>Who lives with you, and who does not?
I only have the youngest with me.
I hold custody of the middle (until end of June, she will be 18 then)
and the youngest.
>I take it that you are talking about your 12 year daughter old
having lunch with your 17 year old daughter?
Yes
>Is your oldest a boy or a girl?
Boy. Order of protection issued early this year until 2011.
>What was so unbearable about the situation?
The lies mostly, the mom bashing, and in general attempting
to persuade youngest to "join them"/live with them.
>Don't you think that your daughter ought to feel comfortable
about mentioning her father?
Yes, I sure do. I wanted all three to be with him fifty percent of
the time. We tried it that way for as long as we all could.
>If she doesn't even talk to you about him, that's a big red
flag that she doesn't feel comfortable with you where her
father is concerned.
She does talk <of> him. Personally, I think she wants her dad to
help both her brother and sister. I think she wants him to
help "make their problems go away". She also suffers a
great deal of embarrassment about it all. We moved few towns
over and I think that has helped tremendously.
>Unless your other children or their father assault your
daughter during visits, that's not ever going to happen.
Ever. The court will work with you to be sure that the
children are safe during visits. Period.
Yes, I understand that. My primary concern has been her safety.
All of the children figured that problem out on their own and
as they got older, used it to their advantage. Witnesses
(medical, school, and lawful) have testified about how their father permitted the children to act with each other and towards me.
>Have you been in therapy regarding how to help you and
your children have a safe and open line of communication
with you about their father?
No. While middle was with me, I strongly encouraged her
to see her father and to involve her sister if she desired.
Middle didn't want anything to do with him until she wanted
help with the bad decisions she was making herself and
wanted complete and total freedom.
>If your middle daughter is not physically or sexually abusive,
there are no grounds for an OP. Have you tried to involve
yourself and your middle daughter in therapy so that you
won't feel so threatened about what she might say to your youngest?
There has been grounds for an OP with our middle
daughter due to the fact that she was constantly creating
phone problems (running up their father's bill on all
the cell phones, accusing me of doing it, filing false phone
harrassment phone charges against me and others
close to me, stalking her sister (to take her), telling lies to youngest's
friends and friend's parents, etcetera. The family
court advised me to file for an OP. I declined, because
in my opinion, she's doing all of this "for" her daddy. Our son
was doing things because he couldn't control himself and
had a ton of anger problems even as a very young child.
Sure middle daughter is angry (at me) also, but it does not
show criminally, work-wise, or anywhere else in her life.
>Since he is requesting that the court enforce the visitation order,
He has not had visitations since April 07. I filed for divorce
in Feb 07 after we couldn't work things out with a private
attorney since Jan 06. I offered visitations for all three children,
in that first order, to expire in March because he was changing
employment and did not know his new schedule. I was
completely flexible with visitation over the summer, in
fact he had them over fifty percent of the time since
I knew I'd be helping them more during the school year with
homework. I also made him sign monthly calendars right
before school started because the oldest two were running
off on Friday night, without their father knowing their whereabouts,
and then he'd be mad at me when he had to go figure out
where they were the next day. IOW, the kids were playing
him, and quite well I must say.
>there are no grounds for abandonment if you refuse visitation.
I've never refused visitation. I have filed visitation (again,
our personal verbal agreement) interference charges on him
twice. Once he wouldn't return two of them that I had already
provided with medical care for strep throat and needed to
take youngest to the ER (he was having family over, pregnant
ones at that, heh) and the other when he wasn't sending our
son to school for finals right after son was released from
house arrest at his mother's home (son needed to relax of
course, life at his paternal grandma's was rough-heh).
>There are grounds to have you charged with violation of
court ordered visitation, and probably contempt of court.
He could probably get custody based upon that. You would
be well advised to work out a visitation schedule with him
now rather than make the judge tell you that you have to do it his way.
