Hi, K,
I don't know if you can help me or not.

My son has an 8 year old daughter, born 8-1/2 months after his wife returned home from running off with an OM. He never had DNA testing because he didn't want to know if she wasn't his. I firmly believe that she is his bio-child, given that she looks like my side of the family and that she was definitely a little premature.

The ex-DiL turned out to be a serial cheater, and they have been divorced for 6 years now.

His ex has a tendency to run away when in trouble, leaving the kids behind. When she disappeared with exOM for a month, she left their 2 boys with us. A couple of years ago, when she got into trouble for stealing checks from his house and forging his name, she disappeared for 6 weeks after he told her he would NOT be bailing her out and that he had reported the checks to the bank as stolen. This time, she had agreed to relinquish custody because he would not agree to her moving the kids out of state with her and her BF. She actually brought the kids to him a couple of weeks before she moved, because one of her neighbors had reported her to DHS-CPS.

He has filed for custody, and she has countersued, which was expected. What is upsetting our son is the fact that she is claiming he has no custody rights to their daughter and is demanding that he take a paternity test. We don't think she will prevail, legally, but we're concerned about the emotional effect on granddaughter. Right now, our son has temporary custody, but the kids are visiting their mom in the other state, and are due back by the 27th. Son is concerned that she may be telling granddaughter that he is not her daddy...pretty devastating info for a big daddy's gir!

Do you know of any websites that might help provide some support and reassurance for our son?

Lady Clueless,

I'm not K, but wanted to respond to you because I have a 9 year old daughter and your thread got me thinking. Our situation is a little different but I still worry about my daughter's emotional health.

When we were going through custody proceedings, I put my daughter in sunday school. I also took her to see a child psychologist, because I wanted her to have someone to talk to outside of the family. She is not seeing the psychologist any longer but she enjoyed going when she was.

I also talk, talk, talk to her. She tells me when something is bothering her because she knows that I won't get upset about her dad, and won't say anything bad about him. My parents told me when she was a baby (they have since passed on) that no matter what I felt about her father, he is her father and I must repect that. NEVER bad mouth him.

If your son can do this, then she will trust him enough to be able to share with him. And this will help keep her somewhat removed from all the yucky stuff going on right now.

And you take care of yourself too, because your son needs you now. (sounds like you are)

Weaver,
Thank you for your kind advice.

Right now, the children are visiting their mother until the 27th, at which time she is to return custody to him. Per the court order, he is allowed to call them at least twice a week, and that is all their mother is allowing. The kids are supposed to be able to call him at any time, but it seems that their mother is not allowing that, either. Last night, he was on the phone, and he could hear his ex in the background making fun of him to the kids...urging the 10 year old to call his dad "Scar Nose" (a reference to the scar from when Son nearly got his nose torn off in an auto accident). The scar doesn't look bad, as it healed nicely, but you can still see it.

So, we met with his attorney today, and the attorney is going to bring up the parental alienation problem in court. Also, Son is going to refuse DNA testing unless the judge orders it.

She is also claiming that he uses drugs. At one point when he was trucking, he tried using pills to stay awake, but hasn't used anything stronger than Tylenol in over 6 years. Son told attorney that he would voluntarily take a drug test if she does, as well. I suspect that she won't want to take the drug test.

We are working hard on his house, and hope the kids will be pleased with their new rooms.
Her attorney is also demanding information on his relationship with his fiancee. His fiancee does not live with him, and they do not do anything more than hug and light kisses around the kids. She stayed at their house on Christmas Eve because she helped buy their Christmas and wanted to see their faces on Christmas morning, but she slept in the bedroom with our granddaughter (Granddaughter didn't have a bed there yet), and Son slept on the couch. Well, she will have to answer, in court, the question of the number of men that she has had relations with in the presence of the children.

Right now, we're hoping that we will not have to have the children in court, because we feel that they don't need to hear all this stuff, although we're sure the judge will want to speak with them privately.

We have a good judge hearing the case, and I feel confident about the outcome. The problem is with the emotional damage that this could do to the children.

We do have a video of how the house looked when she moved out (including piles of doggie doo <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" /> ) The lady who cleaned the house told Son that she would testify as to the odor The teachers have told Son and his fiancee that they felt the kids were better off with him. It turns out that instead of going through the hassle of HELPING the 2 younger kids with their homework, their mother was actually doing it for him....and the kids were turning in homework in her handwriting! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> Also, the teachers said the kids were LOOKING better after they moved in with Son. I guess so, since they were actually going to bed at a regular, decent time instead of being hauled all over the country half the night! Also, they were getting home-cooked meals and vitamins, plus their clothes were actually CLEAN!

Thanks so much for "listening" to me vent.

K, are you there? Any ideas on how to deal with this? Got a website we can visit?

LC

I did a lot of research on mothers trying to disestablish the presumed father, and was encouraged to find several cases where the presumed father prevailed, including a couple in our state.