Sole Custody Push

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hello,

The ex complained today about having to pay back child support so I was wondering if this would be a good opportunity to message her and give her the option of "this whole nightmare for you can go away if you sign over your parental rights and no child support".  Whether she goes for it or not, who knows.

However what are your thoughts on this, is this me manipulating a mentally ill person, or is this an opportunity to protect my 2 year old or younger son by giving her a way out completely?

Thoughts?

[Exeter]

Hello,

The ex complained today about having to pay back child support so I was wondering if this would be a good opportunity to message her and give her the option of "this whole nightmare for you can go away if you sign over your parental rights and no child support".  Whether she goes for it or not, who knows.

However what are your thoughts on this, is this me manipulating a mentally ill person, or is this an opportunity to protect my 2 year old or younger son by giving her a way out completely?

Thoughts?

[Nope]

I think many people on these boards who has to deal with their child's mentally ill parent dreams of being able to do something like this to get rid of them. I have no idea if anyone ever successfully has. Depending on the BPD person's specific traits and the full circumstances some BPD parents disappear on their own. But if a BPD parent is going to do that it isn't because of any push by the non to get them to.

Whenever you send an email you have to be very careful to think about how it will look in court. I feel like this is one of those double standard issues. If a mother sends such an email to a father saying, "Just go away. I won't even ask for child support." a judge would likely roll their eyes. If a father writes something like that to a mother it could be seen as using the mother's financial situation to bully her.

[Thunderstruck]

I agree with Nope, be careful careful careful what you put in writing (in other words I would never put that in text or email or voicemail... . ).

I don't know the background on your situation so I can't really give a recommendation on whether you should cut the pwBPD out completely. Just keep in mind what the 2 year old will feel later... . completely abandoned by mom "just like that" as if he doesn't matter... . Is that better than years of BPD chaos? I don't know the answer. It's tough either way.

[ForeverDad]

Whenever you send an email you have to be very careful to think about how it will look in court. I feel like this is one of those double standard issues. If a mother sends such an email to a father saying, "Just go away. I won't even ask for child support." a judge would likely roll their eyes. If a father writes something like that to a mother it could be seen as using the mother's financial situation to bully her.

I agree, there is often an unwritten practice where the above does happen.  I recently got an order where I not one thing was mentioned negatively about me but pages of negative things about my ex.  I got majority time during the school year.  But when it came to deciding the summer schedule, the court ruled that mother had "one more try" and let her keep equal time during the summer.   If I, a person of the male gender, had behaved as poorly as my female ex behaved, I would have been doing well to just keep alternate weekends.  However, just try proving there is a double standard. :'(

Also, find out what your state's laws are.  Some states don't allow you to trade or negotiate child support for parenting time.  My court sidestepped it when I got majority time and ought to have gotten child support by stating that since financials weren't submitted then the court wasn't ordering child support.  (That didn't stop my ex from getting child support before, during two prior times in court where ex was to get child support, she provided absolutely no financial information and she was 'imputed' with minimum wage income.)

However... . signing away parental rights... . hmm, if she had no parental rights then she also would not have any parental obligations.  That might be a strategy to bounce off your lawyer.  This would have to be a court process and likely the judge would want to quiz her to be sure she knew what she was doing.

[david]

My atty was very adamant about never discussing child support and time with the kids. The courts in my district take a very negative view on that. Legally it is refered to as chattel. Children are not to be considered as chattel.

If I were to get sole custody of our children I would be allowed to go to the child support conference. Once the amount was determined by their formula I would be allowed to lower that amount but not to zero. As long as both parents agree at that time the courts would follow. However, that would only be good for two years. At that time I would be sent a form stating that I am able to go back to a conference and recalculate the support amount. I could choose to ignore and keep things as they are but I could not lock in an amount at the first conference. My personal opinion on it is that keeps the courts humming along with plenty of repeat business.

[Nope]

However... . signing away parental rights... . hmm, if she had no parental rights then she also would not have any parental obligations.  That might be a strategy to bounce off your lawyer.  This would have to be a court process and likely the judge would want to quiz her to be sure she knew what she was doing.

Most states appear to treat rights and obligations as two completely separate issues. For example, in the state I live in, if a party is not paying their ordered child support they are still entitled to whatever parenting time they are supposed to get. Another example is if one parent is making significantly more money than the other parent. The court in the state I am dealing with feels that if it is in the best interest of the child that the paying parent be made to pay, then that parent can sign over rights all they want but it will not diminish financial obligation.

Come to think of it, isn't that the very nature of child support?  The paying parent has essentially, for good reason or no reason at all, lost the right to be a full time parent to their child. The loss of that right creates the obligation to pay child support.

[ForeverDad]

In the state Nope is referencing:

• 2005 - father assigned alternate weekends, mother imputed minimum wage.
  
  Father paid $$$ CS due to minority time and income differential.



• 2008 - divorce settled for equal time, father is Residential Parent.
  
  Mother agrees to $$$ alimony and waives CS.
  
  However lawyer said she could change her mind and ask for CS at any time so... .
  
  Settlement stated that if mother later chose to seek CS then the alimony will be adjusted downward.



• 2011 - father got custody, alimony had just ended.
  
