Avoiding a Trial

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Washington

I have been divorced from my ex for 3+ years. The entire time we have been in a nasty court battle. I have sole custody of our 4 kids because of a domestic violence violation of a protection order. He spent two months in jail back in '06 because of the violation.

Since then he has had supervised visitation with them for two hours a week, then 4 hours, now he has them unsupervised for 9 hours every other Sat. If he complies with everything he will move on to Sats. and Suns. for two months and then on to a normalized visitation schedule.

Although we (I re-married last year) have been trying to keep him from the kids (he has been diagnosed as a sociopath with borderline personality disorder), he has not done anything terribly abnormal during visits so we know that we are going to have to accept the visitation. We have been told by all involved that basically we have to "wait until he screws up".

So, yesterday I got a notice saying that he is moving to go to trial. The only issue that seems to be at dispute now is decision making and religious decisions. We will not budge on those things because he has used religion as a manipulation tactic in the past. He believes "based on the Bible" that women are inferior to men, that women should not wear pants because that would be immodest and equal to prostitution, that women need to submit to men and not question authority. He believes that men should be men and women should be slaves. I have 3 sons and a young daughter (7 y.o.). We cannot risk letting him have any type of joint decision making.

What would a trial look like if we are in agreement on everything but those two points? Would we be laughed out of court? Forced to conceed? Do we have to "prove" that we are the better parents?

We do have an attorney, but my ex has reported him to the Bar (along with the GAL and a supervisor. This guy is a real piece of work, noone wants to deal with us anymore because they are scared of him).

We have spent over $40,000 fighting him in court, we cannot afford a trial.

:wallbang:

~momto4

Does he follow an actual religion, or are these beliefs simply those he wishes to impose on his family? Do you follow an alternate religion?

As your lawyer has surely told you, while courts can enforce settlements between parents as to the religious upbringing up children, courts are limited by the First Amendment in terms of restricting parents from practicing religion or raising their children in a religious faith. You need to be focusing on the secular aspects of the religion - the harm that your children will suffer due to the extremity of these beliefs - if you want a court to limit your ex's action.

It goes without saying that if you can't agree to a settlement of the issues, there will be a trial on the unresolved issues.