Have my new trial date

[bus boy]

Yesterday I got word of my trial date and what judge is sitting on the bench for the trial. It's good news for me. He was the judge who reinstated my over night visits back about 5 years ago. And gave me Xmas morning with my son as well. I agreed with ex to cut back on access but our son kept asking to spend the night and she would never let him nor was she willing to make up any list time or compromise in any issues, I had to take her back to court. Like I said that was 5+ years ago. She also told my son Santa all ready came so on that Xmas morning my son was not excited as a 5 year old should of been. He started explaining to me like he was the adult " daddy, Santa all ready came". The gifts under the tree from my family meant nothing on his first Xmas with us. I wonder what the judge us going to think of the mockery she made of his decision. The only thing is he was pushy for councelling with a child therapest, I had no issues with councelling but I tried to explain councelling is of no use with her bc she lies so bad, we saw a child therapest and you can't fix a lie. She just can't be purely honest. I am optimistic about trial but I do fear her lies and she could use her live in BF to back her lies. It's her house, he has nothing, freshly divorced and so far is turning on me pretty good, just as I predicted he would do. So trial will show what kind of man he is as well. Judgement day all around .

[whirlpoollife]

In the meantime, suggestion , while waiting for the trial... .document what you do as a parent .  From making breakfast , appointments , activites , school involvement .  What you purchase , clothes , shoes, phones etc.   Then summarize it to one page.
Her alienation in all forms , document it but also summarize to one page. 
Have your extensive notes ready so when she lies, you can quickly reference to your notes to prove it. 
When she , her lawyer speak, write down on paper in front of you of the questionables, lies,
So you remember what it is  to counter it when it's your turn to talk. There will be many. And it this helps us to not interrupt and keep cool.
Whe I had custody trials, X and I were in seperate rooms with L's running back and forth making deals with pressure, then when a deal was made, we went in front of the judge to swear by it to finalize it.

[bus boy]

Thank you. I have very detailed notes. Xw is claiming s9 school is suffering. My L said the it is up to xw to prove s9 is slipping in school due to the changes in over night access last November.  Xw has been a horrible person to deal with and twice as worse since I learned boundries.

The strange thing is, I have emails from s9 teacher saying how good he is doing in school, and his report card for last term for the summer was glowing. My T is a retired school teacher and she said as far as report cards go, it was a very good report card.

[david]

So let ex rail in court about how poor your son is doing. The more she talks the better. When it is your turn your attorney can ask you questions pertaining to son and school. You can then say how well he is doing and present the emails from his teacher. How does his report card compare to years prior. If it is better now that is great. If it is slightly better or the same then the extra time did not hurt him.
My ex wanted our youngest to have an IEP so she could not be blamed for his struggle in school. Ex had majority of time during school and I was seeking at least 50/50. I copied every homework for three entire years. That is how long it took to get to court because of ex's delays. I signed every homework he did with me and because of that ex signed every homework he did at her place. Just so happens that our son did over 90 or 95 % of all homework when he was with me and I only had him EOW and one day during the week. A lot of his homework was late but he was in elementary school and the school figured his mom out and let me take care of it when he was with me.
He just started middle school this year and is taking their honors courses. I think that is pretty good for a kid whose mom insisted he had a learning disability. It took me years to finally accomplish something in court but I felt I had no real choice. I stayed focused on his needs and I adapted to the reality of that time. He learned to adapt too although there were some days that were not very pleasant because he had so much homework on my weekends. Eventually he figured out how to do his homework when he was at his moms. At least a decent amount. He knew I checked it and if it wasn't correct he had to do it over.
I wish my ex could have helped him but I realized she was not able to because of her own issues.
Have all the evidence and summarize it like whirlpoollife said. I had a stack of homework about 6 to 8 inches tall. One sheet was on the top that summarized the pile below. I had three of everything because one goes to the judge, one to ex, and one to me. That was three big piles. The judge looked at it and had ex get her pile. He asked her if she agreed with the top sheet. Ex had a choice : 1) agree with the top sheet that she knew was correct  or 2) go over each piece of homework and piss the judge off. She agreed and that single sheet was introduced as evidence.
My ex was lying on the stand and I picked up a blank piece of paper and showed it to my attorney. Ex was watching what I was doing and changed her story to the truth right then and there. My attorney got a kick out of that afterwards.

