My Most Recent Court Visit

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Last week I attended my ex’s support appeal from a modification back in June.  Ex had filed an appeal due to the fact that I did not help pay for golf lessons for our S16 that she did not discuss with me prior to committing.  This is a sustained pattern of ex’s behavior.  She files the appeal stating that S16 has been with her 100% since March 29.  He has, he fled my house after I tried enforcing rules and has been with her ever since.  Won’t answer my calls or texts.  The scenario is that he knows he can be at mom’s where there are no rules.  He can smoke, vape and stay out until all hours as she is drinking in the evenings to a degree she doesn’t keep track of him.  Part of me even thinks she’s buying him cannabis to keep in his good graces.  Now she has him getting his driver’s permit.  Oddly, she did not being up the housing arrangement in the June hearing.

The appeal hearing.  I did not take my attorney thinking I could handle this on my own since it seems so obviously wrong what’s going on.  I didn’t realize that we would be in front of a judge – a “politically” appointed judge with three years of experience.  The cases in front of ours Judge seemed to make trivial corrections to thing attorney’s were saying. I was concerned. Ex actually is not in her victim wear but looks terrible as if she just came off a bender.   

Judge starts with a couple questions, what kind of custody do we have – ex didn’t know; ex lies under oathe saying that, “Father said he did not want S16 anymore,” I ask for the documentation where I said this, she had none; Judge cuts me off a couple times when I bring up custody issues, where S16 was on Father’s Day, cannabis, etc.  Judge asks if I had gone to school to visit S16, I had not, Judge tells me that I could always go to the driving range to watch one of S16’s lessons – only way I can do that is that I still have location sharing on his phone, otherwise I don’t know when his lessons are from ex.  Judge tells me, “so you haven’t exercised your parental rights since March 29.”

Judge give her the extra $457 a month.  Have not seen the revised Order, but I think she was also going to factor in a number of golf lessons which is absurd.  This could possibly mean, if S16 gives up on golf, which is possible, I’d be paying ex monthly for lessons he isn’t getting. 

After the hearing my L tells me, “IMO Judge L is horrible.”  She also tells me that there are two bad options for me to appeal; appeal to the supreme court, not likely to overturn, or appeal to this same judge and ask to reconsider based on my appeal.  Not sure if I could put the custody related stuff in an appeal, or if it’s only based on ex’s original appeal. 

The week after this hearing ex e-mails me her Venmo receipts including more lessons paid for in July (after the June hearing).  The total is now over $1000 – all of which not discussed with me.  I go back and read the June 6 Order, sensing tension between us, the Hearing Officer wrote the activity expenses in the Order as, “Parties to submit proportionate share of golf lessons weekly to provider.”  Essentially I don’t pay ex, I pay the instructor.  So ex is not following the Order.  I e-mail her this.  She’s in passive aggression mode, does not communicate at all.


I now see ex is kissing S16’s a&&, he is at the golf course or driving range EVERY day. 

Last weekend I see S16 is at the golf course.  I go up there thinking he’s on the driving range.  I pull in, I see ex’s ex-boyfriends car.  They’re not on the range, they’re playing 9 holes.  So I don’t see them.  Sunday I’m heading to a local mall and I see S16 at the local PGA store.  I go there and see the ex bf’s car there.  I walk in an see him, he smiles, or maybe it was a cocky smirk – the same smirk he gave his therapist when he was told he was going to rehab, he’s not overly talkative and ex-bf is standing right there.  He’s more interested in the new club ex-bf is going to buy him.  I say to him that he doesn’t have to be at mom’s all the time and that his mom is making it tough on me.  A brief conversation and then I talk to the bf for awhile, tell him I’m concerned with the long-term affects and what S16 will look like at 25, also intimated to me that he has been taking S16 to his lessons and it sounded like he and ex were communicating about S16.  Also tells me that S16 is not getting along with S18, and his “crack head” girlfriend, that S18 has been really disruptive, S18 lost his twp job of 4 months, etc.  I don’t stay long and S16 doesn’t appear to want to talk so I leave. 

I’m now debating what to do, is it worth going back in front of the Judge and explaining what is really going on, and would that change anything.  Or at this point does it matter given S16’s apparent state of mind toward me.  I mentioned to the Judge that I was in the process of filing a contempt of custody motion, but not sure that will do any good at this point.  I also wonder if my L is just reluctant to go in front of the judge herself and that I could possibly be better off on my own.

I think in part ex is keeping S16 because he now fills the void created by S18 who was for a long time the favored child.  So much of what she does is driven by abandonment fears.  The rest is sociopathic.

I made an appt with a therapist for me for next week.