  But GAL wanted equal time to stay "so mother could get CS and be more stable".
  
  Mother again imputed with minimum wage.
  
  Father's calculation for equal time was about $50 more than father's 2005 alternate weekend calculation.
  
  Clearly, equal time did not reduce CS by much if at all, it was the income differential.



• 2013 - Custodial father gets majority time during the school year.
  
  This time court does not impute incomes, states without incomes then mother pays no CS.

Yes, I agree, an uphill struggle for fathers, they don't get the breaks mothers get by default.

[catnap]

I am assuming from scanning your past posts that you have majority custody due to her drug and alcohol use.  Is her visitation supervised?  Was she ordered by the court to go to drug classes, therapy, parenting classes, etc? 

[Exeter]

I am assuming from scanning your past posts that you have majority custody due to her drug and alcohol use.  Is her visitation supervised?  Was she ordered by the court to go to drug classes, therapy, parenting classes, etc? 

No I have custody because I told her if she did not sign the custody agreement I was going to break up with her and take her to court.  She signed over the custody agreement willfully.

No she was not ordered to do any classes for her drug or alcohol use, claimed she has quit, yet has been seeing a therapist once a month or every two months to get her medication refilled.  They don't really talk, she just goes in for medicine.

[catnap]

What is the schedule for her visitation?  Does she always take the children on her days?  Do you think she still may be abusing alcohol and illegal drugs?

My thoughts are this: If you suspect (fear) she is still substance abusing, or whatever else she is doing that is not good for the kids, you could ask the court to have her visits supervised and that she pays the associated fees.  You would need good examples of what is going on that makes it dangerous for the kids to be alone with her.

There is a good chance she is not going to like to have to be supervised or pay the fees, so she may not do the visits, or very few.  After some time of her not attempting to see the kids, or pay CS, you can petition the court to remove her parental rights. 

This is basically what my son did.  He won sole custody of his daughter when she was 7 months old and his exgf was given supervised visitation which included drug testing.  She never once did a supervised visit, didn't pay the court ordered CS, so a year later he filed and had her parental rights removed.  She didn't even bother to show up in court for the hearing. 

[Exeter]

Schedule is she gets my son M-F during the summer, I get him on weekends.

I get him M-F during the 9 months of school, she gets him on the weekends.

Holidays rotate, however in the documents it says that he has to go to the local school district of wherever I am living, meaning anywhere I live!

With that said, my T today I brought up her ridiculous text message about being paid back the back child support she has to pay and I said... . why is she even here or involved in this?  She only gets him on the weekends for the school year, she does not want a family, I was willing and going to therapy with her before she found a replacement whom is honest here not an upgrade literally nearest warm body, brother of sisters boyfriend.  -- My mother picks up my son on Tuesday during the summer and brings him back on Thursday so she pays me child support, and even during the months she has the chance to see him, 2 of those days aside from the weekend he is still here - which is great, yet why even pay the child support?

Why don't you just sign your parental rights away and let this nightmare ordeal you have put yourself through just go away?  Meaning have her sign it or at least offer, and then we never have to deal with one another again and I'll send her child support back each month or she does not have to pay any if an attorney and judge will draft/accept that.  I would not expect support from someone who is not considered a parent by the court.

The T agreed saying, I don't get it either... . I mean what is she gaining?  She barely sees our son, spends most of the time probably with the replacement and our son is a trigger for her probably as he is a constant reminder of me - a young, innocent, really cute reminder of me that would probably invoke a lot of guilt by not saying anything at all in her.

[ForeverDad]

You are what is often termed "the Residential Parent for School Purposes".  Technically it doesn't mean much beyond which school your child attends but effectively it means you have a slight advantage if all other things were equal.  Combined with majority time during the school year - and you being the more stable parent - you're fairly secure in your parenting. 

What is unusual is that the order doesn't specify alternate weekends.  That's an almost universal feature of parenting schedules.  Sometimes police, firemen and other jobs with similar rotating schedules are different, but usually there's at least some periodic weeks on and weekends off.  However, it's clear you two aren't following the ordered times all that closely.  Still, I think you ought to split some weekends each month, rather than 4:0 or 5:0 it could be 3:1 or 4:1 monthly depending on whether 4 or 5 weekends in a month.

I would hesitate to assume a judge would be willing to allow her to sign away her parental rights since she is still seeing the child.  Are you wanting to end her contact with the child?

Some states will allow parents to willingly agree to no child support payments.  But I believe there are some others that separate parenting schedules from support payments.

Is it joint custody now?  If joint, do you have decision-making or tie-breaker status?  I'm thinking what you're looking for is to get sole custody, tighten up the parenting schedule to bring it closer to actual visits, waive past child support and set aside current child support obligations until changed at some future date.  Is that about right?

[livednlearned]

My ex tried to broker a deal that mixed money with custody, and my lawyer responded that ethically neither she nor the court can entertain such a negotiation. Ethics for lawyers and courts are much more serious than for lay people, I believe they can be disbarred for ethical transgressions.

That said, you might be able to negotiate this directly with your ex, but you have to do it in a way that is above board. A lawyer would need to counsel you how to do that since like others have mentioned -- you don't want to get on the court's bad side, or propose something that backfires.