Summer of Chaos

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Our temp order states "The parents shall alternate a week at a time beginning with the regular week end schedule unless otherwise agreed. Each parent may select one period of two consecutive weeks. The Father will have first choice in odd-numbered years and the Mother in even-numbered years. Notice of the selection shall be given by April 1st."

DH gave his two weeks selection. He asked uBPDbm for hers and didn't get it until mid April. She tried to pick two weeks that would overlap with the first week of school but she got the first day of school wrong (it starts a week later this year). When she realized it, she changed the schedule and again tried to take the first few days of school. He said no, the school schedule is the school schedule and if you want a full 14 days then pick it within the "summer" timeframe. She never did. So after way too much back and forth DH sent the final summer schedule on April 21st. uBPDbm replied that just because he said it's the final that doesn't mean it is and that she would send a final schedule the following day. She never did.

So here we are, the last week of school. DH sends a reminder that the summer schedule starts this week. We just had SD10 for the weekend but the summer schedule would result in us having her this weekend as well. Now uBPDbm wants to change the entire summer schedule so she would have this weekend. She wants exchanges to be Monday to Monday instead of Friday to Friday, which would throw all our weekends off.

If uBPDbm doesn't show up for the exchange on Friday, do we have grounds for contempt? Our court order has such a huge hole that you could drive a truck through it. We did our due diligence in trying to coordinate with uBPDbm. There even is an email where she agreed to exchange on Friday. Now she will argue that she isn't taking time from DH, but it's not really fair to change the ENTIRE summer schedule just because she can't plan ahead.

[Thunderstruck]

Our temp order states "The parents shall alternate a week at a time beginning with the regular week end schedule unless otherwise agreed. Each parent may select one period of two consecutive weeks. The Father will have first choice in odd-numbered years and the Mother in even-numbered years. Notice of the selection shall be given by April 1st."

DH gave his two weeks selection. He asked uBPDbm for hers and didn't get it until mid April. She tried to pick two weeks that would overlap with the first week of school but she got the first day of school wrong (it starts a week later this year). When she realized it, she changed the schedule and again tried to take the first few days of school. He said no, the school schedule is the school schedule and if you want a full 14 days then pick it within the "summer" timeframe. She never did. So after way too much back and forth DH sent the final summer schedule on April 21st. uBPDbm replied that just because he said it's the final that doesn't mean it is and that she would send a final schedule the following day. She never did.

So here we are, the last week of school. DH sends a reminder that the summer schedule starts this week. We just had SD10 for the weekend but the summer schedule would result in us having her this weekend as well. Now uBPDbm wants to change the entire summer schedule so she would have this weekend. She wants exchanges to be Monday to Monday instead of Friday to Friday, which would throw all our weekends off.

If uBPDbm doesn't show up for the exchange on Friday, do we have grounds for contempt? Our court order has such a huge hole that you could drive a truck through it. We did our due diligence in trying to coordinate with uBPDbm. There even is an email where she agreed to exchange on Friday. Now she will argue that she isn't taking time from DH, but it's not really fair to change the ENTIRE summer schedule just because she can't plan ahead.

[livednlearned]

If uBPDbm doesn't show up for the exchange on Friday, do we have grounds for contempt? Our court order has such a huge hole that you could drive a truck through it.

My L liked to use motions for contempt in addition to some other big ask. So for example, in your case, she would file a motion for contempt plus propose a much more detailed parenting plan that what is currently in the court order. And my L would toss in a lot of examples to show that her client is diligent in order to avoid conflict for the sake of the child, whereas the other parent is not able to organize and pre-plan, nor stick to the schedule, and the child suffers in these ways: xyz.

She would also make the point that she does not want to have her client back in court and so requests that the judge rubber stamp the parenting plan as it is proposed.

I think the problem you're facing is that loose court orders are pretty standard, if only because most parents don't need things to be hyper detailed. So the burden will be on you to show cause for why a detailed parenting plan is required.

The caveat is that my overall goal was to get sole custody, so we filed for motions for contempt to show ex's inability to cooperate. That might be the thing you have to demonstrate above all else -- that bio mom cannot cooperate. Schedules in most families require flexibility and courts may expect a certain degree of accommodations in recognition. So you have to show that ex is going above and beyond asking for something reasonable. You have to show how it really messed things up and created additional conflict for the child.

