Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
My question involves a child custody case from the State of: California
My husband and I are trying to work up an agreeable custody and visitation schedule for his 11 year old son. The only court orders in effect were temporary orders from 10 years ago granting my husband visitation every other weekend, splitting holidays, very generic, etc. As it is now, she has full control over the schedule and argues with every request we make for time around the holidays or over the summer. Basically, we need something in writing because right now my husband has no choice but to accept whatever time/terms she decides including the schedule. We have spent the time to draft an updated agreement which still grants her full physical custody and my husband visitation every other weekend plus splitting school breaks. We gave her a copy of the proposed agreement and asked her to either sign or write down any changes she would like. After a month of putting us off, she finally responded saying that she will not agree to anything we have proposed and doesn't want anything in writing that "binds us" to a schedule. We would like to continue to negotiate in good faith before taking this to court so are attempting to address her specific disagreements. #1 being that she will not allow him to stay for breaks unless one of us is home the entire time with written verification from our employer. My husband's retired parents live behind us, and his uncle next door, in addition I have a 15 year old son who is with me every other week, so he would never be alone, even if one of us had to work. Rather than argue with her about how ridiculous it is for her to be able to use grandparents or teenage babysitters but we can't, we would like to come up with some wording that we can add to the agreement that states he would always have responsible supervision. Does anyone have suggested wording? The #2 issue is in regards to missed weekends. Currently there are a couple of winter months where my husband has to work on the weekends. Whenever this happens she changes the schedule, basically we lose the time we would have had my SS & start the schedule of every other week over again the next weekend my husband has off (if she doesn't have plans already). We proposed that the schedule of weekends stays the same (better for both of us for planning purposes) and that the time missed would be made up in one of two ways - she has the option to either let us have him on a weekend not normally scheduled for visitation or we can add it to the summer visitation. For this reason we only asked for 2 weeks at summer instead of 4 weeks, anticipating that there may be time added. Is there anyway to make this more reasonable? She has made it clear she intends to fight us all the way to court, but there really is no reason that we can't come up with something that satisfies her concerns. We realize that we will still end up filing papers in court because having anything in writing requires her to give up some of her control, but we hope that heading off her concerns will make the mediation process more successful for us. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you.
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
She's not going to be able to dictate forever.
What exactly do the temp orders specify as far as parenting time? It appears that as of right now he gets (or should get) the standard NCP visitation.
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
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Dogmatique
She's not going to be able to dictate forever.
What exactly do the temp orders specify as far as parenting time? It appears that as of right now he gets (or should get) the standard NCP visitation.
I agree that she is not going to be able to dictate forever, but dad is NOT going to get makeup time for a weekend he misses due to his own issues. Why can't he exercise his visitation anyway? Does he have to work 24 hours a day on those weekends?
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
They are the standard generic NCP visitation - he gets every other weekend plus one overnight during the week, alternate holidays, etc. Mind you SS was just a baby when they were written & is 11 now so circumstances have changed a lot. She has since moved 1 1/2 hours away which makes it hard enough to stay involved. She also has remarried and doesn't think he needs his dad. She refuses to include his dad in all the ways she should. No school photos, no report cards (only when he's in trouble because then we have to enforce HER rules when he's with us), no input on extracurricular activities, no schedules, nothing unless she needs to use it to say why he can't come here. My husband does more with his son in the little time that he has than his stepdad ever has. He has been to more of his son's baseball games than either his mom or stepdad has even though we're 1 1/2 hours away & they can walk to the ballpark. We go to his games even when he's not with us, 3 hours in the car to watch him play & then say goodbye after the game. So it's not like we aren't adding something positive to his life. But she is fighting it because she thinks it is confusing for him (her words). She believes it's too confusing for him because he has a stepdad she has him call "dad" and tells him to call his real dad by his first name - which he always calls his dad "dad" though :) We are not going to go away, we both love him and want him to feel like a part of our family, not just someone who comes to visit from time to time. We are tired of it being an argument every time we want to see him, especially holidays. She makes her plans and then we have to work around them. We are using all the old child-rearing tricks used for preschoolers and teens - giving options, but it's still a battle. We can't even make plans for family vacations because she will change things. We have had to cut our vacations short on more than one occasion, and even had to change plans entirely to fit her schedule. Plus, she has taken him on vacation on weekends he was supposed to be with us and not given us an alternate time (twice last year). She is a stay-at-home parent so she gets PLENTY of time with him. We just want to spend time with him too. We need something more clearly defining things because right now we really have no recourse as everything as written is very vague or doesn't apply any longer.
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llworking
I agree that she is not going to be able to dictate forever, but dad is NOT going to get makeup time for a weekend he misses due to his own issues. Why can't he exercise his visitation anyway? Does he have to work 24 hours a day on those weekends?
