My question involves a child custody case from the State of: MN and CA
Hello there. I apologize in advance for what might be some convoluted background information; it's been a messy divorce to say the least. Please bear with me - I think the background may shed a light to why this is a dilemma for me.
1. Divorce was finalized in MN, back in 2008. The ex and I (mother) have a daughter. She was 3 years old at the time. Daughter and I moved out as he refused to move ("If she wants the divorce, she can take [daughter] and move out. I ain't moving.") and started the divorce proceedings. I had a great lawyer who was a true advocate for the best interest of our daughter. My ex, on the other hand, insisted that we "share" my lawyer and refused to get his own. Despite my generous offer to not to pursue going after his real income (he's a bartender who reports only about a 1/3 of his true income) or his trust fund, he insisted that I now move back to the house while letting him take over my then-new apartment's lease, take over the mortgage, take over all the marital debt, plus a timeshare he wanted that we were still paying off, allow him to get a fresh start. In the end, my attorney was able to negotiate "no overnights" for him (ex is/was an alcoholic with 3 DUIs under his belt and a suicide threat during the divorce proceedings that landed him in a mandatory psychiatric ward and was released under his agreeing to seek council - at this incident, the police went to his house, confiscated firearms, and gave them to me per my ex's request as he refused to turn them over to the police or allow his brother to get them since he didn't trust his brother) but I took over all the marital credit card debt plus the timeshare debt (we owed $3000+ on it and I was able to sell it for $1250, $250 going toward transfer of account). After all this, he spat out gleefully, "I didn't want overnights anyway."
As far as custody, I have sole physical custody and joint legal with stipulation that I make most of the daily decisions and he can have a say in religion and other big legal issues. Visitation agreement has the following stipulations: no phone call, no verbal discussions in person, only emails or mail pertaining to parenting issues for communication between both parties; ex to provide his work schedule to me by Tuesday of the prior week, visitation every other weekend, 2 weekday afternoons ONLY IF he is not working, 12 hours of no drinking prior to visitation, I have the right to terminate visitation if I suspect he'd been drinking before pick-up, etc.. Per the ex's request, my attorney did not spell out that he is an alcoholic but it is pretty obvious if you read between the lines. Child support was kept low even though I paid for our daughter's medical/dental insurance plus daycare.
Despite what I thought was a great effort to be generous as I could have gone after his true income ($60,000+ instead of $20,000 we used to calculate child support) or his trust fund or even demanded supervised visits based on the suicide threat that led to a police report, he continued to call me c**t or b*tch in front of our then 3 year old. He would violate the agreement by consistently being late to pick her up, early to drop her off, calling or texting me just to call me a c**t or b*tch, email me about what a horrible mother I am for doing this (i.e. divorce) to our daughter, he even went as far to text me to say that our 3 year old was turning into a b*tch like me due to my bad parenting skills. He was constantly trying to get out of visitation and would never take his weekends off, thus forcing me to amend the weekend pick-up time (he would be 40min - hour late and it was hard watching our daughter wait and get anxious) to later and drop-off time to 2 hours earlier. Oftentimes, she would be returned hungry (he'd only feed her one small snack for 7 hours - he felt that since he paid me child support, he shouldn't have to spend money to feed her at his house) and zombied out due to watching TV all day long (ex was/is a dedicated sports watcher - he'd even watch golf when no other sports were on). It was also obvious that he didn't bother reading the visitation agreement as he'd always ask me what holidays he was supposed to have her and oftentimes, he'd not know what was in our divorce decree.
In 2009, I proposed that he allow us to move to a warmer state due to health issues and he immediately agreed to give us permission in return for his guns (see above - confiscated by police), money to help him sell the house at a lower price, lower the child support by more than 1/2.
Guns were returned to his brother with a signed affidavit stating that the guns will not go back to the ex but merely kept in the family, I cashed out my retirement funds in order to make up for the deficit should he find a buyer for his house, and the child support was lowered. He was granted SKYPE video calls every week, I'd pay to bring her to MN every summer (no more than 14 days), 1/2 of his airfare whenever he wanted to visit our daughter. We were moving to FL at that time and we also added the stipulation that I wouldn't move out of FL if he were to move to FL at some point.
2. In FL: I set up a SKYPE account for our daughter, informed him. He chose to call and text me to curse at me but would not set up SKYPE, demanding to speak with her on the phone. (It was specifically stipulated that he were to NOT call my phone; he was supposed to do SKYPE until our daughter was old enough to handle phones and I'd get her a phone just for his phone calls.) Our daughter was 4 at the time and simply would not speak into the phone. Not for him, not for anyone - it was just her personality. I'd urge him to try SKYPE so he could at least see her but he chose to call my phone and harass me. Then the emails started - he was ranting and raving about my "father issues", that I was a c**t, that all his friends hated me, etc.. I gave him a warning regarding the violation of the decree and then when he continued, I banned his email address. That was when, 6 months after we had moved, he chose to set up his SKYPE and then texted me every 5 minutes demanding that I put our daughter on SKYPE. I reminded him that he's supposed to arrange a time ahead of time and that we were on vacation, i.e. no access to a computer. He refused to set up a time and continued to harass me, even calling me at work. I had to file a police report, then changed my phone number. I un-banned his email and explained how the SKYPE visitation was supposed to work. We agreed on a time and I specified our time zone. He didn't call in at the right time and then was upset that it wouldn't be HIS time zone. So, I tried again, this time specifying time in HIS time zone. SKYPE did not go well as he used the visitation to grill her whether I was in the room with her and wanted to know how much she missed him. Further SKYPE arrangements did not work out as he refused to get up early (i.e. 8am his time) and even asked for a time during which she'd be in school and/or daycare.
