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Really? You're not playing a joke on us MB people? Ashton Kutcher isn't going to jump out of my closet, scare the carp out of the cat and hell, "you've been punked!?"

Holy heck, that's special!

Travis


Age - 35
Divorce Final - 3/5/12

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he filed and i just got served and he wants me to go see our marriage counselor tonight. with him.


Within about 5 seconds I went from "Wow, is he waking up?" to "I wonder if he's playing her...".

Watch out for this one.


Last edited by MyJourney; 02/08/11 05:45 PM.

D-yr fall 06-fall 07
Separated 10/2010
Him-several affairs, last one 3/2011
Divorced filed 3/2011, final 3/2012

Formerly "Mopey".
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2013149&page=1

After a 4 yr FR, it became CLEAR to me of what you can look for in a FR. And that is the absence of POJA, and/or if your spouse tramples on your boundaries. If someone is not willing to do POJA with you, and they don't respect your boundaries, imo, the relationship is doomed.
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Hey T...nope this is the real deal. i met with my attorney today, we had only had phne contact before, and after explaining what happened yesterday and how H immediately went from angry H with the cops to all lovey dovey with me, the atty asked "does he have a mental illness? and it wasnt a sarcastic question.

he has been trying to play me the whole time. one minute he is attaking me, th next begging for me to come home. he told the officers yesterday that i had tried to commit suicide and it wasnt safe for me to have the children! that sure does sound lke some one who loves me and wants me back...not!



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Are things going ok, with no drama, at the moment?

I'm wondering what your stbx will pull next.


D-yr fall 06-fall 07
Separated 10/2010
Him-several affairs, last one 3/2011
Divorced filed 3/2011, final 3/2012

Formerly "Mopey".
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2013149&page=1

After a 4 yr FR, it became CLEAR to me of what you can look for in a FR. And that is the absence of POJA, and/or if your spouse tramples on your boundaries. If someone is not willing to do POJA with you, and they don't respect your boundaries, imo, the relationship is doomed.
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well my lawyer advised me not to let him take the kids anywhere, and he sent word to his lawyer that for now visitation for the kids would only be within my mothers home (where i currently am staying) i tried to be polite and offered the following:

"I have thought about and considered your proposal in regards to the kids and at this time i do not think that it is a practical solution for this weekend. First off, at the moment, doc isn't well yet. It is not a good idea to take him to church or have him playing with other children. You and I would get upset if another parent brought their green snotty nosed coughing kid around our children, we should respect other parents and not do the same. Secondly, due to the incident of last week, I am not ready to extend the amount of trust that you are asking for. Previously you stated that you were willing to come up to see the kids and I think this will be the best solution for the time being. I think a good plan would be that you come up on saturday morning and you can take the kids to lunch (not mcdonalds because we don't want to share doc's germies). The kids have said they want to go see yogi bear and it is playing up here. If you want to stay the night at a motel, the kids can stay with you. and I know that the bigger chain motels have indoor pools, so I can provide bathing suits if you want to do that, but you will need to bring their floaties. I would suggest that you dont mention swimming to the kids incase doc is feeling particularly down. You can spend as much time as you want with them on sunday as long as you let me know that morning what time you plan to drop them back off at mom's house. I believe this is a fair and reasonable solution and would love for you to spend this time with the kids."

HIS REPLY:

"That is not enough time. If I have to get a hotel then I should be able to have them Friday also. And I have every right to have the kids as long as I want doesn't matter what you are comfortable with. You are preventing me from seeing the kids by placing unreasonable conditions on their availablity. Again I would encourage you to talk to your lawyer about preventing me from seeing the kids and if he has said this is a good plan id get a new lawyer. So I counter your suggestion with this. I will still pick the kids up at 3pm Friday and return them Sunday afternoon. As for doc not feeling well, as per our previously saved conversation via text message, I am just as capable of caring for a sick child as you are. I'm sure if you take you personal feelings about me out of the situation then you will see me spending more time with the kids is in their best interest. Hope is expecting to see me tomorrow and its not right to take that away from her just because you are made at me."

I am not mad at him, i just don't trust him in the slightest.


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Listen to your lawyer. If your lawyer says only allow him supervised visitation at your mother's house, then that's what you need to do.

