Boundaries are needed in every relationship. Sadly, they're even more vital when you can't reason or work with the person. Months and years from now you'll look back and be grateful for those boundaries!
Remember, mediation and settlement conferences do often result in success, even in our difficult cases (though the key word is "eventually". You don't have to give in, appease or be compliant. You were right to stand up for yourself, for the children and for the best outcome. If it turns out that the court has to decide, so be it. Courts are generally happy if both sides give in and lose a little. So think, Strategy... . You know she will seek for more than what is reasonable. Thus it would be poor negotiation if you has for only what is 'fair' or what you can live with. Negotiation means having some negotiating room up your sleeve. So don't feel bad about asking for more than you you need. When you give some of that extra away she may feel she 'won'. Fine, let her feel that way. As an example, many here face an ex that wants 99%. If we ask for a 'fair' 50% then a judge could reason, "Let's split the difference and we walk out with 20%. Yeah, a lousy judge but they're out there. Better to ask for extra, explaining why, and then if you get less tell the judge you'll work with it as best you can.
Equal time? I had that post divorce for nearly 6 years. As good as it was to move up from being an alternate weekend parent, it was difficult for me, even as Residential Parent, because (1) it didn't weaken her sense of entitlement and control and (2) child support agency decided support not on parenting time but on income and naturally she barely made minimum wage.
However, to agree on equal time (yay! for firm boundaries) you'll be perched precariously on the court's teeter-totter. You may think it's all equal but future court hearings could easily default to the Mother. What I believe helped me was that I also set my foot down on being
Residential Parent for School Purposes. Why? Though both lawyers insisted it didn't mean anything, I saw it as crucial. For example, if she was RP and moved away (she did move out of the county the next year about 25 miles away!) then my kindergartner would have gone with her to her new local school and I would have had to move to follow or drive a lot. Another reason, if she was RP then the school would always be contacting only her, I would likely have been contacted only if they couldn't reach her. During the temp order when she had custody, the school was stuck with her. When I became RP, the roles were reversed. After a few school incidents in just the next 6 weeks, I was told by her school I had
one day to enroll him in my school. You see, once I was RP then they had a way out at the next group of incidents and dumped her (us) onto the school closest to me.
So my strong suggestion is that you be Residential Parent for School Purposes. It may only be a slight edge for you, but you as Father need every little bit of advantage you can get.
Week on and week off? I tried that in court when my son was 5 in kindergarten. I wanted that to reduce the exchanges where confrontation often occurred. Our custody evaluator (CE) was there at court to enter his report and he said he didn't think that would be suitable until a child is about 10 years old, too long between times with the young child. He recommended 2/2/3 (AKA 2/2/5/5) where one parent has Mon/Tue overnights, the other parent has Wed/Thu overnights and they alternate the 3 weekend overnights. Ex still gets her equal time during the summers and guess what? Though son is into the teen years now, we still have the same 2/2/3 schedule for summers. I spoke with my lawyer about changing to 7/7 and he retorted, ":)o you want the court to think that it's okay for her to have longer periods of time with him?"
I'm not saying 7/7 won't work well for you, just be aware why there is a 2/2/3 schedule often used with younger children.
Custody? Courts almost always default to joint custody unless there are very extreme circumstances. Apparently they don't want one parent to feel shut out of being a parent. It works for reasonably normal parents but not so well for our cases. Okay, accepting that, what can we do to lessen the problems that will certainly come with joint custody and you unable to convince her of a better course of action on the major issues of school medical, legal, etc?
If you fail to reach a settlement... .Maybe you could throw everything into the bucket and that way give court lots of room to say Yes to some requests and No to others. That way the court could reason you both won some things and you both lost some things. However, you can ask for Legal custody or, failing that, to ask for Decision Making or Tie Breaker. The point of asking for DM or TB is that if you can't get sole custody (many courts are reluctant to award sole custody without substantive basis) then you can get the next best options. Actually, TB or DM is almost like sole custody but not in Name, it allows the ex to still claim parenthood.
Run the above strategies past your lawyer. The point is that RIGHT NOW you have basis to seek resolution in court.
Right now you have some level of Leverage. Ponder the implications of that... .
Understand that many states have separate terms and policies for legal custody versus the parenting schedule. For example, many typical divorces result in 'joint' legal custody but with one 'primary' parent doing the parenting and everyday decisions. Major decisions such as school, medical, etc are covered under the legal aspect. However, there is typically one parent who gets assigned as "Residential Parent for School Purposes".
Maybe she won't want to give up "custody". Most courts default to joint custody and are very reluctant to enforce one parent having full custody if the other isn't agreeable, not unless there is clear basis to take that step. So what to do if she doesn't want to give up her parental rights to legal custody?
She may really want to keep joint custody. She won't want to feel as a mother who failed or was publicly shut out. As I wrote above, it's usually hard to force sole custody. So how do you get that in deed if not in name? Seek for her to agree that you have Decision Making or Tie Breaker (or equivalent) status for any disagreements on major issues (school, medical, activities, etc). So, in name and on paper the custody would be joint, she could keep her Public Face but with DM or TB you can effectively sidestep many frustrations if she is unwilling to agree on the major decisions. Feel out the topic cautiously. Start with DM or TB first and if she's okay with that then don't even mention her keeping full joint custody. In other words, don't box yourself into a corner when you don't have to!
Another leverage you may have is whether she has awareness of her mental issues. She won't want that on the record so that may make a reasonable settlement possible, even likely. For most of us we don't get a settlement until we've been in court for a year or two. Settlements early in a case happen but they're rare. Depending on the level of entitlement and control, you'll be more likely to get a settlement just before a big court hearing or trial.
Beware, don't confuse "reasonable" with "fair". We who have stuck around for so long often have an otherwise wonderful trait, fairness, that puts us at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with an unbalanced acting-out spouse. If we try to be fair and nice we'll end up being too fair, too nice, too whatever. We have to protect ourselves and the children. Frankly, your sense of fairness, niceness and whathaveyou won't be sincerely reciprocated. You know how quickly she can switch from Miss Nice to Queen Witch. Be forewarned.
The reason I posted as I did about TB & DM (sounds masochistic, doesn't it?
) is that your judge may prefer the concept of "provide a long term better solution" rather than "fix this one complaint". A lot depends upon what type of case you have pending, whether it can amend the order in a substantive way and whether the judge and court utilize TB/DM.
So one strategy to have in court is not just to present DH as endlessly harried by his ex's wide-ranging claims but also depict him as a
Problem Solver, someone who has presented
solutions to make the order more practical and that it will be a longer-term fix, something encouraged in the
SPLITTING handbook and Bill Eddy's other books and articles.
