My children were well armed with the facts about what I was doing during my A. These kids were relentless in their questions and they were empowered by their mom to ask LOTS of questions about my adultery. They quoted bible verses, they informed me about how hurtful lying was, they told me I was in an adulterous relationship by having a girlfriend, they told me they didn't want to visit me because this was not their home, etc. etc. etc. They only needed permission to fire the truth at me from their mom. SMB was not being vindictive at all. It was the MOST effective way for these innocent victims to combat the hurtful, hateful behavior I was engaged in.

These children only need permission to tell OW how they really feel! It's one thing to ask kids to be respectful, but asking them to be submissive and accepting of the abuse of a wayward and the OW is the wrong message you want to teach them IMO.

((((((tully)))))

I don't think the problem so much is that the children arn't informed...because they are...they know it's wrong. They have stated that fact in the past and DD 12's distrust of her father also shows that..

I think the problem is that they fear him....he has basically given them either conciously or unconciously the ultimatum of "you will approve and like the situation or I will leave you and your world will crumble". That is so unfair to a child.

Girls look to there fathers as heros...Tullys girls looked at there father like this there whole lives...then the unimaginable happened. His wayward mind wants his happiness and he is holding that over the girls heads. "Make daddy happy or daddy will taken away the comfort and stability you have always had."

That is the fear he puts into them to make sure they don't express how they feel. He is forcing them to do this. They need reassurance and the bond they are forging with there mother is growing stronger.

Tully work with DD12's councelor about building her self esteem and reassurance. Once she feels fully stable with you. She will open like a flood gate.

Hi Tully,

I have full custody in my situation but I have had it from the beginning. Since you already have more than 50% I would definitely get as much info before you act as possible.

Also is your xWH in a position where he could ask for full custody himself? I mean if he married the OW (ugh) then he might have a position to argue that he can provide a two parent home. I know it is yuck but get alot of advice. I think that most states do 50/50 for older children as the default.

Hi Tully! No useful custody advice, but a big hello and hugs from me!!!

Me too. :HappyHolidays:

Tully,

Not much to add but my overall support. Seems like you are getting sound advice from Mr. W. It's also obvious that you are cared about and thought of quite a bit within the MB halls.... Praying for you and the girls as always.

Mindshare

Hi Tully,

I just went through a custody battle which is still sitting on the judge's desk after 4 months. Been there, done that, have the medal. I've been reading through your thread and want to offer a little bit different opinion based on what I went through. I'm also unfamiliar with your situation other than this thread. Keep in mind my opinions are formed from my experience in the US.

The feel I get from your thread is there is very little reason to change custody. Based on your arrangement, you are already at an advantage. I think your efforts would be better spent making your current temporary orders permanent.

From a strategy standpoint, if you file, the burden of proof falls to you to prove that the kids should see their father less. Absent any major issues, this is a very tough mountain to climb. The thing is, temporary orders have a habit of becoming permanent and you have a huge advantage with your situation right now. You WH is going to have prove that the kids will be better off seeing him more.

From what you said, your issues seem very minor when looking at it from a judge's perspective. The judge sees custody cases all the time. This means they see a lot of trainwrecks such as physical abuse, drugs, etc and a text about a urinary tract infection would seem petty and overcontrolling in the grand scheme of things.

As for the OW, I wouldn't even worry about the text. It's one of those things that really get under your skin but wouldn't be much use in a custody battle. You see, the text was a conversation between the OW and your daughter. It's hard to get context around a text message so you would have to bring the OW and DD onto the stand for the judge to get an idea of context.

Hello Tully!

Am glad to hear that you are doing better! I think PSUB has good points.

Have you talked to another counselor? How much burdon will the girls have to go through to change custody? Here (US) sometimes it can get nasty, and expensive.
I would consult a few (3?) before you make your final descision. (worth every dime, imho)

You have quite a bit going for you, (you always did!) I would not want to put my kids through the ringer and cost if there is nothing/little to gain. If you feel that you have a good chance at real change, do it.

t/j. My dd17's has a boyfriend whos bio parents were in court over custody every year for 13 YEARS. Nothing ever really changed. I bet they squandered a college tuition on this.

oh yeah!