I know you don't know me, but a long time ago, I also found myself in a situation where my ex was threatening to take my kids away from me. He threatened to disappear with them and never allow me to see them again. Judges take these threats very seriously. Because of the threats, my ex was granted supervised visitation only, with a court-appointed monitor. He chose not to exercise those visits, and disappeared completely a short time later. We didn't hear from him again for 15 years. I have no doubt he would have disappeared with my kids if he'd had the chance.

This is a very serious situation. Your lawyer is obviously taking it seriously and so should you. I know he's their dad and it is difficult on everyone to keep him away, but you need to do what is in your children's best interests.


Me: BS/FWW: 48
BS/WH: 50
DS: 30, 27, 25
DD: 28
OC: 10
BH and I are raising my OC together.
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I'm going to qualify this post with my personal opinion: I cringe whenever I see a mother dictating to a father how often he can and how he can see his children. I think that modern society's default favoring of the mother as the primary caregiver and gatekeeper of access to the children is incredibly wrong. As my STBXW and I proceed towards separation and divorce, I would NEVER think to dictate to her how and how often she could see the kids and I would expect the same courtesy out of her. I am the primary care provider for the kids and I will not settle for anything less than 50% custody of the children when we finally divorce.

Ok, so now you know how I generally feel about this sort of stuff. My advice to you is to keep your husband as far away from your children as humanly possible until you can work out a legally binding custody agreement. While I don't necessarily approve of taking the children 3 hours away from their father initially, you never took away his access to his children, you just made it much more difficult. By comparison, he took your kids away from you with every intention of never letting you see them again. He kidnapped your kids and has proven that he can't be trusted. Do you and your children a favor; follow your lawyer's advice. Protect your children and get a custody agreement in place immediately.

Travis


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travis, i value your input and agree with you. i dont want to keep kids from dad or dad from kids. i didn't have a better choice on where to go when i left. it helped to hear that though you feel that parents should not dictate the conditions of contact with children, that you understand the situation at hand. my goal with custody is joint with me being the primary custodian. i believe this is the most realistic option for us both.


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Originally Posted by tccoastguard
I'm going to qualify this post with my personal opinion: I cringe whenever I see a mother dictating to a father how often he can and how he can see his children. I think that modern society's default favoring of the mother as the primary caregiver and gatekeeper of access to the children is incredibly wrong. As my STBXW and I proceed towards separation and divorce, I would NEVER think to dictate to her how and how often she could see the kids and I would expect the same courtesy out of her. I am the primary care provider for the kids and I will not settle for anything less than 50% custody of the children when we finally divorce.

Ok, so now you know how I generally feel about this sort of stuff. My advice to you is to keep your husband as far away from your children as humanly possible until you can work out a legally binding custody agreement. While I don't necessarily approve of taking the children 3 hours away from their father initially, you never took away his access to his children, you just made it much more difficult. By comparison, he took your kids away from you with every intention of never letting you see them again. He kidnapped your kids and has proven that he can't be trusted. Do you and your children a favor; follow your lawyer's advice. Protect your children and get a custody agreement in place immediately.

Travis

LISTEN TO TRAVIS!!!!

Yes, I AM yelling.

Your husband has already kidnapped your children once. Do NOT give him the opportunity to do it again. Do NOT let him have unsupervised visitation with the children again until there is a court order in place.

When there is a reasonable agreement, then if he violates it you can take him to court. Right now, your kids are vulnerable to a man who is emotionally unstable.

I know, you think you "know" your husband and so you think you know what he would do. I've got news for you - as you go through this divorce you are going to learn things you never knew about your husband.

In the past year and a half since I separated from my husband and filed for divorce, I have said "You won't believe what he did THIS time" dozens of times. Every time I think that he can't surprise me again, he does something new that's completely off the wall.

If someone had told you six months ago that your husband was going to kidnap your kids and try to prevent you from seeing them, you would have laughed because it was so ludicrous. But now you've lived through it.

You don't really know your husband. He's been pretending to be a nice guy, but he's not one.

You have paid your lawyer lots of money for advice, so DO WHAT HE/SHE SAYS!!

Do NOT leave your husband alone with the kids until there is a custody agreement!!

If you do, the courts will assume that it was okay with you that he kidnapped them. DON'T GO THERE!!!


