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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    2

    Unhappy Non-Custodial Parent is Creating Problems Through His Statements to the Child

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

    My GF and her son moved over 500 miles away of her home state of Indiana to live with me, after going through the appropriate legal channels of course. At the time, her son's father was living much further than that from Indiana and had made no meaningful attempt to stay in contact with his son since he bailed when his son was only a few months old. It wasn't until she had to hunt him down and notify him that she intended to move that he started calling and, of course, try and stop the move. He takes us to court and the move is granted anyway.

    My GF moves to be with me then a week or so later her son's father moves back to Indiana and has been there since (fairly certain living in a homeless shelter). He has called nearly everyday for the past year, with the exception of a 4-month hiatus, to talk to his son. During these calls he grills his son with son with questions about how happy he is here and questions about his mother and I, spending literally almost no time having meaningful conversation with his son and rejecting any answer that his son gives that isn't what he wants to hear. When he isn't doing that he is undermining our parenting by telling his son that "If you lived with Daddy you wouldn't have to do that", "Daddy wouldn't make you go to bed at that time", or "Mommy shouldn't be making you do your homework". He also tries to undermine the relationship that I have with the boy by constantly saying "You can't love him/He can't tell you what to do, He's only your mommy's boyfriend. He's not your father" and "You don't have any family there, You belong here". Being drug through all of this is really upsetting to the boy. He has gotten worked up on these phone calls many times (and this literally kills me because I love that boy to death). He doesn't know his father because, other than a few short visits (literally 2-3), He has had no contact with him. Now here he is undermining the stability and structure that we have provided.

    We used to take the phone away when we noticed he was upsetting the boy but we were taken back to court for interrupting phone calls (and an attempt to get custody). Now we are afraid to do that. My question is what can we do to protect ourselves and prove what the father is doing? From everything I've read, recording these phone calls is out of the question because his mother and I are not actually parties to the conversation and there is no way the father would agree to being recorded. We keep a log of all the calls containing the time of each call and any major things said during any calls but were told by our lawyer (whom we're dumping due to his handling of this last hearing) that we shouldn't be listening in on these calls and anything we say would only be hear-say. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Just to be clear, I would never try to stand between a relationship between a father and a child but something has got to be done about this because in the last year alone he has proven time and time again that he cares nothing about his son and is only jerking him around to get to his mother and I. As an example, His son went to spent 5 weeks at his grandparents, to which we had to give his father contact info. He NEVER called but the day that he came back home to be with us, The calls started again daily. How can you prove what the NC parent is doing when you can't record the calls nor repeat what you've heard??? Again, Any help will be greatly appreciated.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Somewhere near Canada
    Posts
    35,894

    Default Re: Non-Custodial Parent is Creating Problems Through His Statements to the Child

    Does he actually have an order giving him daily phone visitation? A visitation order at all? I'm going in a particular direction here.

    (And I guess you've looked through past posts here and know how an overstepping stepparent is viewed )

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    2

    Default Re: Non-Custodial Parent is Creating Problems Through His Statements to the Child

    No, There is no order specifying the frequency of the phone calls and up until this last hearing (which basically turned into a mediation with us handing over everything and arguing nothing because of the way the lawyer (mis)handled it), There was only an order specifying supervised visitation with no set schedule or frequency. After this latest hearing we were pushed extremely hard by the lawyer to hand over unsupervised visitation which would eventually work it's way into overnights if all goes good. Although, right after the hearing we found out that the father had almost certainly been lying about his address and, in fact, living in a homeless shelter so, if nothing changes before the overnights start, we will have to go back to court.

    We were intending to try and get somewhat of a schedule (the father calls at all hours and it makes it extremely hard to be available) and frequency set on the phone calls during this last hearing but nothing was handled as it should have been and it just never happened. We are in the process of finding a new attorney who doesn't flip-flop where he/she stands and completely change everything 15 minutes before a hearing. The father is already threatening to drag us back to court, despite doing everything as we agreed so I guess we'll get to handle this sooner than later.

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