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family court sucksSubmitted by mommymash on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 2:10pm.
tuesday is the final hearing in the 'parenting case' between my BD and i. he needs anger management and drug/alcohol help before my daughter will be safe spending time alone with him. DD is 18 months old and this process has been going on for over a year now. he just keeps fighting me on the whole thing, and apparently as a mother i don't have the right to keep my daughter from people i feel could be harmful to her. has anyone been through this lameness before? i can't wait until it's over, but i know that there will probably be more problems down the road. BD is one of the most irresponsible, tempermental, difficult people in the world to deal with. how did i ever think he would be a good partner/father/co-parent, ANYTHING?? i guess i made the same mistake so many of us do- i was foolish enough to tell myself "he's going to change when the baby comes. it's all going to get better." obviously it didn't get better- thank god i kicked him out when DD was 7 weeks old! it was terrifying but she and i are sooo happy on our own. i just hope that after tuesday's hearing i can stop worrying about some of this stuff. BD hasn't made it easy on himself, fortunately- he got a dui in october and won't have his liscense back until the summer, and he missed the pre-trial hearing. plus he never got himself a lawyer and i was at least smart enough to find a pro-bono to represent me, so that is a huuuuge help! i wish i had pressed charges against him for some of the stuff he did when he still lived with us, at least gotten a restraining order so i would have some proof of how shitty he can be, but i was sort of paralyzed at the time, unable to make a move at all, you know what i mean? anyway, it's been a long road but at the moment he has sort of caved in and signed some prelim papers saying he'll agreee to supervised visits until he gets help....i'm keeping my fingers double crossed that he won't back out and start fighting again on tuesay, which wouldn't surprise me. anyway, i'm rambling right now, sorry!! thanks for the vibes and it's nice to mee you, e! At least in my experience, family court is very serious about drug/alcohol abuse when it comes to visitation/custody. My brother had to have supervised visits with his son and random drug tests, as well as many visits from a social worker, for just over a year. So I am hoping that the court in your area takes things as seriously-- even without "proof" (but the DUI is a lot, actually) they *should* be able to listen to your experience and decide that it's not safe to leave the babe with him without supervision. I'm sending VIBES for you-- you did the absolute RIGHT thing back then by tossing him out. So I know you are strong and can weather this next stormlet. Good luck!!! |
I've had to do the whole child support court thing, but thankfully, the biological father of my son wants nothing to do with him - although he has made comment of it once 2 years ago to upset me (I know he did it to aggrivate and worry me).
The important thing for you to do, I think, is to have some proof. Has your daughter's father ever gotten a DUI or DWI? Had an emergency petition drawn on him stating he was a danger to himself or others? Arrests? It'd be good to have that info as proof of his possible danger and/or instability. If you can afford it, it'd be good to have a lawyer. Unfortunately, you can't keep him from her if he's interested in being with her (unless he has not paid child support or seen her in over 1 year, I believe), but you can make it difficult for him. And if he has this track record and you can prove it, if he gets visitation rights, he will most likely have to have them supervised and have to go through some sort of treatment. If he's that irresposible, the hurdles he'll have to jump to be with her will be too much trouble for him and he will lose interest and miss appointments and that will be a whole new case against him.
I know it can be scary, hang in there!