For Real?

[Eodmava]

Hello All,

So she finally signed the separation agreement after having wasted about 30K in lawyer fees over the past year.  All the money spent resulted in the EXACT same agreement that the mediator proposed one year ago.  The agreement was signed on Friday and this morning I asked her to send me her bank account information so I could set up a direct deposit for her alimony and child support.  Of course she refused to provide me this information.  In lieu of dealing with her craziness, I just went back to the divorce discovery documents and retrieved the information there. 

Next she calls me and tells me that she wants to take the girls on a 5 week overseas vacation to visit her family this summer.  Ironic in that the agreement she signed Friday stipulated that overseas trips were permitted with a three month prior notice and the trip not to exceed three weeks.  Ugh.  When I asked her how she was paying for it, she tells me that her parents are paying for it.  So her child molester/abuser father gets to see his grand-daughters and pays for her "vacation" while bringing my poor daughters into their web of mental illness and abuse... . leaving me to pay to clean up the wreckage of a brutal divorce and covering the 50K in credit card spending she ran up last year... . while we were separated. 

Following all this she sends me a text asking me for advice about how to handle a traffic ticket to which I responded, "why are you asking me this stuff? We are divorced."  She didn't like my questioning her motives and then proceeds to berate me over text about how I am such a terrible Christian, etc. 

O blah de, o blah da, life goes on... . la la la la life goes on.

Mava 

[ForeverDad]

I would suggest you simply say No and refer her to the order.  Vacations are Notices and not Requests.  She's asking because she knows it doesn't fit the requirements.

What does 3 weeks mean?  Is it just a literal 21 days or is it 3 weeks including the surrounding weekends?

• You can't take this to court unless she actually takes that vacation.  There is no 'contempt' for trying or if it hasn't occurred yet.



• A risk is that if your court is anything like my court, the court may do some Legal Gymnastics and choose not to find her in Contempt if she goes ahead and takes them on a vacation without proper notice and time frame.  See my experience below.  That's a potential risk with an order so new that the person does not have the full time period to give notice.



• In addition to failing to give proper notice, there's an additional issue if she takes the children for more than the specified 3 weeks.  Again, court could decide to say it was too new to enforce.



• Another factor may be when the reservations were made.  If made before signing, then you could claim she knew what was pending and failed to disclose it at the time of the settlement.  If made after signing, then you could claim she knowingly made reservations contrary to the order.

I've never had anyone report a court ruling similar to what I experienced, where "order is so new that parent had inability to comply"  So it may not be an established and standard legal concept.  Still, it made me wish that I had added a disclaimer or instructions (as in, contract fine print) if the new order is deemed unenforceable due to being "too new".

It just occurred to me that your order is so new that you may end up facing a similar conclusion that a magistrate in my court decided.  Here are a few threads where I discussed what happened to me.

I filed Contempt but it was ruled that since her actions were at the beginning of the order, she had an "inability to comply" with the the time requirements even though the new vacation notification terms were less strict than the old ones in the temp order... .

Year 3 - On trial morning my stbEx stated she was finally ready to settle after two long years in the divorce process.  The settlement was 50/50 Shared Parenting with father (me) as Residential Parent, that was my primary condition, otherwise start the trial.  Shared Parenting didn't start well, she went on a vacation within weeks without written notice (my Contempt motion was dismissed on an "inability to comply" technicality because the old order had ended and the new order hadn't been in effect long enough for her to be held to the shorter 30-days-notice provision of the new order)... .

Did I ever say what my ex did and how the court ruled?  I had just reached a settlement and the ink on the divorce decree was barely dry.  A couple weeks later my ex traded one parenting day for another.  (Back then I wasn't street-wise enough to know that I had to get my trade time first, or else risk me not getting my part of the trade.)  When I went to get my son, the daycare said he hadn't been there all day.  I called my ex and she said she was states away driving to vacation with family.

I filed Contempt of Court.  Generous person I was, I had written all vacations requiring only 30 days advance notice.  The county's default guideline was to require vacation notices for Spring Break by Feb 15.  While she did verbalize she was going on vacation during Spring Break, (1) she never gave written notice, (2) she never specified any dates and (3) she never went anywhere during his school's Spring Break.  She left on a Friday, the last weekday of his school's Spring Break, the day she had traded to me.  He missed the next week of kindergarten.  They called me when he didn't attend school the next Monday, she hadn't even notified the school.

Although the court chewed her out, telling her she did not comply with our parenting schedule, the court also ruled she "technically" was not in contempt because she had an "inability to comply" with the terms of the new order because it hadn't been in effect long enough (23 days) to give her enough time to comply with a 30 day notice.  Mind you, she was not in compliance with the prior temporary order either, which was in effect when she should have given her written notice, but that's how they sometimes stumble into skating around the rules and finding esoteric loopholes of logic and technicalities.

Just ponder this... . my ex's choice not to inform me in advance either in writing or with any specific dates was transformed by my court into an "inability to comply".  She didn't even try to comply in good faith!

[livednlearned]

The agreement was signed on Friday and this morning I asked her to send me her bank account information so I could set up a direct deposit for her alimony and child support.  Of course she refused to provide me this information.  In lieu of dealing with her craziness, I just went back to the divorce discovery documents and retrieved the information there.   

Why not just have checks autogenerated monthly from your bank? She doesn't provide the information, then she has to deal with cashing the checks.

Her choice.

[david]

My ex left in 2007. We had a custody order written by the court. I followed it and did not deviate from it.

By 2009 I knew enough of ex's tactics to understand the problems with the courts custody order. I went back to court to modify. The judge required both of us to send a custody agreement to him within two weeks. He then would make his ruling. Ex sent a rambling page and a half of how I am abusive, blah, blah, blah. I sent a one page paper with 13 specific modifications and one general modification. He denied the general one and wrote his order copying exactly the 13 things I had written.

You have a very specific order that addresses the issue you have. Follow that order.

I only communicate with ex through email. Whenever she would send an email that did not follow the court order I would reply by simply sending the specific part of the order. I said nothing else in my email. Over time I was able to simply state "the court addresses that issue". During that time ex was trying to find ways around the order. I stood firm on the boundary. Her changes made no sense for our boys during that time.

By 2013 ex realized I knew what our court order said and followed it. Since that time she has sent emails asking to modify something on a one time basis. If it made sense for our boys I agreed. If she didn't say it was a on a one time basis I made sure that was included in my reply.

Our custody agreement has a section for modifying the court order. Basically any change to the court order must be done through email with both parties agreeing to the change. Once an agreement is reached for that specific change it can not be changed back or to something else without a new email with both parties agreeing to that change.

I tried modifying the order several times on a one time basis and she said no every time. My atty has copies of every time I agreed to a change and every time ex did not agree with any of my requests.

We are currently finishing up on a modification through my atty and the court for more time since ex refuses to help the boys with their school work. The evaluator asked ex why she wasn't helping our younger son in fourth grade. Her reply, "I already did fourth grade work and have no intention of doing it again." I used all my powers to not bust up laughing and falling off the chair onto the floor. He then addressed our older son in ninth grade. Ex blamed me for him not doing his school work at her place and her solution was that " Mr. David should put his foot up S15's butt and make him do his homework at her place." This was from the same person that repeatedly said in the eval and in numerous emails over the last seven years that I am physically, verbally, emotionally, and spiritually abusive. I wanted to thank her right there but thought that wasn't a good idea.

The big thing I am trying to show is that this started in 2007 and we are now in 2014. Our boys are doing better than I ever expected back in 2007. Like many have said here before this is a marathon and not a sprint.