His job is in construction and sometimes there are deadlines on a project when he cannot refuse to work on the weekend in order to complete the project. He would have to turn down all projects that require any weekend days, which would basically leave him unemployed. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen a few weekends in a year. She will not let him come visit if my husband is working at all, even if he's able to come home in the evenings or for one of the two day. It's all or nothing. Like in my original post where she wants us to give her copies of vacation approvals from work to prove that we will be home on breaks before she'll let us have him. She won't even let him stay with his grandparents who live behind us.
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
Dad needs to file for what he wants, spelling out dates and times very clearly, including what happens if he is late to pick up for some reason. Make things as explicit as possible to prevent mom from finding loopholes. Ask for four weeks in the summer.
Dad is not going to avoid court. He needs to quit trying to bargain with mom for things that are completely reasonable and that he would get from a judge anyway. Time to cut the nonsense and just do it.
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
She is being totally unacceptable in requiring you to prove that one of you will be home during vacations, and completely unreasonable to deny dad his weekends if he has to work.
Those reasons alone should send dad back to court for more specific orders...explaining to the judge that mom does those things. The judge will give her, her comeuppance for that.
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
OP, that's not what I asked.
I asked exactly how it was worded - because there's a chance that Mom is actually doing nothing wrong here.
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
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Dogmatique
OP, that's not what I asked.
I asked exactly how it was worded - because there's a chance that Mom is actually doing nothing wrong here.
The orders of 4/25/06 state: "Joint Legal Custody, Primary Physical Custody with Mother. Visitation for Father - Alternate Weekends from Friday 5 p.m. to Sunday 7 p.m., Weekdays - Wednesdays from 4:30 to 9 p.m. Holiday Schedule - Split day Thanksgiving & Easter, Christmas Eve to Father, Christmas Day to Mother. Father's Day with Father, Mother's Day with Mother, 4th of July & Halloween - alternate years. OTHER: The parties contemplate that the agreement herein as set forth between them is an agreement for the next 12 months only. The parties acknowledge that they will work together to increase the visitation time between Father and the minor child. The parties agree that to change the visitation schedule either party does not need to show a change of circumstance."
They have already deviated from this schedule due to her moving away. He lost Wednesday evenings & obviously nobody can split a Holiday when it'll take 3 hours there & back so they have been alternating Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Also, he is now in school so we don't keep him until 7 p.m. on Sundays and we are lucky if we can keep him until 5 p.m. because "she misses him" and wants to pick him up as early as possible, sometimes even 3 p.m. Like I said, we are not doing this because she is doing anything "wrong" specifically but the orders are outdated and while it says they are to work together to increase visitation time, she will not work together. It's her way or no way when it comes to anything, so we need something more specific. My husband has only ever missed a weekend due to required overtime, and if he even has to work one day on the weekend she will not allow his son to come, even if he were in his grandparents' care. The only option we'd have is to lie to her and say he's not working but we won't do that because we won't put his son in that position. Isn't it reasonable to have some vacation time with him every year now that he's not an infant? His school is on a modified traditional schedule so they get 2 weeks for Fall Break, 2 weeks for Christmas Break, 2 weeks for Spring Break, and 7 weeks for Summer. Her reasoning for not granting time currently over breaks is because we work (she worked FT too up until a year ago), and she will not let him stay with his grandparents during the day (says it's too boring for him, yeah I guess living out in the country with nothing to do but dig dirt, build forts, climb trees, go fishing, and ride bikes is boring to some people). She said that if we prove to her that we will be home that he can come. But even if we could prove it, I don't think it would be good to give in & accept her terms because that's not going to solve the problem long term. She can have him stay with her mom or her husband's family, or her aunt, but we can't do the same?? My husband has joint legal custody, he has a good moral character and deserves to spend as much time with his son as is reasonable. At this point, we are really just trying to find out what is a reasonable request and what is not so that we can write it up well and be prepared in court. Thank you for your feedback.
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
Here's what I think:
Dad needs to propose a new plan, and he needs to make it as specific as he can without having to account for every minute. Some things to consider:
- Mom wanting to pick up the child early? No - but he does want to make it clear who is doing what in terms of pick-up and drop-off.
- If he feels it necessary (and I would), he can make it crystal clear that the parent can designate any adult third-party to pick-up and drop-off.
- Given Mom's ... "habit"... he needs to be proactive and make sure he's getting regular updates from school, and feedback from the child's pediatrician.
Is it 3 hours each way, or 3 hours total?
Re: Coming Up with a Workable Visitation Plan
Thank you. I agree that we need to be as specific as we can. It is 1 1/2 hours each way and we usually meet halfway but with extracurricular activities his dad often picks him up so that he can be there for the activity. When he has games on the weekend we take him to & from his hometown too so that he doesn't miss anything. So it would be nice if we could ask for her to pick him up at our home in those instances when we drive so much for him already, is that reasonable? I know we can ask for whatever we want but we don't want to look like we are being ridiculous (less likely for the Judge to think the rest is unreasonable).