if i go to court, what if he retailiates by asking for more parenting time?

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

So among a number of things going on, I have been paying 100 percent for a parent coordinator to help make decisions with my ex. He tends to oppose every decision (taking kid to specialist, etc.) and if I just do it myself and set a boundary, I am subject to tons of texts, emails, or some other kind of retaliation that I can't really stop legally (like, he'll then oppose some other decision too) -- so I usually take these matters to our parent coordinator. She puts him on the spot and gets him to agree in front of her. For that, I pay $180 an hour (and she's one of the cheaper ones.)

Of course, he'll oppose some other decision to get back at me and do stuff like postpone an appointment for the kids that I made. So I need to keep a PC to prevent things from racheting up.

I know that I can eventually file court motions and ask for medical decision making or other minor tune-ups of our divorce and consent order, including asking for him to pay a percent of the PC. It is getting to the point where I should do that, as he is costing us way too much to make simple decisions, and there is ample evidence of this.

Three problems:

1) Court is expensive (I'd have to pay my atty another several thousand retainer or try filing myself but retain her if it went to court, as my ex would bring his atty) but that alone I can deal with;

2) It will take 28 days for a non-emergency motion to be heard, and they can keep postponing, all while ex is angry and still taking the kids; but what I really want to ask y'all about is:

3) I am scared that he will retaliate by simply bringing a motion for more parenting time, to make me afraid to go before the judge. Right now he takes the kids every other Saturday night but he has NO Wednesday dinners, no Friday nights, etc. So I get two-week periods in which I can at least partly be calm and only have to deal with his emails and such. It's kind of a godsend to not have to see him during that time. The kids are young and it's less disruptive that way. Plus, I fear his anger. He does talk to them on Facetime almost every night. To a judge who has a few minutes to deal with a case, it may seem reasonable to give him this. Our PC made a comment about him taking more time at one point, before I showed her all the evidence.

One puny Wednesday may seem like a compromise. The problem is this: It'd be disruptive to the kids and me, and it'd make me nervous for days leading up to it, I'd worry the whole time, and sometimes he shows up fighting when he comes on weekends. Plus I believe he could snap any time, so more time with the kids increases the chance he'll be with them when he's triggered over something. Plus, I have given into his requests a few times for him to come see the kids on a weeknight and then he never showed up, throwing off my schedule and plans. I realize I can prove this to the judge and it may work in my favor, but a judge might also say "Well, let's see how it goes and if he misses twice, it reverts back to normal." So basically he'd keep coming to see them even when he is not physically or mentally up to it, just to prove he can do so.

Another point in my favor is that in the last two years, he has never taken his full 30 hours of parenting time even on the weekends. He often picks up the kids late or drops them off early. I would point this out too, but from now on, instead of bringing them home when he feels sick or unable to care for them, as he does now, he'd simply keep them to show the judge he can do so. I don't want him to feel ashamed about returning the kids to me early and he will do so if I bring it up to his lawyer or judge.

So in a nutshell, court would rachet things up and open a can of worms.

I guess what I'm wondering most is -- legally -- what happens if the other party files something just to retaliate? Even if it's obvious that it was done this way, it could be seen as part of a compromise. Then I have to file more motions to combat that (like ask for a psych eval before he increases parenting time) and it just gets worse. It may look incredibly reasonable for him to want one Wednesday every other week.

I know some of you (like Livedandlearned) have filed countless post-divorce orders, but you were dealing with low functioning BPD's who seemed to either not have lawyers or not really fight, or become dysregulated in court. Mine is high functioning and has some sort of hidden genius for revenge and making lies sound truthful.

I do think a lawyer letter to his lawyer may fix some of our problems, or perhaps try with the PC, but we'd still need to threaten court, and if we do that and they ignore us (as has happened), then we can't back down because otherwise we seem weak and they can manipulate us. So I kind of have to be ready to take this all the way if I have my lawyer write to his lawyer.

What do you all think?

[momtara]

So among a number of things going on, I have been paying 100 percent for a parent coordinator to help make decisions with my ex. He tends to oppose every decision (taking kid to specialist, etc.) and if I just do it myself and set a boundary, I am subject to tons of texts, emails, or some other kind of retaliation that I can't really stop legally (like, he'll then oppose some other decision too) -- so I usually take these matters to our parent coordinator. She puts him on the spot and gets him to agree in front of her. For that, I pay $180 an hour (and she's one of the cheaper ones.)