Then he filed a Contempt of the Court motion against me saying that 1) I owe him $625 from the sale of the timeshare (see above - I was still paying it off as we had owed almost $4000 on it) and 2) he be allowed to SKYPE with HIS daughter whenever he felt like it.
I was allowed to telephonically appear in court - I had all the documentations proving that there was no net proceeds, that I had done all I can to make SKYPE available whereas he hadn't even bothered to sign up until I banned his harassing emails.
The judge gave him some stern words and asked him how he thought it was fair that he's asking me for more money when I'm paying off the debt. He said something about he deserved the money and that I had no right to keep all of it. Outcome of this hearing was an addendum to our visitation stating that he will ONLY be allowed to email me about SKYPE, if he violates this, no SKYPE for him, he had to pay for my court fees (he filed his in forma pauperis), and his motions were both denied. With this new addendum, things were a bit less stressful.
In the two years we were in FL, he only asked for 2 days one summer, one day the next summer. He came to visit (obviously with friends) twice, again asking to see her one day each time, tried to get me to pay for his airfare but wouldn't provide an itinerary or receipt so I didn't pay. Once, for a Valentine's weekend, he was in FL and demanded to see her ONE day - he didn't follow the proper arrangements and we had plans for a trip. He showed up banging on our door, our daughter was scared, and we had to call the police.
Then I remarried and we moved on to CA - I gave him plenty of notice, that we were looking for better education system and we had an opportunity for a great school for our daughter. He tried to bargain with me, saying he'd give me permission to move to CA if I agree to allow him to email me, i.e. do away with the judge's recent order. I refused and reminded him of the agreement allowing me to move to another state if he did not move to FL.
3. So we are now in CA. He sent an email in January announcing that he had moved to our small town and that I "probably knew it would happen". We happened to know a few people in town who spotted him drinking at a local bar in December so he'd been in town for a while. Since he was in town, i.e. no need for SKYPE (he never used it two tries anyway), I sent him an email letting him know that he is no longer to email me and reminded him of the agreement we had, i.e. revert back to the original schedule. I instructed him to send me his schedule in advance and let me know which days he wanted to start seeing our daughter. We did not hear from him until last Friday. I had recently notified him of our daughter's enrollment at a different school which happens to be a private one. (Her step-dad is paying for it as I went to part-time.) I told him what his portion would be per our decree should he wish to contribute - but that he did not need to pay. He wrote that he would not be giving me any extra money as he is still without a job and that he'd be willing to see our daughter at the end of the month.
I had some concerns about the address he provided and went to the police station to ask a few questions and also to prepare for... well, anything. The deputy suggested that since he is not requesting the visitation per agreement (i.e. a regular schedule vs. some random weekend), and if I have misgivings about the address (shooting arrests and possible violent crimes in the last year, it's a 3 unit apartment house) I should simply tell him "no". Then, if he doesn't like it and wants to amend the agreement, he'd have to request to move the venue to give CA jurisdiction (the child's home of past 8 months), and file a motion to modify custody agreements. He hinted that CA is not as lenient as MN when it comes to alcoholic dads - and that I could probably use my ex's medical history to go ahead with supervised visits this time around, given his refusal to follow the court order. You know, win-win situation.
BUT.
I am going to provide a visitation time - I'm (clearly) tired of trying to get this person to follow the decree. I don't even know why, if he's unemployed, he hasn't bothered to ask for regular visitation but I'd rather not stir the pot. By now our 6-yr old daughter is so estranged from him that she's apprehensive about these visits - especially since he uses the drop-off/pick-up as an opportunity to give me an earful that usually includes "c**t" and "b*tch" but I'm legally bound to do this. She usually comes back full of statements like, "He said you are a liar; are you, Mommy? You're not, right?" or "He said I will hate you when I'm sixteen" or "He said I have to love him even though he's mean to me", etc.. So yes, it is painful but she's a resilient child, she shrugs it off and I assure her that she can certainly love him if she wants to but that no one can make her love or hate someone.
Given this situation, I rather like how we stand legally right now. Sure, things would be easier if I had sole legal custody as well (he doesn't bother us until I provide information that I'm legally bound to provide, i.e. school changes, address changes, passport renewals - although the decree does allow me to travel abroad with her as I have family abroad, I still have to get his notarized permission), but as he seems more intent on harassing me than actually participate in decisions about her life, it's worked out so far.
I'm not sure if filing to change the case venue is all that necessary or even beneficial...
Again, I'm SO SORRY about all the background but I wanted to try to explain why I'm not all that keen to stir the pot... I'm sorry it seems like a lot of rambling (this IS the short version, I swear!).
I follow the order, try to get the ex to follow, try to avoid as much confrontation as possible, and, as long as our daughter is not around him while he's stumbling drunk or driving drunk, I am content. What would be the pros for moving the case to CA? Under the UCCJEA (right?), the visitation agreement would be just as valid here in CA as it was in MN and FL... wouldn't it?
Thank you if you've read this far - if you've just skimmed through, I won't be offended. :-)