[scraps66]

Last week I attended my ex’s support appeal from a modification back in June.  Ex had filed an appeal due to the fact that I did not help pay for golf lessons for our S16 that she did not discuss with me prior to committing.  This is a sustained pattern of ex’s behavior.  She files the appeal stating that S16 has been with her 100% since March 29.  He has, he fled my house after I tried enforcing rules and has been with her ever since.  Won’t answer my calls or texts.  The scenario is that he knows he can be at mom’s where there are no rules.  He can smoke, vape and stay out until all hours as she is drinking in the evenings to a degree she doesn’t keep track of him.  Part of me even thinks she’s buying him cannabis to keep in his good graces.  Now she has him getting his driver’s permit.  Oddly, she did not being up the housing arrangement in the June hearing.

The appeal hearing.  I did not take my attorney thinking I could handle this on my own since it seems so obviously wrong what’s going on.  I didn’t realize that we would be in front of a judge – a “politically” appointed judge with three years of experience.  The cases in front of ours Judge seemed to make trivial corrections to thing attorney’s were saying. I was concerned. Ex actually is not in her victim wear but looks terrible as if she just came off a bender.   

Judge starts with a couple questions, what kind of custody do we have – ex didn’t know; ex lies under oathe saying that, “Father said he did not want S16 anymore,” I ask for the documentation where I said this, she had none; Judge cuts me off a couple times when I bring up custody issues, where S16 was on Father’s Day, cannabis, etc.  Judge asks if I had gone to school to visit S16, I had not, Judge tells me that I could always go to the driving range to watch one of S16’s lessons – only way I can do that is that I still have location sharing on his phone, otherwise I don’t know when his lessons are from ex.  Judge tells me, “so you haven’t exercised your parental rights since March 29.”

Judge give her the extra $457 a month.  Have not seen the revised Order, but I think she was also going to factor in a number of golf lessons which is absurd.  This could possibly mean, if S16 gives up on golf, which is possible, I’d be paying ex monthly for lessons he isn’t getting. 

After the hearing my L tells me, “IMO Judge L is horrible.”  She also tells me that there are two bad options for me to appeal; appeal to the supreme court, not likely to overturn, or appeal to this same judge and ask to reconsider based on my appeal.  Not sure if I could put the custody related stuff in an appeal, or if it’s only based on ex’s original appeal. 

The week after this hearing ex e-mails me her Venmo receipts including more lessons paid for in July (after the June hearing).  The total is now over $1000 – all of which not discussed with me.  I go back and read the June 6 Order, sensing tension between us, the Hearing Officer wrote the activity expenses in the Order as, “Parties to submit proportionate share of golf lessons weekly to provider.”  Essentially I don’t pay ex, I pay the instructor.  So ex is not following the Order.  I e-mail her this.  She’s in passive aggression mode, does not communicate at all.


I now see ex is kissing S16’s a&&, he is at the golf course or driving range EVERY day. 

Last weekend I see S16 is at the golf course.  I go up there thinking he’s on the driving range.  I pull in, I see ex’s ex-boyfriends car.  They’re not on the range, they’re playing 9 holes.  So I don’t see them.  Sunday I’m heading to a local mall and I see S16 at the local PGA store.  I go there and see the ex bf’s car there.  I walk in an see him, he smiles, or maybe it was a cocky smirk – the same smirk he gave his therapist when he was told he was going to rehab, he’s not overly talkative and ex-bf is standing right there.  He’s more interested in the new club ex-bf is going to buy him.  I say to him that he doesn’t have to be at mom’s all the time and that his mom is making it tough on me.  A brief conversation and then I talk to the bf for awhile, tell him I’m concerned with the long-term affects and what S16 will look like at 25, also intimated to me that he has been taking S16 to his lessons and it sounded like he and ex were communicating about S16.  Also tells me that S16 is not getting along with S18, and his “crack head” girlfriend, that S18 has been really disruptive, S18 lost his twp job of 4 months, etc.  I don’t stay long and S16 doesn’t appear to want to talk so I leave. 

I’m now debating what to do, is it worth going back in front of the Judge and explaining what is really going on, and would that change anything.  Or at this point does it matter given S16’s apparent state of mind toward me.  I mentioned to the Judge that I was in the process of filing a contempt of custody motion, but not sure that will do any good at this point.  I also wonder if my L is just reluctant to go in front of the judge herself and that I could possibly be better off on my own.

I think in part ex is keeping S16 because he now fills the void created by S18 who was for a long time the favored child.  So much of what she does is driven by abandonment fears.  The rest is sociopathic.

I made an appt with a therapist for me for next week.