[bus boy]

Hi david, his report card was actually better in the last term. I have emails saying  how he is improving, especially since one of the biggest projects of the year was completed, I made sure his teacher knew that s9 did his reading assignment everything he was with me. In fact the only missed assignment he had was before the new court order last November.  S9 had a big project due last year and he completed on one of my access weekends, his mother was completely uncooperative. She did everything to mess it up for him, from not sending me the password for his google docs account to access his project, I got the account number from his teacher, xw didn't know I had it. I asked xw to meet me somewhere with the pic's for his project and she text back, find your own pic's. She was willing to let s9 fail his project to make me look bad. She was a monster and I have it all on text. I would like to know where all this proof is at that she says she has that s9 was noticeably slipping in school. The story I have from his teacher and principal completely differ from her story. I don't think they will give different stories to us. In the past xw was able to manuplate and control me, use fear and lies but now I challenge her, took a lot of her control away. I have his attendance records for the year. I have everything on paper to show what she is saying is wrong.

[rarsweet]

Your L saying that it is up to the other side to prove their claims is misleading. If you don't document and prove that they are lying it just comes down to he said/she said in court and the judges assume both people are just difficult. You are doing the right thing by being prepared and documenting. My ex recently claimed that I had stolen his truck to a repo investigator when he stopped making his car payment. I helped the investigator find ex(with his truck) when they found me. In court last week ex started whining about his truck getting repo'ed and that I had set him up, that I had initiated an investigation without cause, basically, and he said he just gave up his truck to stop the harrassment. I then countered with the emails I had between this investigator and myself. Ex then changed his story to how bad his life was because I had helped the investigator, even though they had been investigating me!

[david]

I forgot one thing in my last post. The blank piece of paper was the only evidence I had to disprove that particular lie. That was why I handed my attorney the paper. I knew ex was looking towards us. She was angry and was giving me the evil eye. When she saw me hand the paper to my attorney, she paused, and then had a better recollection of what actually happened.

The text messages telling you to find your own pictures shows that she is still caught up in hurting you at the expense of the child. That needs to be shown in that manner. Having all the other evidence in order and one cover sheet explaining everything underneath is the best way to go in court. The top sheet needs to be brief with just the facts. As long as you have a piece of evidence to support everything on that sheet you will be fine. I learned that evidence has to be presented as evidence. It is a process in the courtroom and slows things down. Everything needs a tag and a number. It has to be three copies so everyone (both parties and the judge) gets one. Evidence holds more sway in court than verbal testimony and must be used in the decision making. If it is not the decision can easily be contested. The problem with introducing evidence is that it slows things down and many judges don't like that because they want to get as many hearings done as quickly as possible. Attorneys don't like it for the same reason. My first attorney never introduced a piece of evidence. My second attorney explained that he would be introducing evidence, it would take some time, and during that time I just needed to stay calm and collected. I never "lost" in court with my second attorney.

I stopped trying to co parent and was parallel parenting  during our last custody evaluation. The evaluator challenged me on that as being the problem because I wasn't even trying to co parent. Ex jumped on that to attack me. I gave a laundry list of examples where I tried and then simply said I came to the realization I wasn't helping either one of our boys by continuing with that course of action. I said I made that choice because I thought it was best for our boys.

One thing I learned is that challenging my ex only led to chaos and attacks. Negative engagement is still engagement. That used to be said a lot on this site a few years back. I evolved from challenging directly with ex into "ignoring" what she was saying/accusing/blaming/etc. I began to view myself as a single parent and acted accordingly. I still email things pertaining to our boys that I believe ex should be informed about. It is minimal though and usually revolves around scheduling. How I handle situations in my house are not discussed with ex. The problem I found early on was when I did that she found ways to sabotage or at least try to sabotage what I was doing. If my ex sends an email accusing me of something by saying son said so and so I usually do not reply. I have found that she is simply trying to stir things up especially since what she said wasn't true. I don't see the need to point out her lie. I believe she knows it is a lie and if she believes what she is saying then I see no point in trying to convince her she is wrong in her belief. I view that as a no win situation.