:HappyHolidays:

Thank you all for your thoughts.
Just to clarify a few things.
This particular custody arrangement is in place since mid-May 2009. However with his house move and the summer holidays in July and August (which are different anyway) it has really only been properly in a routine since September.
Shared custody has been reasonably common in France for the past 15 years. (but it's still a long way from being the norm - I think in about 70% of cases the mother has main custody) Now that the first generation of young people who have been raised in this way are reaching adulthood and able to express their experience, there is a backlash against shared custody. It is much less positively viewed than it was 10 years ago.

A permanent custody arrangement will have to be put into place in the context of the final divorce. I will be requesting full custody and claiming that it is best for the children (which is what I truely believe). I can't imagine that any judge would listen to an argument that a WH + OW = 2 parent home and so better than being with me. In no way is OW even remotely like a parent to my children. I'm even questioning if WH is a decent father.

SIHM, you are spot-on with the fear factor for the children. I have always been honest with my children about the A. They have the facts.
tst, the big difference between your situation and mine is that you came back to your M. Our M is over and no amount of fighting by the children can bring it back. They know that now. Their battle is not to hold on to their parents' M but to hold on to their father in their lives. If I add pressure by making them effectively choose between him and me then that is a pressure that would be very hard on them at a time when life is tough anyway.

My impression of the legal attitude to shared custody is that they like it because it give a semblance of fairness. 50/50 always sounds fair and it is often a good outcome for parents who get to have their children half the time and be free to have a single life for the other half. The problem is that I don't believe this is a good outcome for the children who need stability and reassurance to grow properly. There is no one as keen on tradition and routine as children because this structure is essential for them in their formative years. However they find it hard voice this especially if it goes against the wishes of one of their parents who they love.
It's a complicated, horrible situation.
As one mother said to me 'judges should be forced to live in two different places switching every week for 6 months and then we'd see how many of them would prescribe it for children.'

Anyway, WH is behaving with his typical sense of entitlement and I'm not sure that it is possible to raise children in this context.

Lots of love to you all and have a wonderful Christmas.

:MerryChristmas:

Slight t/j here Tully, but I'm curious as to the specifics of the backlash. Shared custody is only just becoming more common here in Canada and of the families I know that are doing it, it's working out reasonably well. The main problem for them is that the exH and exW are still quite tied to each other in that they are restricted to where to live etc., unless they get permission from the other.

In Canada, judges definitely do see 2 parent homes as better than a single parent home. They are not looking at it in terms of who is a wayward and who is a homewrecking ho. You are not even allowed to mention adultery in custody trials. They see it based on population statistics. Single parent families are chronically at or below the poverty line; kids that get in trouble with the law are more frequently from single-parent homes etc., etc., etc. Unless the children are in physical danger from the WS, OP or both, the judge will view their home as more suitable than the BS. They do not take morality or ethics into the equation - just statistics.

This is what you need to prove to reduce his visitation. Either that or show that OW is a physical danger to them. Do you have anything better than a text about a urinary tract infection?

Tully,

Please clarify what you mean by full custody. If I'm reading this right, the temporary orders are for joint legal custody with primary residency with you. This means both of you are to make major decisions for the kids, but they live with you the majority of the time. What do you want to gain by going for full custody? Especially since shared seems to be the legal standard in your country. From Here's how I look at it.

Your WH would have to have MAJOR issues that are a documented DANGER to the kids for you to get full custody. The judges see couples every day who think the other parent is not a good parent for whatever reason. It's the judge's job to figure out what is real and what's not.

You already have the upper hand with the temporary orders. Think about it this way, you already have primary residency. What if your exWH ends up presenting a better case for primary residency? The more I think about it, I think your lawyer did a pretty good job for you setting up the temporary orders. You said shared custody is what judges are ruling for now. He was able to negotiate an agreement that was better than the current legal standard. Basically, he was playing the odds because he may have known based on your case, if you went to court, you would get 50/50 shared.

Believe me, nothing is worse than the OP in your kids life. But, lawyers are expensive and you only want to spend money on them if you know you have a very good chance of winning going in. My feel is it will be much more likely that your temporary orders will be made permament (easier for the judge to do) or moved to shared custody than it is for you to get full custody.

I was referring to physical custody not legal custody. Of course I have no problem with WH having his say in the major decisions in his children's lives. In fact main physical custody for the mother is much more than standard than shared custody.