[ForeverDad]

Monday morning?  If she wants Monday PM instead of Friday PM, then wouldn't it be splitting the week?  That's an additional reason to say No.

I was frustrated with my court, improvements usually came in slow baby steps - court is reluctant to make too many changes - the one behaving poorly seldom got consequences and the one behaving well seldom got credit.  Yet there's often no alternative so when tightening the order get as much addressed as possible.  Perhaps it would be an opportunity to seek Decision Making or Tie Breaker?  Even if you don't get it at first, it document's mother's lack of cooperation, your overall solution and your willingness to parent more.

I recall my custody evaluator began the summary in his initial report to the court, "Mother cannot share 'her' child but father can."

BTW- you wrote this is a temp order.  I had two temp orders, a brief one when we first separated and again for the 23.5 month divorce case.  The magistrate (and once before the judge) wasn't interested in changing the temp order.  Apparently they believe it will be only temporary.  My lawyer originally estimated my case at 7-9 months and it took 3 times as long.  The problem is that if we don't speak up about the issues, the temp order can easily morph largely unchanged into a final decree since courts assume there's no need to change what has been 'working'.

[Thunderstruck]

These are excellent suggestions!

The last time we were in court, the new judge added a clause that uBPDbm should be checking Our Family Wizard and replying daily (we didn't even ask for anything like that). We can roll that into the motion to show that hey, she's not following your orders. At one point when we were trying to discuss the summer, she didn't even log in for 7 days straight.

We have already filed a motion to compel financial discovery which she hasn't complied with. We could probably hear that at the same time.

I don't know if our temp orders will become final orders. We have a CE wrapping up, and the CE knows that shared parenting isn't working.

[livednlearned]

We have a CE wrapping up, and the CE knows that shared parenting isn't working.

So maybe what makes sense (since you have a CE report pending) is to file the motion for contempt about her not following the schedule per the temporary court orders, and treat it like a data point that you'll circle back to when you deal with the final CE report in court.

What starts to create a trap, for lack of a better word, and this can swing both ways, is that when judges rule on something, you kinda can't easily open things up to whatever happened before that ruling. For example, my ex wanted to bring up things that happened during mediation which produced our temporary orders. Except that four and five motions for contempt later, the judge would no longer let him revisit the temporary order, because we had already gone through several sets of doors and they had slammed shut.

It's confusing to try and explain. Your lawyer might want to have the motion for contempt as a way to wrap up that time period and prevent biomom from arguing points that predate it. But my ex was crafty and all over the place -- and representing himself. So this might not be something you have to worry about in your case. It gets into the technical brinkmanship and chess moves that laypeople like us have a hard time following in court because they refer to rules this and rules that and procedural stuff that isn't very transparent.

[ForeverDad]

I filed Contempt cases during the divorce process as well as post-decree.  During the case my lawyer asked for the decision to be rendered at the trial.  Post-decree, we sought an immediate decision.  Why?  Lawyer's strategy.

If we had sought a decision immediately before the decree, then the court would have viewed the matter as Addressed/Resolved and would have ignored it at trial.  We wanted her poor behaviors to be considered for the divorce decree.  The risk, which is what happened immediately before trial, is that we might eventually settle and then the pending Contempt case would go away.

However, post-decree the court takes Contempts a little more seriously, by then the parents should have let go the conflict and shifting into co-parenting or parallel parenting mode.  So we did try to get a decision for those.

[Thunderstruck]

We talk with the L tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, without us even bringing this issue up yet, he filed a motion to compel sanctions on uBPDbm because she is six months late in complying with the motion to compel financial discovery.

I think this has made her want to appear like she's the cooperative one   and we're the unbending one. So she's changing tactics. She's still rigidly sticking to her last minute schedule but saying that she's trying to cooperate by offering peanuts. We're trying to pry out of her what she actually wants and to adjust the schedule we proposed in April according to her wishes. We get like one glimmer of what she wants and five paragraphs of projection, blame, entitlement, gaslighting, you name it. Very frustrating. But we might be making progress. It's no longer a standoff.

So by tomorrow it'll either be an actual agreed schedule (the original schedule with a few changes), or we'll have to tell her that we revert back to the schedule in April and file contempt. Until we speak with the L I don't know if it's better to try to cooperate or to just say "Listen, I tried to get you to cooperate months ago and you didn't. Now it's too late for changes. If you choose not to follow this schedule we will file charges."