Nope, in the last two years he's never asked for visitation
on the girls in court. Truthfully, our son was taking up our
court dates for the divorce. Dad's lawyer was having him be
seen my whichever family court judge we had rather than
the juvenile judge.
He never asked even to see his now 22 yo daughter from is previous
marriage, and finally relinquished his paternal rights to her when
she was 12, when his ex remarried. Over a hundred thousand
dollars in child support might make a person do that with a
child they hadn't seen since she was 3.
Granted, on his behalf, it was difficult keeping track of
our son during all of these missing three years.
But no Christmas or Birthday presents, no phone calls to
them on the phone plan he maintained, etcetera, since Nov 07.
See, he was mad at the girls for their feelings and opinions
about their brother. And me, I got so caught up trying
to help our son, I didn't realize the effects at that time
on the girls, until our son was out of the home (Nov 07).
I did do a good job of getting middle to go to counseling
(which even had a few appearance by her dad but not
her brother) and I did have a Remedy in the OP for son
to get counseling, which is where I felt we all could
get help. I went with a civil no contact order first, and then
we proceeded to the OP, when dad wouldn't agree to
mandatory weekly counseling.
But dad said son didn't have a problem, son
didn't do anything wrong, and WE all didn't need to go to
counseling and that he didn't have the money to assist.
>When you say he is unfit, what do you mean? The court
usually considers a parent who supplies a child with drugs
or alcohol unfit.
Yup. There are police reports already admitted into evidence.
As well as police reports where the police contacted him
after son broke into the house where me and the girls
were living with his friends after I went to work at 6 am.
Son and his friends were actually getting high and drinking
on the property we were at from 9pm until the next morning.
Dad had no clue where son was. I could go on and on.
>Also, if they use the child in other illegal activities such as
shoplift or commit fraud for them;
Yup. Bills in the children's names. Misrepresenting
custody, misrepresenting addresses, lying about car
insurance, allowing them to drive without insurance
on his work cars, not notifying me of school absences,
shoplifting charges and illegal intoxication while driving
while I held custody (on oldest two since I also held full
custody on our son until he was 18 but he was not in
my care).
It's also important to add that I did not want to keep
custody of a child not in my car. But dad was never eager
to take the full responsibility of the kids behavior.
Especially not financially. I couldn't get Dad to sign
the paperwork to take custody of the children. For son,
I did request through the attorneys several times
that I would sign over custody of son, if he was to
receive the medical care he needed and was be ordered
to receive (by the school and by the law). That was too
much work for any of them. And personally, I don't think
dad could have found a judge who would have awarded
custody of son to him. Even with me keeping quiet
about it all. Because dad tried that a few times. Get this,
Dad got criminal/physical custody and I kept legal custody.
Um, its a no brain er that Dad was posting a lot of bond money.
Now custody was finally granted in May of this year on
the girls, to me. But before the 30 days were up to validate
that agreement, I was in family court in front of our divorce
judge defending myself from an EOP. Dad's motion
to overturn custody has not been heard at this time.
Um, I don't know what to say here except that he sort
of looked like an ass for how he did this stuff. And
middle daughter telling the judge that her brother
never harmed her didn't help matter whatsoever for
his case, since the state prosecuted our son and it was
her written testimony and tons of bloody pictures
that got him charged.
>if they force the child to live in squalor; if they withhold
basic living needs such as food, clothing, a bed, etc. from the child;
Oh yea, like letting them stand out in weather in the teens
to be first in line at a store on Black Friday, without winter
coats? Let the kids sell line tickets to make money?
Then take them home and let them invite more kids
over to a place that does not have heat for the rest of the
weekend? More parents yelling at me! Call his landlord
you say? Hell no, at that time he was only 5 of his later
11 months behind on his $1100 a month rent. I called
his mom and she went and paid for the heat to be fixed
Sunday after I got the kids back, after she pleasantly
cussed me out because she thought he was paying me
child support. Yea right. And no, I have never called
DCFS. I probably should have. But everyone knows
what's been going on. And my children were taught that
they are always to have heat/food/shelter and if they didn't
that I would come get them and we'd bump around visitation
or make other changes.
