how long did your eval take, and would you have avoided it if you could

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

Just wondering.

My hubby and I made a custody agreement during mediation.  He only has a little bit o' visitation.

Now I am thinking that I should ask for him to get supervised visitation because he's unraveling.  Our divorce case is not completely over.

But I am worried that I'm opening a can of worms.

Wondering what your experience with a custody and psych eval was like and if you'd have avoided it if you could.

I feel like at least if some experts get involved, maybe down the road my kids will be better protected if he tries to get more time, or if he does things that are even weirder than he has.

By the same token, I am really scared of leaving our fate up to the courts when so far we have avoided it.

On the THIRD hand, I feel like I tiptoed around during our marriage and now this is more tiptoeing to keep things nice and sweet when maybe I am putting my kids at risk by not taking the (other) risk of going to court.

This decision is driving me nuts.

[momtara]

Just wondering.

My hubby and I made a custody agreement during mediation.  He only has a little bit o' visitation.

Now I am thinking that I should ask for him to get supervised visitation because he's unraveling.  Our divorce case is not completely over.

But I am worried that I'm opening a can of worms.

Wondering what your experience with a custody and psych eval was like and if you'd have avoided it if you could.

I feel like at least if some experts get involved, maybe down the road my kids will be better protected if he tries to get more time, or if he does things that are even weirder than he has.

By the same token, I am really scared of leaving our fate up to the courts when so far we have avoided it.

On the THIRD hand, I feel like I tiptoed around during our marriage and now this is more tiptoeing to keep things nice and sweet when maybe I am putting my kids at risk by not taking the (other) risk of going to court.

This decision is driving me nuts.

[david]

I am in Pa. The county I am in has a hybrid eval process called CCES. It is horrible. You have to sign a paper taking all responsibilty away from the evaluator. The evaluator can not be questioned in court and the evaluation they write is a legal document. I had to get a private evaluator on the stand to point out all the flaws. That cost more money than the evaluation.

We later had a private eval. It really depends on the evaluator and how good they are. The evaluator we had  didn't really like children ? Yes, she actually said that in front of me. That eval; took about a month.

I found several that I thought would be good but ex refused to agree with any of them as our evaluator. Her atty was adamant and I figured out the reason afterwards.

[momtara]

Well, that sounds like something I would avoid at all costs.  I guess it differs by state and even by county.

[david]

During our private eval mom has to take the boys to the eval's office once and I had to do the same. We had to play Chutes and Ladders as part of the meeting. In her report the evaluator wrote, "mother deftly handled the board game and the spinner." The bias was obvious throughout the report.

We had one meeting with just xBPDw and I. In it I brought up the fact that ex was allowing her son from a previous marriage live with them. He was a heroin addict at the time. The evaluator looked at ex and said very carefully that he was not allowed to live there if the children were there too. Th evaluator told ex to blame her for him having to leave. If I said what I wanted to say it would have been loud and filled with expletives. I maintained my composure and pointed out that was one of the reasons I was concerned and that I had emailed ex several times with my concerns. I had the emails and ex's responses. The evaluator dismissed the emails and said they were not important. On the plus side the judge did say that was an issue that he would not dismiss.

[livednlearned]

I had to hire a PC. Slightly different role, but same in the sense of custody evaluators that they are third-party professionals who have an alarming amount of power over your case.

My advice is to do a lot of research on private evaluators and pick the best one you can afford. Get as much control over the process as you possibly can. Don't assume that the list of names the court gives you are the best people. Ask child psychologists who they would recommend, or lawyers who specialize in family law. They all know who sucks and who is good.

I heard awful things about PCs and resisted signing a parenting coordinator order because of all the horror stories. Eventually, I found the best PC I could find. How many years had she been doing it, where did she go to school, was she well-respected by her colleagues, etc.

She is the reason I have sole custody. Her testimony about N/BPDx was the silver bullet. The judge said, "PC is the best in the business. If N/BPDx can't get along with her, he can't get along with anyone."

Like david pointed out, it's all about who you get. If you can have a say in the process, all the better.