[Pook075]

Thanks for posting- several tough questions there and unfortunately, most of it falls into legal advice.  Nobody here should provide that to you and honestly, you shouldn't take it.  I'm guessing the vast majority of us don't know the law any better than you do.

With that said, document everything and discuss it with your attorney.  If your attorney doesn't have any good options, then speak with a different attorney.  That's really the best I have, other than saying it sounds incredibly frustrating.  I'm really sorry for that.

[ForeverDad]

Okay, this is not legal advice of course.  But I've "been there, done that" - to a certain extent.

I wonder if the appeals judge was only focused on what issues the appeal itself contained and not the entire relationship issues?

I too wanted to file an appeal, but my lawyer told me I first had to file for "reconsideration".  That may be the case in your local jurisdiction.  The decision stated a time frame for such a filing.  Don't wait until the last day.  We had a member years ago who went to file on the last possible day, was shunted to another court and then told it was the wrong location to file and then they closed.

My lawyer told me I could only file for reconsideration on the subjects discussed at the hearing.  I presume that would include the issues you tried to discuss there even if not fully heard?  (Note my second paragraph above, maybe the judge ignored you since it wasn't part of the appeal?)  I had a polite (friendly?) bailiff who knew me due to our frequent appearances and would allow me to get a recording of my hearing so I could refresh my memory of what was said.

A valid question, as I see it, would be whether the prior decision's order that you pay your portion of the bills to the provider is voided by the appeal which ordered payment to mother.  Daily lessons?  That would be beyond the court's expectation IMHO.

Is there a frequency limit to the golf driving lessons?  I don't ever recall golf lessons raised as an issue on our site?  In my mind golf is far less important than other activities such as actual driving school at age 16.  But it is what it is and you don't want to appear to the judge to be hindering son's "education".

[scraps66]

I wonder if the appeals judge was only focused on what issues the appeal itself contained and not the entire relationship issues?

FD, yes, this is the way I felt the Judge handled it.  I was trying to show that ex was willfully not following the custody order.  I don’t see how when I mentioned cannabis and that ex was not communicating and that S16 was not made available on Father’s Day that the judge couldn’t have sniffed something out.

Conveniently I still don’t have the new order.

[ForeverDad]

Sounds like time for a contempt of court motion on those items, if you want to pursue it and your lawyer agrees.  As LnL sometimes comments, contempt motions are like parking tickets.  I had one motion where my ex took over my hearing and got the magistrate, who was already behind in her scheduled cases, peeved with me.  Fortunately that was the only time I had that one.

Also, you have a teen who is less then two years before exiting the legal parenting system and how inclined is the court to enforce the order if the teen refuses?  Judgment call?

[scraps66]

I saw S16 Sunday.  He was cordial, maybe cocky, and I think he is happy with getting his way right now and having people spend gobs of money on him.  So a lot of me thinks he is a lost cause for me.

My bigger worry is what this kid looks like at 25 having such unrealistic expectations right now.  His S18 brother is a good example and not doing well at all.

[livednlearned]

scraps66 what a tough situation. I remember how particularly smug your ex often seemed at school events and I'm sorry to hear  the saga has not changed much.

I'm not sure how it works where you live, but with my court stuff, appeals were handled by an appellate lawyer. My regular L wouldn't represent me on appeals (though she counseled me and was helpful in other ways on the same matters) because appellate law was largely technical, down to the fonts used, the margins, the specific words used, the order of things filed and when.

I wonder if a (regular) attorney might be able to help you with the bigger custody picture, and give counsel on whether the appellate outcome even makes sense in light of what is happening with your custodial time. I would imagine at this point you cannot second guess whether something can come down to "common sense" or not given there are some points likely fought and won on technicalities.

If you go that path, you may have to lean on your attorney to create leverage where possible. Meaning, are there ways to do things so you have leverage (like not paying for classes) until things are resolved. It's not uncommon for attorneys to ignore the stonewalling and obstructing of the other party, which many of us know is all but certain to happen given the pathology of BPD behaviors and how they work with court. I had to learn to factor that near-certainty into my proposals so that a lack of action on ex's part worked in my favor.

On the alienation side of things, that's tough. This last ruling seems like it entwines money with alienation in a way. Surely you are able to have limits to how many classes S16 takes, since who among us can pay unlimited amounts for a kids' sport? Or am I not understanding correctly? How might your relationship be impacted if you documented by email limits for S16's classes and conditions that he spend time at your place?

[GaGrl]

I agree with lnl...there has to be some limits on what you are expected to pay for extracurricular and sports activities. One lesson per week? 50% of each lesson? Equipment and supplies -- not to exceed $___?