My ex sent me an email a few weeks before school saying she purchased all our youngest clothes/shoes/school supplies/etc for him. I believe she was implying that I had to do the same for our oldest. I didn't reply. I talked to our youngest and asked what his mom and him got for school. He said nothing. I took both boys out and we got clothes and shoes a week before school started. I didn't get school supplies since the school hadn't sent the list yet. When they did I had most of the things they needed already and that is what they have now.

[bus boy]

We have an all day trial 9:00-4:30. Xw claim is s9 school is suffering so the court said she must provide evidence to prove that. I have plenty of evidence to support my claim, he is not suffering. She is a very attentive parent, s9 never does with out, she is great to make sure he always has everything he needs. It's going to be tough to prove emotional abuse. Her main goal is to hurt me. I do have lots of evidence showing her manuplating and lies so that might help my claim of emotional abuse. S9 has shared with me things she does and says to him. She is very clever, sneaky,  devious person. She knows exactly how and when to place her abuse. Anyone on the outside looking in or even her live in bf would claim in court she is a completely devoted mother. Hopefully the judge will see, through past evidence and the evidence I have now that alianation and abuse is happening to s9 and I.

[david]

Her personal attacks on you don't matter in court. However, if it affects your relationship with S9 then that is a different story.
Our two boys told me things in confidence that I did not use in court because they were the only proof I had. That was when they were 4.5 and 8.5. As they got older it would have mattered in court but our custody evaluation handled all that so I never had to bring those things up. I am not sure what I would have done because I knew if it was brought up there was a very good likelihood that ex would focus her wrath on them.
I believe at nine it is possible that a child could be brought into chambers. The judge, both attorneys, and a stenographer would be the only ones present. Neither attorney is supposed to discuss what happened in chambers to their client.
I think emotional abuse would be tough to prove unless you had a recognized expert in that field.
My ex was very attentive to our boys when they were young (under around seven). When they started questioning their moms perceptions is when she turned on them. It was subtle at first and when that wasn't working it became more open and hostile. She started to treat them the way she treated me towards the end.
I used to think she was a completely devoted mom too but after I became extremely emotionally detached I saw things in a different light. It also helped that our boys were getting older and many of my fears about their well being didn't occur.
Our oldest (17) basically lives in his room when he is at her place. He gets the brunt of her anger. S13 has learned to disappear at her place. Ex will make dinner for the youngest and nothing for S17. He then gets yelled at for dirtying the kitchen when he starts to make something to eat. He cleans up after himself but that doesn't matter. Both boys have confirmed that to me various times.

[bus boy]

My T and I are going to be very careful how we work on this for court. Now that you say it s9 has been conditioned by his mom. I saw him stand up to her and she didn't take long to put him in his place. He use to ask if he could play with my toys, I told him they were his toys. To make him more comfortable I told him it was s9 and daddy's toys and s9 and daddy's house. A child T said that was very healthy for s9, the T was quiet pleased at me for talking to s9 like that. S9 stood up to his mom on that matter bc she said it was only daddy's house and daddy's toys but she shut him down pretty fast. I feel as he gets older and stands up to her, things will change. I see now why people on here encouraged me to stick with it, he will need you when he gets older and my T as well kept encouraging me to stick with it. I wanted to give up so many times.

[david]

After my ex ran away I realized they got to see two different ways of doing things. When ex and I were together it was always ex's ideas that counted.
Our boys learned how to cope in both environments. They challenged ex for a while but it was met with rage/anger/yelling/punishment so they learned to avoid her for the most part.
Our house is very different and we interact. Our last custody eval the evaluator talked to each boy privately. A week later he met with ex and I. He said he wanted to talk to both of us about the things he thought were concerning from his conversations with the boys. I sat there for the hour and listened. He never once talked to me. The biggest thing he said was that he asked each boy to describe a typical day with their mom and a typical day with their dad. Their description of time with their mom never mentioned her at all. This was each boy talking to the evaluator for 45 minutes. He said that when they talked about dad: dad made breakfast, checked their homework, went somewhere on the weekends during school, they all ate dinner together, etc. With mom S15 made breakfast for S11, they took the dog for a walk, etc. The evaluator asked where their mom was and they both said she either was sleeping or went out shopping or something. The boys told me that before but it really sunk in during that meeting. They were on their own when at her place.
When they complained to me about something at their moms' I used to suggest that they talk to her about it. They both said I didn't understand. I offered to talk to her and they both were adamant about that not being a good idea.