refused this other man to step into the house. Husband will not come into the house now to get daughter. He stands outside in zero weather and hands me her car seat.
I have told him what is needed in her care for the time he has her. I even gave him an index card with her feeding schedule on it and what she eats. I have told him exactly when she needs to eat. He has yet to follow the schedule. She has been wearing diapers that are too small for a month now and I even went as far as to take pictures of the raw marks left from the tabs of the diapers. He lives with his mother right now over 30 minutes away. I have no idea where he takes her on Wednesday nights since he really does not have time to go to his mothers. I think he is just hanging out in town at different friend’s houses. I know all this is petty but this is an infant I am talking about. What more can I do right now. You cannot tell me his situation looks good. Especially not willing to help out in any of he financial needs.
Unfortunately,
child support or avoiding paying his bills that he had with you hold no weight when it comes to visitation. They are separate issues and you can not withold a child because of lack of payment from the ex.
My ex has not paid child support for our 3 kids in 10+ yrs. It was an extremely violent marriage where he beat me several times in front of the kids. He had been charged & convicted & served time BUT he was still allowed to have supervised visitation...even after all of this. The judges reasoning on this was "although your ex husband is very violent and has caused you emotional & physical pain in your relationship, I do not have the right to not allow him to NOT see the children of the marriage. I do see that it would not be in their best interest to be alone with their father because of his anger issues, however, I feel it would be detrimental to their relationship with their father by not seeing him at all."
We have found that unless there are obvious signs of abuse/neglect to the child, he will NOT lose his visitation with your child. I know this is not what you want to hear, but this is reality. The courts feel that it is very important for a child to have an ongoing relationship with the other parent. If there are safety issues, you could possibly get supervised visitation but that too will only be until they see that he is able to take care of the child.
Beyond insisting he give you
Beyond insisting he give you a phone number where they can be reached at all times that he has her, I don't think there's much you can do. You could offer to host the visits at your home until she's older and/or he's more stable.
You don't have to work out a fancy separation agreement to get the CS. You can get that through your state's child support enforcement agency. That can tide you over until you get a separation agreement filed with the courts.
Here's a thought. If he's never been much of a caregiver to his children and if he's trying to dodge financially supporting them, then maybe you should consider making him an offer he can't refuse. What's more important to you? Getting CS or denying him visitation? I wonder if he would agree to waive his parental rights, including visitation, if you waived child support?
♥ Georgia ♥
"Good men don't just happen. They have to be created by us women." (from ROSEANNE)
MY STORY
My ex was very violent and verbally abuse plus an alcoholic in denial. I almost lost custody because I denied him lots of parenting time. Time that was court ordered. In hind sight, I know I did what was best for my child but it caused me a lot of grief in court. Over time his time has become less and less by his choice. He used to have one evening a week for a couple hours plus every other weekend including overnights since she was 10 months old. Now it is still almost every other weekend but more often than not its only one night instead of two. We stopped the one evening a week a couple years ago due to his work schedule, distance (30 miles one way) and her schedule. I think if I would have given him the time I denied him, he would have gotten overnights much later.
I know its hard and it sucks but if you get lucky he will get bored with it and cancel on his own. As far as feeding her properly and the too small diapers, there is not much you can do about it. Just be prepared to feed and change baby when he/she gets home. My youngest only ate organic baby food and would refuse to eat the stuff her BF tried to feed her. She was also breastfed and I had to pump and give BF bottles so he would not feed her anything else.
Good luck and I hope this helps if only a little bit.