Of course, he'll oppose some other decision to get back at me and do stuff like postpone an appointment for the kids that I made. So I need to keep a PC to prevent things from racheting up.

I know that I can eventually file court motions and ask for medical decision making or other minor tune-ups of our divorce and consent order, including asking for him to pay a percent of the PC. It is getting to the point where I should do that, as he is costing us way too much to make simple decisions, and there is ample evidence of this.

Three problems:

1) Court is expensive (I'd have to pay my atty another several thousand retainer or try filing myself but retain her if it went to court, as my ex would bring his atty) but that alone I can deal with;

2) It will take 28 days for a non-emergency motion to be heard, and they can keep postponing, all while ex is angry and still taking the kids; but what I really want to ask y'all about is:

3) I am scared that he will retaliate by simply bringing a motion for more parenting time, to make me afraid to go before the judge. Right now he takes the kids every other Saturday night but he has NO Wednesday dinners, no Friday nights, etc. So I get two-week periods in which I can at least partly be calm and only have to deal with his emails and such. It's kind of a godsend to not have to see him during that time. The kids are young and it's less disruptive that way. Plus, I fear his anger. He does talk to them on Facetime almost every night. To a judge who has a few minutes to deal with a case, it may seem reasonable to give him this. Our PC made a comment about him taking more time at one point, before I showed her all the evidence.

One puny Wednesday may seem like a compromise. The problem is this: It'd be disruptive to the kids and me, and it'd make me nervous for days leading up to it, I'd worry the whole time, and sometimes he shows up fighting when he comes on weekends. Plus I believe he could snap any time, so more time with the kids increases the chance he'll be with them when he's triggered over something. Plus, I have given into his requests a few times for him to come see the kids on a weeknight and then he never showed up, throwing off my schedule and plans. I realize I can prove this to the judge and it may work in my favor, but a judge might also say "Well, let's see how it goes and if he misses twice, it reverts back to normal." So basically he'd keep coming to see them even when he is not physically or mentally up to it, just to prove he can do so.

Another point in my favor is that in the last two years, he has never taken his full 30 hours of parenting time even on the weekends. He often picks up the kids late or drops them off early. I would point this out too, but from now on, instead of bringing them home when he feels sick or unable to care for them, as he does now, he'd simply keep them to show the judge he can do so. I don't want him to feel ashamed about returning the kids to me early and he will do so if I bring it up to his lawyer or judge.

So in a nutshell, court would rachet things up and open a can of worms.

I guess what I'm wondering most is -- legally -- what happens if the other party files something just to retaliate? Even if it's obvious that it was done this way, it could be seen as part of a compromise. Then I have to file more motions to combat that (like ask for a psych eval before he increases parenting time) and it just gets worse. It may look incredibly reasonable for him to want one Wednesday every other week.

I know some of you (like Livedandlearned) have filed countless post-divorce orders, but you were dealing with low functioning BPD's who seemed to either not have lawyers or not really fight, or become dysregulated in court. Mine is high functioning and has some sort of hidden genius for revenge and making lies sound truthful.

I do think a lawyer letter to his lawyer may fix some of our problems, or perhaps try with the PC, but we'd still need to threaten court, and if we do that and they ignore us (as has happened), then we can't back down because otherwise we seem weak and they can manipulate us. So I kind of have to be ready to take this all the way if I have my lawyer write to his lawyer.

What do you all think?

[livednlearned]

I guess the part I'm confused about is the emergency order. What would the emergency order be for exactly?

When I filed mine, both times the ex parte emergency order to suspend visitation meant that we suspended visitation during the time we were waiting for the hearing in front of the judge.

It sounds like you are thinking that the emergency order would be filed, and then nothing would change until the judge decided at the hearing, 28 days after you filed.

Is that how it works where you live?

[momtara]

Well, an emergency hearing in my state has to be a real emergency - you have to prove real harm will occur if the court won't rule right away. Suspending his parenting time while we wait for a new PC or for other fine-tunes is unlikely to happen because he hasn't shown any evidence of being dangerous since before the divorce (and that was stuff that was threatening but not physically violent).  There's gotta be a high standard for that one. So I could try to file for immediate relief, but not sure I could show that I'm going to be harmed if the court converts it to a regular order and it takes a few months for it to be heard.

His lawyer will postpone it and stall and such.

And bringing this to court could prompt some of the aforementioned retaliatory measures. I wonder if the court would see it this way or if I'd regret opening the can of worms.

[livednlearned]

Oops, I see -- mistakenly read what you wrote in your first post, that it takes 28 days for a non-emergency hearing.