Okay Wilderness. Goodluck with your plan, whatever plan you have---I can't tell what it is.

Yes, I was a wayward. But I, Sir, am still MARRIED to my husband. And we are working on RECOVERING our marriage and healing together.

Throwing a temper tantrum because you don't like advice given isn't in your daughter's best interest either. It just makes you look immature and begs the question ,"Gee, I wonder why his ex-wife doesn't want to remarry him"?

But hey, why listen to a married wayward ?

How about go into Plan B?
How to Plan B Correctly

BH, if he goes into plan B he won't see his daughter

He has a RO against him and needs to get that straightened up. He won't be able to see her anyway.

He needs to get a lawyer and fight for custody, but he can have an IM so he doesn't have to deal with his XW.

There is a reason why the courts gave his wife full custody.

wilderness --

I feel very bad for you. I am assuming that you have behaved honorably in the marriage, and she has not.

There is a lot to be cleaned up here -- but unfortunately you can only clean up your side of the fence. And she does not appear inclined to take care of hers.
So that only leaves you with the choice of how to conduct YOUR behavior in the face of such disrespect and waywardness of your wife.

This is a tremendous resource for learning about affairs - how they begin and how they end. I won't argue semantics with you about if it is technically an affair or cheating or apple pie.
You have a family. Your wife is destroying it. And you want to do what you can to have an intact family for your daughter. That is a wonderful motive.

So please help us understand why you divorced in the first place after only 2 years of marriage. How long in total was this relationship? Your daughter is 3, your marriage was 2. How long were you together before marriage? Did you live together before marraige? And how long has the ink been dry on the divorce.

Before being offended or battling with any of these posters, I would recommend checking out the date they registered. On this website, you will find veterans who really understand the Marriage Builders processes and philosophies, and there are more recent participants who might not be as well versed - or have their own bias.

Unfortunatley for you, the site gets quiet on the weekends - and it might be a few days until you get some experienced vets to take a look at your story.

What do you know about the Other Man??

Nice post Lexxxy.

Don't try to teach her lessons or to control her.
Just be your best self as a man and do what you can to protect your child from seeing all the drama and, the best way to do that is to seek legal counsel on protecting your custody of the child and removing your own self from the whole deal.

Your ex and her mom sound like drama seekers. Like bullies. Like poor models for your child.

Release control and protect your child and yourself.

I already told you the reason for this, read the thread. You have some kind of nerve making a statement like this.

JK,

He already explained this.

Agreed wilderness. That was an inappropriate, judgemental and unsupportive comment by Jedi.
There is a reporting feature for personal attacks. And there is an ignore feature for you to block unhelpful posters.
Jedi's comments are often flavored by his own bias and experience,
and not always Marriage Builders principals.

Lexxy,
Courts don't take away custody of children because the parents car breaks down.

There has to be a serious issue for a court to not even allow visitation.
I met a father last week who has a baby that the mom tried to kill. The court still ensures she has supervised visitation.

Same thing for restraining orders. Judges don't just hand these out to anyone that asks for one. There are reasons they are issued.

What do you suggest this poster do? I've suggested that his best option is to plan a. How is that biased ?

Hopefully the vets will be along soon. In the meantime, maybe we should ask some better questions that can aid the vets and Wilderness in his dilemma.

1. Did either of you have an affair while you were legally married ?

2. What were the issues/problems (besides your MIL) that contributed to the demise of your marriage ?

3. What do you think you need to personally work on to make yourself the best Wilderness you can be, regardless of whether you are married or single ?

4. Besides having a child with her, what qualities do you think your XW/girlfriend has that would make her good marriage material ?

5. Have you done your research on this website and read Dr. Harley's basic concepts or any of his articles ?

The visitation was awarded as "at the mother's discretion". And it absolutely was because my car broke down and I couldn't make the hearing on time.
Up until this point, it hasn't been much of an issue. I've been seeing her between 3-5x every week. Furthermore, the plan was to get remarried and cancel that court order, anyway.

But that's not the point. The point is that you are intimating that the court made a particular decision based on some character flaw of mine. That's a pretty galling assumption to make from my standpoint.

Can you go back to court to have set visitation? I would suggest at the very least you keep a journal of visitation times and dates. That way if it comes up in court you can show the judge. I understand what you mean by your XW is too selfish to have child most of the time but people can do mean things out of spite. My XWH dragged our D out paying me $124 CS for months. I was a SAHM and he had all the financial control. I finally got emergency hearing to get court ordered CS. He tuned around and filed for 50/50 custody. (you know he did this to avoid paying CS) Visitation was every other weekend fri 5pm-mon 7am or dorp off at school. Also every wed over night. I (and kids) wanted it to be drop off Sunday 5pm at church. The bully just ignored our request and did what he wanted. At the hearing the judge said keep it as it is for the kids.

I'm going to file for a custody mod next week. Considering filing for full custody. My church, my family, and my community will all support me over her, I believe.

How will you get full custody if the same court issued a Restraining Order against you and already awarded her custody?

Why not try Plan A for 6 months before fighting her?

Plan A cannot work if he is court ordered to not contact his wife.

Wilderness - What was the basis for the restraining order? Domestic violence? She's afraid of you? Is it temporary? You mentioned 1 year - that seems excessive and very serious.

Were you served with the notice? What does it restrain you from doing?
Can you speak by phone? How far away must you stay?
You mist obey this order - you cannot risk jail time.

It's actually not the same court. The RO is issued from civil court, the custody is issued from probate court. BUT I would consider possibly doing the plan A, depending on a couple of things. First of all, how long does it typically take to work?
Is there any utility in trying it for a few weeks, or is that a waste? The time is the biggest factor for me...

The basis for the order is a complete joke. Basically, "I feel threatened." She did claim in front of the judge that I 'pushed her', which completely contradicted what she told the police. That right there should have been enough to get the whole thing thrown out. I have NEVER laid a finger on my XW, or any other woman for that matter.
The order states that I am not to call her and to stay 150 yards away from her. My mother can call her mother to arrange visitation of my daughter, which is what we have been doing.

Her mother wants this RO dropped, and I believe my XW does is well.
We tried to talk this out prior to my XW extending the RO. We met at my mother's house, but it turned into a disaster. I wanted to establish the truth with her mother, which is that we were seeing each other, planning on getting remarried, planning on moving in together, and she cheated. This resulted in her mother screaming at the top of her lungs.

To make a very long story short, the REAL issue is that my XW is terrified of her mother, her mother doesn't want us together and basically broke up the marriage, and she is being torn apart by the conflicting interests of her mother and her family.