My ex has taken his own interpretation of our visitiation schedule, and keeps changing his take on it. I'm getting pretty frustrated by putting up with his whims.

We have something call First Right of Refusal. It means that when I want to get a babysitter for my kids, I need to give him the first chance to say if he can babysit the kids or not. And the reverse is true, when he's planning on leaving the kids with a babysitter, he has to give me a chance to watch the kids.

As a result, I've been stuck with him as my afterschool care giver. And in return, the judge said that I could have the children back on Saturday when he worked. Previously he'd been leaving them with his live in girlfriend.

It's not working. He got mad at me. He realized I really meant that the kids come back at 5:30am when he leaves for work. He yelled at me as the children listened. He said the kids couldn't come over to his home. He said he was refusing to provide free babysitting for me every afternoon. It was nasty. The kids were pretty upset.

So, I'm trying to get in touch with my lawyer. My lawyer is thru the law school, a student actually. She's only in the office certain hours, and I work all those hours. So I communicate with her mostly via e-mail.

I'm trying to schedule another hearing for modifications based on the fact that he hasn't been complying with the orders. Our orders are just over 2 weeks old and this has already occured.

I'm frustrated. I don't know what he'll do each day. I don't know what to do with the kids. I don't know who will be babysitting them from day to day, if he'll change his mind and pick them up, like he did this evening, when he said he wouldn't. I feel like the carpet has been pulled out from underneath me. I need to prove that I'm attempting to comply with the order, and it is him who is not. Meanwhile my life is in disarry and I don't know what will come next.

Hey,

Are you sure that it's not too late for you guys to come to some kind of a lawyerless compromise?

You said that you wanted the kids returned at 5:30am on Sat morning? What was his idea? To have you pick up the kids? To have the kids delivered later? To not have the kids delivered on Sat at all?

As far as the refusing to provide free babysitting and the arugment and such...that could have all been heat of the moment stuff. If you can come to compromise on the initial issue, maybe all that stuff will just take care of itself. It sounds like he felt you did something nasty to him, so he wanted to do something nasty back to you...and although that attitude is immature, it is human.

Anyway...I hope this all works out peacefully...

Later,
Bobby

Bobby,
I wish it were that easy. My ex is very inconsistent. This is just the latest in a series of him not keeping his promises. He has a history of changing his interpretation of orders when it suits his pleasure. Or not keeping his word because he's decided that now he doesn't like the previous promise. I've gotten to the point that I can't stand this. At one point he was asking that I pay him to spend time with the kids. A few times he's refused to take the kids because he got mad at me.

Any time I work with him he won't take me seriously and will not keep the agreement. He doesn't respect me, and doesn't respect promises he makes to me. He will break any agreement with me with little thought. Though he has trouble keeping agreements he makes in court, he is more likely to respect that agreement. I hope eventually that we can make the agreement with enough force that will keep him consistent, or limit his ability to hurt our children.

The children don't understand why their father won't pick them up, why he doesn't want to spend time with them. They are very hurt by him. If I can get a schedule that doesn't demand too much of him. He likes to overextend himself, promise too much of himself. He likes to think that he is capable of caring for the children on a long term basis. He is not capable of it. So, he changes the plan so it doesn't take that much of his time. The children are hurt every time he changes the schedule.

You must understand, my ex is nearly 60. He doesn't have the energy to keep up with young children. He has health problems.

And I'm not saying every father is like this. You have to understand, I'm talking about my ex, and what he is like. I'm talking about a person that my children adore. A man who works on cars with the children.

Hey,

Yeah, I can't say that I'm familiar with the details of your situation...almost 60? Wow...

Well, this morning when I read your post, I thought it might have been a simpler situation. You know, before my divorce, my ex was insisting that she be given the opportunity to act as daycare before I went to a third party. This was at the marriage counseling sessions, however...not in the legal proceedings. I protested, I rememeber, as she also often "promised too much of himself". In the end our compromise was that I'd arrange and pay for regular daycare to get the stability we needed, and any time she happened to come by and pick up lil B from the babysitter it'd just be a nice surprise...we rarely got nicely surprised, however...

Uggh...she's not a bad person though...she's just not very good at planning...

Anyway...sorry to go off about my situation in your thread...you can't say I didn't *try* to help you out though

Later,
Bobby

Bobby, you said it very well, not a bad person, just not very good at planning. That's my ex to a tee. He's a good man, has a great heart. He loves the kids, and really wants what's best for them. But he doesn't know his own limitations. He will promise them the moon, and then not deliver. And the thing is, he promises them the moon in court, and then I'm stuck with abiding by those agreements, not a realistic one that realizes that he can't deliver on a consistent basis. He loves the kids though. And he really wants to spend all that time with them. But he doesn't know himself enough to realize that he can't do it, that he can't extend himself that much.

So I want to change our orders to limit his scope of damage. Take the bull out of the china shop and put him in a secure pasture. My kids need their father. They need consistent time with him. And I think every other week-end is about as much as he can realistically handle. Maybe he could manage one day a week in there too, but I doubt it. The kids need him. They need him to be there for them reliably. I'm sure you wish your son's mother was there for him on a consistend basis. I'm sure you wish she understood how much this little guy loves her, and wants to depend on her.

I want a schedule that doesn't over promise him.

I'm just going to take a wild stab at this based on what you wrote in each of your above posts. My initial reaction, is your ex is reacting immediately based on emotion when you suggest something before he gives it some thought or offers an alternative suggestion, which in turn you react to and the cycle continues.

Just pulling out the 5:30 am on Saturday issue, and I know you mentioned several others. ( but this is what sparked the current issue? ) Since the current visitation agreement is only two weeks old, I think the courts are going to expect you both make an effort to make it work before deciding after two weeks it needs to be changed. I don't know what time your children usually wake, but unless they are usually up at 5:30 on a regular basis, is it possible to make some kind of compromise there where you possibly pick them up early in the am after they have awoken and had breakfast, even if that means doing so for 1.5 hours or so with your ex's gf?

Maybe working on one issue first will lead to being able to work together on others. (Maybe that's wishful thinking lol).

Back to my initial thoughts that your ex is reacting on emotion. Knowing he reacts like this, and most likely has as a pattern for some time, I guess your knowing so, expecting it, being prepared for it knowing it most likley won't change, you might just try to give him the time to cool off and then discuss things a little later. Of course without sacrificing some reasonable boundaries and responsibilities for him to follow through.

It may or may not help. I know it's frustrating as heck when you are making attempts to work with someone and aren't getting any cooperation.

hth and let us know how things go.

Wow! I know you'd introduced yourself to the site in a different thread, but welcome and thanks for showing up!

quote:

Originally posted by BigBobby:
Wow! I know you'd introduced yourself to the site in a different thread, but welcome and thanks for showing up!

Thanks Bobby, no smiley for blushing.....