What I want is the classic arrangement of one weekend out of 2 and half the holidays for WH.

Tully

HE's NOT! I'm glad you've decided to fight for your girls. They need to know they are worth fighting for even if the courts decide arrangements contrary to what's really in their best interest.



tully, the situation is not as different as you may think. The goal may not be to save the M any longer, but IMVHO it needs to be to limit or eliminate the influence of OW. The courts can dictate visitation, but they cannot force these girls to accept OW. H may even threaten that they accept OW or lose him..... But if he is willing to force this type of a choice upon them, then H losing relationship with them may be in their best interest. Please do not convince yourself that he is somehow a decent father. He's no more of a decent father than I was while wayward. My decency and parenting skills were abandoned the moment I abandoned my family, and so were his.

I would suggest too, that the battle is never about choosing between you or your H. The real battle IMhO is about refusing to call evil, good and refusing to call good, evil. Continuing to teach your girls the truth about the real battle will allow them reap a great harvest in the end.

I do want you to know, I yelled "HOORAH" when I read you were going to ask for sole custody!
I will be praying for you and your girls.

((((((((tully & girls)))))))

Tabby,

Shared custody (as in the 50/50, one week change over variety) is getting a lot of bad press lately. It may work for the parents but in most cases it doesn't for the children and this can be evidenced by the fact that this system rarely lasts for a long time. I've seen several articles criticising shared custody in Quebec. Research has found that while there seem to be more problems with single parent families than 2 parent families, the real cause of the problem is lack of money (single parent families are distinctly poorer statistically speaking) rather than the absence of any one parent. Shared custody arrangements tend to be applied by relatively well-off people who can afford 2 of everything.
The main problem is that children need stability and this system doesn't give it to them. Of course they need both parents but that need is not measured out in terms of time - it's quality of relationship that counts. It's not as if the 2 parents were equal before the divorce. In the vast majority of families, even when both parents work, the mother takes on the bulk of the work with regard to the children and home.
In my case prior to D I was a SAHM and WH's time with his children was probably less than it is now where mine has been severely reduced. I know that this is tough on my smallest one who is only 5. It's also tough on the eldest who takes the brunt of the responsibility when I'm not there. I can see that everytime I get them back the 3 younger ones have developed a habit of asking DD12's permission to do things or her opinion on stuff. I have then to say 'hey, that's my job. Ask me that question.'
Also I know that things will change over time and not for the better. WH has told me that they have to leave the house he rented because the owner wants to sell it. (He took a year lease back in May with an option to buy thinking that all financial matters would be sorted but they are not) He is asking me now to liquidate certain assets so that he can buy the house he's in ' for the good of the children'. Also I know that OW wants to have a baby asap and this would have a big impact on the girls.

When I say that WH is not a good father it's because he doesn't care about what is good for the girls. All he cares about is what's good for him and he will twist everything around to make it seem as if what's good for him is also good for the girls.

Tully

Thanks tst for the vote of support. What you said reminds me of what my brother-in-law said once: 'when he had the A and pulled out of the M, he lost his rights with regard to the children. The children still have rights with regard to him but he has none with regard to them.'
By the way just to clarify no court in France will limit access to the children by the OP unless you can prove that he/she is somehow a danger to the children eg drug addict, physically abusive or something like that. No moral factors will be taken into consideration.

Tully dearest,

Are you keeping a log/journal yourself? Are you documenting the girls behaviour when they return from WH?

I have had a problem for years with this. My son would return from his fathers house very will full and disobedient. My home I have a strict set of rules....XH and his wife would sit him in front of a TV and let him do what he wanted. It was affecting every aspect from home life to school.

Luckily a counselor and I were able to open his fathers eyes and he got on board to have a similar set of rules at his house AND enforce them. But for the longest time he wouldn't do it do to his pride ("you can't tell me what to do" mentality). DS is doing much better.

But the issue that caused the problem was that there was something lacking. In XH case it was a lack of structure and boundries with rules and proper parenting.

I think similarly here is your girls are lacking parenting. They go to a place they do not feel comfortable, with people they do not trust, who arn't making an effort to be trust worthy, a father who still hurts thier mother, and no structure.

"Daddy" is trying to make them accept this and get what he wants and the girls know this. For the group to follow DD 12 at your WH's house is a sign of survival instincts to show they do not trust those people and turn to the only one they do trust. Your DD 12.

