slowly but surely the judge is handing down the new court order in bits and piec

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

I had a good court order through settlement conference but xw was so difficult I had to take her back to court. I had every wednsday overnight, drop s10 at school on Thursday morning and every second weekend Friday to Monday morning. Xw was dead set against wednsday and Sunday overnight. She agreed to it in settlement but than set out to convince me to stop the overnights but I was out of the grip of her manuplating and most of all the help of the good people on here stressing the importance of sticking with the overnights. Xw did everything in her power to get me to stop the overnights, xw insisted s10 was suffering in school, I went to s10's teacher, he was excelling in school, his report card was very good but no matter how much proof was before xw's eyes she insisted harder, even in court with all the evidence in front of xw she still lied and insisted s10 was suffering in school. The judge said he did not want to confuse s10 that this is all about the child not the parents.  The judge ruled, every second weekend, no Sunday overnight, than 4 hr on wednsday, no more over night, than a split weekend for 24 hr than xw gets the next full weekend after the split and every 3rd wednsday is an ga e overnight. Are you confused yet? S10 misses the old access so do I. I tried to get xw to stick with old access but she said she wasn't willing to do Sunday nights. Than the judge gave his summer access and wants xw and I to figure how we want to split up the summer. It's a shameful order considering the history of how awful xw has been to co parent with. S10 also tells me how his mornings are always rushed but he said how relaxed and never rushed our mornings were. I'm scratching my head over this order.

[bus boy]

I had a good court order through settlement conference but xw was so difficult I had to take her back to court. I had every wednsday overnight, drop s10 at school on Thursday morning and every second weekend Friday to Monday morning. Xw was dead set against wednsday and Sunday overnight. She agreed to it in settlement but than set out to convince me to stop the overnights but I was out of the grip of her manuplating and most of all the help of the good people on here stressing the importance of sticking with the overnights. Xw did everything in her power to get me to stop the overnights, xw insisted s10 was suffering in school, I went to s10's teacher, he was excelling in school, his report card was very good but no matter how much proof was before xw's eyes she insisted harder, even in court with all the evidence in front of xw she still lied and insisted s10 was suffering in school. The judge said he did not want to confuse s10 that this is all about the child not the parents.  The judge ruled, every second weekend, no Sunday overnight, than 4 hr on wednsday, no more over night, than a split weekend for 24 hr than xw gets the next full weekend after the split and every 3rd wednsday is an ga e overnight. Are you confused yet? S10 misses the old access so do I. I tried to get xw to stick with old access but she said she wasn't willing to do Sunday nights. Than the judge gave his summer access and wants xw and I to figure how we want to split up the summer. It's a shameful order considering the history of how awful xw has been to co parent with. S10 also tells me how his mornings are always rushed but he said how relaxed and never rushed our mornings were. I'm scratching my head over this order.

[Turkish]

Yes,  I'm confused.  This sounds like you lost some time and it became more complicated. 

[bus boy]

It is complicated for s10 but Xw doesn't care. She only sees that the overnights on Wednesday and Sunday are gone, she got her way and nothing else matters. I asked through our lawyers to keep it the same, do away with the split weekend but Xw will only settle for no overnights. She is willing to do away with the split weekend and go back to every second weekend access no Wednesday or Sunday overnight. She absolutely refuses to compramise in any way. This is always the problem. So if s10 is confused Xw cares less, drops it on me and says what are you going to do about it. Xw is only looking for me to loose access. If I want the split weekend gone, Xw says great, here's my terms take it or leave it. It's left up to me to stop the confusion by taking a loss in access.

[ForeverDad]

The only reason a court would hear a case and decide to block a parent from overnights is substantive abuse or perhaps real risk of abuse such as: child abuse, child endangerment or child neglect.  Remember, can't be trivial stuff, needs to be 'substantive'.  For example, neglect is not cereal for breakfast or not buying name brand clothing.

So if parent demands "no overnights" without solid reasons, no court would side with that parent.  The least the obstructed parent would get is (possibly short) alternate weekends and one or two evenings or overnights in between.  In my temp orders before my divorce's final decree I had 3 overnight alternate weekends (72 hours ... .Fri pm to Monday pm) and a 3 hour Thursday evening in between.  Evidently that was standard for my local court.  When our son was old enough for school it was generally 60+ hours from Friday end of school to Monday beginning of school.

The point we emphasize here is that the other parent's demands are not what we have to comply with.  Very often a court's decision is much less unfair than the other parent's demands and ultimatums.

Of course, if you want to make a settlement and she demands no overnights, then you're stuck.  Don't gift away your option to have the court be the less unreasonable decision maker.

Think of it this way... .if you had to pick up a feral cat or dog, would you let it bite and scratch you as much as it wants?  No, you'd hold it well away from you and with a strong but careful grip that didn't expose you to the teeth and claws.  And you would cautiously ignore all the screams, yowls, and whatnot.  Court is one of the tools you can use.  You have to deal with the wild animal, you don't have to do everything it wants.