Well, we'll have to see what the judge rules. Meanwhile you're on pins and needles wondering what the overall tone and the details will be. That's certainly hard, we've been there, done that. Not knowing the outcome yet invites 'catastrophizing'. I made a quick glance back to some older posts and saw this.
My son is only 9 and we've been to court almost as many times. I know the lady who takes care of all the family court cases for family court and she told me off the record that my case is the worse one the courts saw in anyone's memory. It has been expressed to me by my therapist that my son will probably need a therapist himself some day.
First, and probably we've mentioned this before, your son would benefit from a counselor now, not some day. Courts love counseling. The challenge is for him to get an experienced counselor who doesn't side with a parent but works for the child. If the judge rules he is to get a counselor and mother gets to pick one then she'll likely pick one who agrees with her. What some have suggested is to have a short list of solid, experienced, not-easily-conned counselors and let her pick from among that short list. Courts have been known to favor that arrangement where one parent selects a solid short list for the other parent to make the final choice. Until that happens he can at least take advantage of the school's counselors.
Did you try to be the parent presenting solutions and not just gripes? If the court is doing its job, by now it should have an idea where the problem lies. (Hopefully it hasn't concluded you both are problem parents!)
Possibly the court didn't seem very favorable to you during the hearing since it didn't want to lay a basis for Ex to claim favoritism. Let's hope the order will at least have some wins for you. (Some judges try not to have one parent get all the winning and the other parent all the losing. They also are reluctant to make major changes, preferring to make smaller fixes/improvements and giving it time to see if that was enough.) If you can't get custody* can you at least get equal time? If you can't get equal time, can you at least get the 'standard' alternate weekends with an overnight in between? Frankly, unless the court sees you are a parent with substantive parenting issues (child abuse, endangerment, neglect) then getting the minimal standard shouldn't be unrealistic to hope for.
Same goes for holidays. You should get at least standard holidays. Most counties or states have default holiday schedules. In general they give each parent alternating holidays in date order then the next year it is reversed so that the holiday missed the year before is gotten in the new year. My Ex caused problems when she suddenly claimed a holiday (we had never celebrated it before) so she could sabotage my planned vacation. That got fixed in court when the magistrate struck out the holidays we didn't celebrate and thereby shortened the list.
*Custody - Custody can mean different things from state to state. Some states split custody into the major decisions (schooling, major medical, etc) and parenting schedule.
For our benefit - and only in general terms so you can maintain your anonymity - can you summarize what the order is now, what was contested or attempted in court and how you worry it may turn out?
