how do you stop them?

[bus boy]

My access issues never seem to end. Just when I think I have a good court order my ex wife who is extremely manuplating and devious, finds a way to get around the order. Once she sinks her teeth into something she doesn't let go. She does not compromise in any way what so ever. We have been to court so many times, she does everything in her power to keep s9 away from me. She finds something in the court order she can exploit and she uses it to keep s9 away from me, than I have to take her back to court,  she gets mad at me for wasting her money. I have to keep taking her back to court. In December we had a settlement conference. It gave me lots of extra time with s9, his mother has done everything in her power to get me to cut back on my access time with s9, I have learned to not respond to her venom. The judge said by the time she  review's the order on August 24th the proof will be there to show who is telling the truth and who is not. I'm claiming denied access and alianation, she is claiming I'm not a father to s9, never there for him. She's been warned so many times by the judge, it's like it doesn't register. She exploits something knowing that by the time it gets back to court she has got what she wants. This time she exploited the vacation time. The order says any lost time is to be made up, meaning if she goes away with s9 on a vacation and he misses access time, it's to be made up. She gets 3 weeks a year so what she did was take it in 3 separate blocks she took the Friday of my access weekend to the following Monday after her weekend. So I lost most of the summer. She is going away in august but staying for rest of the time. I lost this weekend for no reason, she had no pressing reason to take this weekend from me, she will have s9 all this week, next weekend for her vacation, s9 lives with his mother so I won't see him for the following week until the weekend of July 9th. She masterfully scheduled her vacation to get as much time away from me as possible. She booked June 24th-July 4th but worked on Friday,  the 24th. Weekends are not included as vacation time. She even demanded in an email through her lawyer that I get written confirmation from my employer that I can get the extra time off work that I need to accommodate the new order. She got the letter of support from my employer but still booked her block vacation on my access days. My vacation time was spread over the summer to take every second Friday off work bc my access was extended to get extra time in the summer. I stead of getting s9 on Friday afternoon I get him Thursday evening until Sunday evening so I booked every second Friday off of work to spend it with s9. I took the matter up with a family court worker and was told what s9 mother did was clearly manuplation but with the vagueness of the vacation clause, she is technically right in what she did. My hope is when the judge reviews the order in august that she will see what is going on. With my well kept account of all the underhanded things she has done since the new order. That the judge will see how s9 mother has and will continue to exploit the order in order to minimize my access to s9.

[ForeverDad]

A vacation probably shouldn't have make-up time built into it, especially since your one week vacations would impact her time more than yours.  I'm not entirely clear on what the intent of that make-up clause was, but your task is to illustrate to the judge what it has done to your parenting time.  Can you get a calendar showing the summer months as scheduled and then another calendar showing what the actual parenting turned out to be?  A visual aid in contrasting colors ought to demonstrate the obstruction she is slickly accomplishing.  As the court staff explained, it wasn't contrary to the order but did show basis for a needed fix.  And a fix won't happen unless you get it changed in court.

I'll return to my first point.  How did make-up time for a vacation get into the order?  I've never heard of that before - and I've been here for a decade.  Is it standard in your area?  Does your county have a default or guideline for the various vacation aspects?

[bus boy]

Hi foreverdad,

  Any extra awarded time does not interfere with regular access time, for instance I was allotted easter weekend, it was not a regular access weekend but the following weekend was regular access weekend and I get to keep my regular access. With that said if s9 mother goes away for holidays and it interferes  with my regular access, that lost time must be made up. So the loss of this weekend will be made up to me but it was the way she laid out her vacation it is completely unnecessary for her to claim as many of my summer weekends as she did. The next impossible obstical since it is a settlement hearing and both sides must agree to the terms or there is no agreement. The judge than sets the hearing aside for trial so it will take months to get my time back. If both parties can come to an agreement they can make there own terms. A friend of mine and his ex wife came to the terms of there own agreement in a settlement conference they get 2 weeks about with the children and they are very happy with the agreement. My lawyer and a .any at family court both told me any lost access time e must be made up. It must be a provincial law.

[bus boy]

The order also very clearly states that she must include me in everything involving s9. I was told by s9, 4 weeks into his swimming lessons that he was in swimming. His mother was suppose to tell me. S9 said he was starting swim lessons on every Tuesday, but he told me when they were almost over and on top of that he also had lessons every Thursday and I was not told of that. I was not told of his graduating the swimming classes. I called the pool and was told the parents were told twice about the diplomas being handed out and on what day. I was only told about soccer bc it is on my access day and only found out by mistake that soccer is twice a week not once. So as you can see it always a battle to be there if I'm not told about it. I text to see if s9 is going to soccer but did not get a reply. It's a 1/2 hr drive to soccer only to find out he's not there. So I will text again. It's very frustrating when she manuplates it to look like I'm a not there for my son kind of dad. The harder it prove I'm a good dad the harder she tries to make me look like a bad father. Makes a situation happen by not telling me and tells the court I'm not there for my son or if he's sick, gets someone else to look after him and says I won't pitch in when s9 is sick, s9 was very sick at easter, I looked after him like any good parent but she was able to twist it that I was a negligent parent. All I can say is I hope the judge will see what is so unjustly going on between s9 and I.  Oh yah the order also states we get a phone call at bed time, s9 is very fearful if he forgets to call mom, starts trying to get me to help him get his story straight for his mom. But I never get my call or any answer when I call or text.