Feed em you say? Yup, I took over lots of bags of groceries
and money and bought lots of pizza's. I also borrowed
money for their air beds. In fact, besides the fact that I was running
around being responsible for them while they were in
his care and the homework/school issues, the fact that
the kids were unsupervised and getting into trouble
and hurting each other was more alarming than anything.
I didn't just have a son who was stealing, I had a daughter
who was being threatened about his stealing, and another
youngest daughter who's brother was "going out" her friends,
5 years age difference. I spend a great deal of time in
the principals office by myself.
>if they personally beat
IL does consider allowing your child to be hurt by
another one of your children as abuse. IL also considers
permitting a child to hurt his other parent as abuse.
>Does your family court have parenting classes
that you might go to so that you can understand the
legal requirements for termination of rights and visits?
We have both completed our classes.
>You seem to not understand the level of depravity
required to terminate your ex husband's rights.
Terminating your child's relationship with her siblings
is all but unheard of.
The state already terminated their relationship when
the OP was ordered. Trust me, no one took the situation
lightly. Everyone knew it would put a strain on
the father's relationship with his children. But as
I hope I conveyed, his lifestyle and choices concerning
the children had not allows been in their best interests.
Sometimes I was happy my son wasn't given full punishments,
since I felt that it was actually his father who should have
punished for allowing son to act in such ways.
>I've never heard of "reserving visitation". What does that mean?
I've searched and searched the statutes and can't find it anywhere.
Reserving the right to visitation means that he can
later request such. Its just a temporary hold. It can be
indefinite or definite for a certain amount of time,
or until certain things are met (such as counseling or
sentencing for a crime).
See, one of my worries is that I know their father has not
been obeying the OP at this time. He had both children
living in the home at the same time. They are no longer
in the same home, but son is unemployed now and
is facing eviction. He is also awaiting trial on gang
rape charges, and other charges of course.
>Honestly, I don't blame her for not wanting counseling.
She's 12 years old and wants to be normal. Maybe you
and she could attend counseling and find a way to work
this out between you?
Um, there isn't much to work out between her and I.
If she wants to see her siblings or her father, I will work
it out for her, somehow. She also knows that if she
wants to be with him, than she may. I told the middle
daughter the same.
>I don't think that you can convince the court that you are
only protecting if your husband "is non-abusive, just
irresponsible and immature"
So true.
>and you want to prohibit him from seeing his children.
But I am not seeking to prevent him from ever
seeing her. I just know for a fact that he won't follow
any court orders as he's shown in the past. And most
importantly, youngest does not want to see him.
>It's incumbent upon you and he to figure out
how to allow him to see these children and be good parents to them.
Sure it is. I spend more time talking to him that she
does. I'd bet I talk to him more than he talks to all three of them.
I offer A, or B, or C, or D. His new answer is that he is
not agreeing to anything unless it includes finalizing
our divorce. And my counter offer is...
He pays for the legal fees for all of this nonsense,
I'll wipe all debts to me, and reserve visition at this time.
He can petition the court when she wants visitations
(I'm sure she will when all the smoke clears, they usually do)
or when he can assist with counseling for her (he's too busy
and it's too expensive).
>If he's not a danger to them, and he won't change, then you
have to figure out how to deal with the consequences to your
children of his parenting style.
I can't deal with his parenting style. No one should have
to deal with these issues. I wouldn't wish this one anyone.
Personally, I think he got mad about getting a divorce and
wanted to get back at me through the children. And
he did a bang up job alright. But, I will not allow him
to pass off the financial responsibility of his actions upon me.
He can thus pay the legal fees for our son's actions that
he permitted and he can pay the college tuition for our
middle one, since we were unable to plan things out together.
(He refused to pay for any tuition assistance) I'll eliminate his
child support past and future.
