I Got the FOG to Vaporize--but at what cost?

It is what it is. You can step forward to limit the damage, chaos, etc. Accept that.

Yes, starting separate homes is hard on kids. But not doing that can be harder on them. I recall when I first separated (police came for his mother) there was nearly a week with just him and me. I was overly-fair and tried to mention his mother - twice. Both times this 3 year old changed the subject. I let it go, I accepted he'd rather not deal with hit then.

You have an advantage I didn't have, you've had a child therapist for some time now. They can be expert witnesses. Whether they will appear in court may not be as important as them speaking with the assigned evaluators and other professionals in addition to the accumulated mountain of documentation you have by now. Whether court will order that she have only supervised visitation or alternate weekends or some other form of minority parenting, it's impossible to say now. But you need to press for what's best for the children, not simply making deals or being fair to the problem parent. "Standard outcomes" preferred and expected by courts and lawyers are insufficient in your case to address the children's issues. Every time the court or anyone else (especially mother) veers into impact on mother or talking about equitable split of parenting, redirect it onto what the children need, a calm, stable and trusting home environment.

When I walked into court the first time, there was no prior history except for the mother just being arrested for Threat of DV. Evidently the court ignored it or maybe it did review it out of my sight and then viewed it as Adult Behavior and not Parenting Behavior. Whatever, the magistrate simply asked what our work schedules were before gifting mother temporary custody and majority time. Yes, mother had made some mild allegations about me but the CPS rep had stood up and stated they had "no concerns" about father. Work schedules evidently took precedence over our history since the court had nothing substantive on paper to review. Your case is very different. You have had runaways. You have a child therapist. You have CPS investigations and perhaps even interventions. Perhaps more documentation elsewhere too. You have what I didn't have until years later — a paper trail documenting the history. It's time to end the unlimited chaos and damage. Yes, there will still be chaos and damage but at least it can be limited. But you're the only one who can get the ball rolling.

T has his/her role and probably is limited in what he/she can do. CPS has its own fiefdom, scope of responsibility and roles and if it doesn't rise to the level of being 'actionable' then they typically do nothing. Neither may tell you what to do to fix things but also probably neither will be saddened if you step forward to make changes to the family arrangement.



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