Me: BS 51
Himself: WH 53, EA/PA w/ RunnerSlut his "running buddy."
Buncha' kids. The two youngest are still minors.
Separated: 08/13/09 after 25 years of marriage
Plan D: Filed 11/13/09 Final 3/30/11
MC told me that he probably has a personality disorder
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Ok, I guess I'll have to play Devil's Advocate.

The smartest thing to have done would have been getting a legal separation agreement before walking out the door with her children. Then there's no gray area of whose rights are being violated. Without an agreement, they both have equal rights to their children. The only reason she was able to go get them back was because the policeman understood that the grandmother has no right to keep the children from their mother and actually could have been charged with trying to do so. It would have been a different story if the husband had been there.

No agreement = no kidnapping. She is just as guilty of trying to limit access as he was. I will agree that the system is incredibly biased towards women, and even more so, I decry the perception by a lot of women that the children are theirs and theirs alone. But the system is what we have in place, and as flawed as it is people taking the law into their own hands never ends up well. Better to work within that system. Lots of men, some on this board, who have had wives that used that bias against men with incredible success, getting them out of their homes and away from their kids with a trumped up abuse charge and subsequent RO, and then rolling that into justification for limited access after the divorce. Of course you have those few men who get primary custody, but in actuality they are a statistical anomaly. Regardless, I still advocate following the law in any circumstance.

TCCoastGuard, I hope that your case works out well for you but I would counsel that you don't have any predetermined outcome in mind. I have yet to hear of any woman standing up in court and asking for equal time for the husband because he was such a great father. I would say that perhaps you could see that in Pleasantville, but in Pleasantville people don't get divorced.

My advice to her is the same as it was before - get the agreement in place as soon as possible.


The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.
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i have never tried to keep the kids from their father. ever. nor have i wanted to. i have been gone since jan 27th and he has had the children every weekend. because i made the arrangements for him to have them. he did not have to beg or plead because i am a reasonable person. what is unreasonable is to keep me from seeing the children and enrolling them in daycare when i am a stay at home mother and our son spent his whole life disabled until 2 months ago when his feeding tube was removed becase his condition is in remmission. h's requirement for me to see the kids was to a)move back into the house and subsequently back under his control or b)move to the area, which is immpossible because i have nowhere to live and no income to support myself. yes i am capable of getting a job, but how does that keep my immune impaired child in my care, the care that is the best for him?

yea, i should have filed then left, but when you are being emtionally controlled the best thing to do was leave. i still struggle with the contact i have with H because he continues his control and manipulative tactics. after i "picked up" the kids, he called and left i love you messages, lets work it out yada yada. and then 2 nights ago he said he needed to talk to me for closure. when i wouldnt talk to him he sent me a picture of one of our wedding photos via text saying "all becaus a girl sang to me". want to hear somethng interesting? out of all our wedding photos, he chose to send the one where it looks like im in a headlock. how effed up is that?


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The courts probably won't care that he's having an affair.

However, they will care that you are suggesting they no longer stay in the marital home. So in other words, who REALLY took the kids?

If I recall the facts, you moved out of your home and are living with your mother. By doing so, it could be viewed that you were taking the children away from both their father and their home.

If your WH is keeping the children in the marital home and you are choosing to live elsewhere, you are giving your husband an advantage when it comes to primary custody.

Frankly, it may look like YOU took the kids from their home and left and now want to limit his access to the kids.

So while I think adulterous spouses should only have supervised time with their children, regardless the gender of the adulterous spouse, I also understand the courts usually don't care. In some cases, the law specifically prohibits adultery being used as a factor in determining custody.

So what that means is if may look as if you took the kids from your husband and the marital home.

Last edited by Enlightened_Ex; 02/11/11 01:57 PM.
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EE is absolutely correct. It actually doesn't matter how great a mom you are or how crappy a dad he is, it's all about the evidence that you can present. He said/she said isn't evidence. In fact, that type of approach makes you appear vindictive, even if you are telling the truth. Taking the kids to their grandmother's, which is evidence, COULD BE interpreted as taking the kids and denying access to their father. Saying you had to get out of there due to something he did is heresay. Though the law is very generous when you claim abuse.

Important Note: Do NOT claim abuse if there wasn't any. Not only will it come back and bite you in the a$$ later, you are making it much more difficult for truly battered wives to escape.