She also is the speaker for the group. How she feels is definatly how the rest of the girls feel. Touch on this with her councilor.

Tully what about WH and his families history of Domestic violence towards you. Can that be brought up as a fear for the girls safety. If DD 12 is taking a parent role to her sisters she may be in a position where she will tell XH no to something and he may react badly. Partnered with XH's now history of bad decisions (you have the emails) and a woman being trust upon them and sending text messages like she did to you DD. It does raise some red flags to XH's parenting skills.

Tully I don't disagree with you at all. I am just trying to explain the viewpoint of judges - at least around here. Because adultery cannot be introduced to the case, the judge has to make a decision based on his/her perception of what would be in the children's best interest. The fact is children from single-parent families do poorly compared to children from 2-parent families and yes it's almost certainly due to income. But this statistic doesn't take into account the circumstances of how those families became single-parent. Many of the SP families these data were derived from were young (often teenage) single mothers who got pregnant and the dad ran off. As these young women/girls took on parenthood so early in life, they generally lack education and other skills to get a decent paying job. Also, despite the times there is still a significant inequity in pay and jobs between men and women - these women often get the worst and lowest paying jobs. This is increasingly less common today with better paternity tests, enforcable deadbeat dad laws, and the gap between women and mens salaries is a lot smaller than it was when the data was collected. There is clearly a huge difference between these single moms and a mature single mother who has leftover marital assets and an exH who pays child support. But the data isn't presented in that way so the judge just sees that single parent families are worse off. And they don't care that the second parent is also a homewrecker.

Tully,

I hear what you're saying and it is in many ways a reflection of what my ex use to say regarding why the kids should be with her more than with me.

The fact is that kids are the victims in this no matter which way it goes. They didn't ask for any of this. I hear what you're saying about a "lack of stability" in an arrangement where they live in different homes, but I can tell you that in practicality, my kids are just fine with it. They stay with mom on weekdays and spend most weekends with me. They see it as having two homes and we have settled into a routine and stability. THAT is better for them than not seeing their parents.

The damage to the kids comes from the fighting and the chaos. You can't expect a father to want to stay engaged in the kid's lives when he's reduced to just being a paycheck and someone who they see on occasion.

I get my kids the entire summer and see them almost weekly. The kids see my home as much as home as they see mom's place as home.

My ex was the wayward. I feel very strongly that such a thing should be a factor in custody fights, but in the end the kids forgive and value their relationship with their parent more than they do the animosity from a breakup.

I've dealt with it both as a parent and as a child. My father's infidelity broke up my family. I was angry with him for years about it and our relationship was very strained. I have forgiven him and have a healthy relationship with him now (it helped that the OW and he divorced).

My point is that your argument of stability is one heard a million times over by judges. The relationship with the other parent is valued higher than any "stability" that you argue comes from staying in one spot with one parent they see all the time and one that they rarely see. Your argument is a very common one made by moms and I'm one of the fathers who has fought hard to make sure I'm not relegated to being a paycheck.

Every situation is different, but in the end the judges don't care about why the marriage broke up. They approach things from the standpoint that both parties contributed to the breakup of the marriage (right or wrong) and they seek ways to keep both parents involved with the kids. That's the reality here in America, anyways. Unless your H shows dis-interest and an abusive past then they more often than not give him the benefit of the doubt about being a parent.

What I'm telling you is the reality of how they see things. PSUB and I fought brutal custody battles with our exes who were both unfaithful. I didn't get primary custody in my case, but I got an arrangement I can live with and one that I know my kids are happy with.

PSUB will hopefully get the same, if not be granted primary because of the situation with him and the other things the ex has done which judges don't look kindly on (breaking court orders, etc).

I know things may be different in Canada, but what I share with you is the reality I faced having gone through this. Judges have heard it all and nothing surprises them. They also don't care about infidelity short of your WH having sex in front of the kids.

It's a brutal reality and I'm not defending it, I'm merely stating what is.

Just to clarify, lostdads, tully is in France. I take it you made mention of Quebec because tabby is in Canada and she brought up the situation there, tully?

tully, I think that the picture that tabby, Biker and lostdads is painting is what you should explore with your lawyer. Would he or she say the same about judges' attitudes in the French legal system?