I never wanted child support anyway. I wanted to get two
teens in the same grade out of high school and enjoy them.
But no, he refused to cooperate on the court order for
health insurance. "Ain't no judge gonna make me pay!"
Okay if you wont make an agreement with me dad, then
I'll go do it myself and we can work it out later. "I'm not
paying!" Okay then, get the insurance yourself. "No!"
Then I'm gonna file for a withholding on your check and
they will notify your work of the court order and require
you to sign up for health insurance. "Won't happen!"
It only took a week for the paperwork to get to his work.
The kids used that health insurance until he left that job.
Even better, he notified that job of his "leave". Went
to the next job and didn't think I'd figure it all out. Sent
notice to his new work. They declined it. Had to go
tell his old work about his new work to get the withholding
to end there and start at new work. Took me a while,
but insurance was started again. To this day we still have
medical bills he bankrupted while he was court ordered
to have insurance and pay 50/50 after deductible.
I'm making the payments.
If I didn't have the youngest, I'd take every ounce of it all.
But I have her to care for, and that just is not fair to her.
Oh wait, did I add that he filed bankruptcy last year?
So I have all of our marital bills, while he continues to
amend his bankruptcy with the tons of legal fees and
other bills created after he was forced out by legal order
of the marital home.
>Be ready to explain without judgment why you have different
rules than he does. Be sure that they know that you both
love them and that one parent's love isn't any more or less valuable
than the other's, you just have different styles of parenting
because you're two different people and you disagree.
Yup. I totally agree. But for some reason, without the counseling
I just can't see this little one getting over the fact that
her father has "skipped" over her for so long. The resentment
she has toward him comes from his decisions. I begged
him to continue a relationship with her, to make sure
she and her sister understood that he was busy helping
their brother do better, and that he was not "forgetting
about them". I begged him to assist in reforming a relationship
with our son. Not for myself. For our son.
>Be sure that they know that you have confidence that they
are good people who will be good adults and that they can
come to you for advice any time and you will not judge them
or debase their father to them.
Agreed. Back to the same problem though. Their father
judged the girls for standing up to him about their brother.
>I don't know what it is that your ex has done to make you so angry.
He really doesn't have me angry. He frustrates me.
He knows for a fact that these children need him.
He knows they need their mother as well. Ironically, I'm
not really sure what they need me for, except for a punching
bag, verbal abuse, or money. But maybe someday that will
change. But not with the way things are right now.
>I do know that if the two of you
walked into any family court I'm familiar with (and I am)
you'd both be admonished to figure it out before the court
orders you into an arrangement you can't live with,
Honestly, I personally could live with any agreement.
Agree to what really? I get all the bills anyway, and
those to come. That's okay, as long as they were for
the good.
But youngest won't go with him. I've never pressured
her to tell me to many details. But I bet she has more
information than anyone would want to know. And the
court took her statements on both siblings already, on
the stand, so I would imagine they will respect her
wishes in regards to visitation.
But going without visitations will only create a bigger
mess in a few years if the oldest two don't settle down,
or if some form of relationship isn't developed with dad
before youngest becomes a teen.
>and counseling that the court and the other party will have
access to and can use against you in future hearings. It's not what you want.
You know what, as messy as everything's gotten, I could care
less what comes out in counseling. Everything needs to come
out. True or untrue. Because every day the oldest two are told
more and more lies. I'd rather confront them head on now,
than try to figure them all out later. That's something that has
hurt us all along.
Personally, the youngest is so little in maturity (held back) that
she will do better forming a relationship with her father in a few
years or sooner. I say that because she has that sort of personality.
But right now, she is scared of her brother, and I can't change that
with the behavior he shows to everyone. Her sister's lies about
what has happened in the past and what she knows happened
is a whole another issue. She loves her father, but just doesn't
want to get caught up in all the drama. And I know he loves her
too.
Thanks for listening...I think you guys are right. I hafta find
someone to talk to, and youngest too.