Another thing, I highly doubt any judge will agree that the fact that you are a SAHM automatically makes you a better parent. Especially a single parent. Sure, you will qualify for child support, and possibly even spousal support, but often that is limited to a period of time. You need to demostrate that you have a plan to provide a good life for your children. The plan can include staying with your mom until they are in school, but meanwhile taking correspondence coarses to increase your employability. I tell you this not to be harsh, but as a cold hard fact. Judges do not like the SAHM card AT ALL. Judges are very ambitious people who've spent years working 80-90 hours a week to get where they are, quite often as parents and even as single parents. They do understand that SAHM's can't just up and start working, but you will certainly rub them the wrong way by using this as a manner to show that your are a better parent than your WH.

You need to get your legal ducks in a row and soon. You cannot believe what your WH says. Waywards lie. You can tell when they are lying because their lips move. Everything he says to you is a lie. Not only that, he'll change his lies and try to convince you he didn't. You need something legally binding and written down so you can stick to it and follow it.



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just to let you all know, i didn't follow my lawyer's advice. i arranged for my stbx to take the kids this weekend...he brought them back on time.

he also asked if we could all go out for dinner and i told him yes but i would take a separate vehicle. he asked why and i told him becuase that was what i would be comfortable with...i did not want to be trapped in a vehicle with him. then he laid on the guilt trip "the kids want us to be together. why cant you see that? why cant you just ride with us?" so i dropped the conversation and continued to settle the kids in. and when he was about to leave he asked again and this time said, "you can take a separate car." i told him no. he got that familiar angry look, stood up and said "you're a piece of work" and walked out. what do ya'll make of that?


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caught him on the phone telling our 4 yr old that "mommy is mean" and "mommy is selfish". the only thing i have ever said to the kids about thre dad is "daddy loves you, daddy misses you etc". but that definately explains why DD came from his house and asked if i was going to go home when i got better and wasnt sick anymore.

yes i let the lawyer know so they can contact his lawyer to remind him or whatever they do that that is against the current order


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Originally Posted by Living2Love
caught him on the phone telling our 4 yr old that "mommy is mean" and "mommy is selfish". the only thing i have ever said to the kids about thre dad is "daddy loves you, daddy misses you etc". but that definately explains why DD came from his house and asked if i was going to go home when i got better and wasnt sick anymore.

yes i let the lawyer know so they can contact his lawyer to remind him or whatever they do that that is against the current order

Good for you. He is BREAKING the law when he does that garbage. Is there any way you can record the phone calls? You'll need to talk to your lawyer about the legalities in your state.


Me: BS 51
Himself: WH 53, EA/PA w/ RunnerSlut his "running buddy."
Buncha' kids. The two youngest are still minors.
Separated: 08/13/09 after 25 years of marriage
Plan D: Filed 11/13/09 Final 3/30/11
MC told me that he probably has a personality disorder
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haha, H says he is recording the phone calls. talked to my laywer today and he said that Hs lawyer has not submitted anything and also that when he filed for temp. custody orders and asked for child support he was supposed to also submit a parenting plan and child support work sheet, which he nor his lawyer did. but both were submitted by my lawyer in the response. we are supposed to have a court date next week, but that might not happen now.

i got a text earlier today from H saying "i miss you" i never know from one hour to the next which person H is going to be. nasty or nice? either way, i don't miss him an ounce.


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Best thing your lawyer could do is order parental psych evaluations - both of you undergo the tests.

That way they get a diagnosis on him and can protect your children. And you can prove it's not you.


Cafe Plan B link http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2182650&page=1

The ? that made recovery possible: "Which lovebuster do I do the most that hurts the worst"?

The statement that signaled my personal recovery and the turning point in our marriage recovery: "I don't need to be married that badly!"

If you're interested in saving your relationship, you'll work on it when it's convenient. If you're committed, you'll accept no excuses.
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what do you know about the evals? H is very cunning. i think is why he was never actually diagnosed with a mental disorder. he is a master manipulater.


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My WH accused me of being mentally unstable and we had to undergo the Mental Evals as a result. He was very cunning as well, but I won. I have a special needs child too. I was a brilliant mother to him and my DD, he was absent. All could be verified. I had no mental disorder (except for the temporary insanity that led me to marry him to begin with.) I don't think it went very far into anything after those facts. I got full custody.

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