[ugghh]

Bus,

You may want consider switching your communication to email or even asking the court to mandate OFW.  It will make a much clearer trail of documentation than texting and calling.

[bus boy]

She doesn't want emails. My lawyer said I can use my texts in court, the judge will accept them as evidence. I am taking all the advice given to me. I am strong now, I see clearly the damage of the sinister mental and emotional  abuse in suffered. My lawyer strongly suggests no out of court settlement, no in court settlement conference bc npd/BPD ex wife managed to manuplate every order, we thought we had an iron clad order from the settlement conference, she found a way to corrupt that order so we are going to trial. Ex knows what she had done. Out of court, she gets off scott free and will find a way to break that order, settlement conference, the judge guides, does not judge. Both parties must agree to all terms or there is no order. Her very strange request to her lawyer of a phone conversation to my lawyer, she said she did not want emails or texts is going to bite her in court. She is still insisting s9 school is suffering. That the school is calling her and expressing concern about s9 slipping so bad in school. S9 final report card was glowing. I talked to the principal and s9 teacher 2 weeks ago and emailed last week and s9 was doing great in school. I have joint custody, the school knows it and has the court order in file. If s9 was slipping that bad they would contact me. My ex also went to the school leading the principal on about the terms of primary care and control to make it seem like soul custody and was leading the principal on with the terms of the old order on file at the school. To took a copy of the amended order and gave it to the principal, and clarified the true meaning of care and control.

[ForeverDad]

If you're already bringing a laundry list of issues to court then definitely include Residential Parent for School Purposes, if you aren't already RP.  It may be difficult if you're not already at equal time parenting but it can go hand-in-hand with a request for equal time.  Why?

First, we have a principle... .Ask for more than you expect to receive.  Seldom do you get everything you ask for.  The judges seem to want to nix some portions of requests.  Either they figure you're reaching for the sky or they're reluctant to make drastic change or whatever.  So the solution is to list everything you can that would fix the issues.  Then if a few things get shot down you'll still end up with a better order.  Another principle... .If you don't ask you surely won't receive.  If you do ask, then you might receive.

It can add to your documentation that you do want to be a very involved Father.  Make sure the court sees that.

Sadly, the typical father label is that dads are expected to open their wallets and be satisfied with alternate weekends.  That's doubly worse when the mother is actively sabotaging you.  Make sure the court sees that too.

Be the parent with Solutions.  Identify the problem, prove that it is a pattern and not an isolated incident and then outline the fixes needed.  Being aware the court is unlikely to go for all your ideas — it seems court is reluctant to declare one parent a winner and the other parent the loser — list them all, then you won't be devastated when only some are implemented in a new order.

Be aware that hearings are often brief, sometimes only a half hour or so, so be prepared to get your solutions presented promptly.*  One idea is to to have your lawyer prepare a proposed fix-everything order in advance, just lacking all the signatures.  Sure the judge may not want to implement everything, the judge might strike out some provisions as going to far or too fast, but the point is to demonstrate to the court you have Solutions that should actually work.

* I recall one time I went to a hearing with 11 issues.  I gave my lawyer a checklist of them, each with a paragraph describing the issue.  Magistrate never saw my list.  We covered only the first 3 or so of them before time ran out.  Unfortunately I had grouped them by topic and some major issues never were mentioned. :'( I was determined that the next time I would put urgent issues at the top.

Finally, advocate for a better schedule.  One equal time schedule is 2-2-3 (or 2-2-5-5) where the week is split between the parents.  If you choose the second half of the week then you can make sure the school assignments (often due on Thursdays or Fridays) are completed.  Since her constant refrain is that your son is not doing well in school, despite school reports to the contrary, you would be able to keep tabs on assignments better.

When I was going to start equal time, our custody evaluator recommended equal time should have frequent exchanges.  I had been in a high conflict divorce so I wanted fewer exchanges, such as alternate weeks.  He disagreed, son was then nearly 6 years old and he said children until 10 years of age need more frequent visits and he recommended semi-weekly visits.  It was a 2/2/5/5 schedule also called 2/2/3 schedule.  One parent gets Mon-Tue overnights, the other parent gets Wed-Thu overnights and the Fri-Sat-Sun overnight weekends are alternated.  It averages out to two exchanges per week.  I chose the second half of the week so I could help out and monitor weekly school assignments.