Joint Custody Modification

[weyer4]

What is the name of your state? oregon

my husband's ex-wife served him papers on new years eve. currently they have shared custody where his daughter should be with her mom every other week and with him every other week. when he was alone, his work schedule required his daughter to be in child care so him and his ex came up with an idea that his daughter stay with her mom while he worked, with the full understanding that the divorce agreement would be returned to normal after his work slowed back down. she refused and still refuses to let him have his daughter when he should, in fact we are only allowed to have her on weekends or when her mom and her husband go on one of many vacations throughout the school year. his daughter came to me and asked me to talk with her mom about going by the agreement because me and her mom got along at that point. well when i did, her mom blew a gasket and instantly her and her husband threatened us with attorneys. we did not take it any further as we did not want to put trisha through this garbage. well now her mom is going for full custody, child support, and everything else she can get her hands on. the paperwork she served states that i am in the wrong in everthing i do. well it was all right for me to do all these things when me and the mom got along, but now that i asked her to let trisha spend more time with her dad, well, this is what we get. everything in the paperwork is about me other then 1 sentence claiming my husband plays the computer too much. does she really have grounds to do this because she doesnt like me? and trisha will be 12 in july, will she be able to speak with the judge? she wants to live with her dad because "we are easier to talk to, and she gets along with us".

please help

 

[VeronicaGia]

If she is violating the current court order, your husband needs to file contempt of court against her. If he takes this lying down, the court may think he doesn't care if she gets full custody.

Get an attorney, file contempt of court, now!

 

[weyer4]

we have done a response to the matter but are you saying we need to do a contempt of court as well? we replyed and let them know that we are fighting this based on trisha's wants and needs. a contempt makes sense so do we need to do both?

 

[ktarra617]

yes you need to file contempt on her for failing to follow the order now!! If you don't you can't bring it up again in court!!

You must do it now!!!

The court will not look kindly on her withholding from the original schedule in an attempt to get full custody, and also if you want your stepdaughter's wishes considered you may want to consider a guardian for the child to help speak for her in court.

 

[weyer4]

ok, we have an appointment with the attorney to get that done on monday. he overlooked it because the case has not gotten that involved just yet. is there anything else we should discuss with him at that time? any other strategies or anything like that. please please let me know asap

 

[VeronicaGia]

The only other thing I can think of is to ask your attorney if your husband should file for custody now, since she is violating the shared parenting agreement and is not likely to foster a relationship between your husband and his child. Sometimes when a judge who orders shared parenting finds that one parent is trying to take over by violating the parenting agreement is not the best parent to have primary residence, and will grant the other parent custody (your husband). However, taking this action may muddy the waters a little bit, as once you file contempt charges against her, two actions will already be in front of the judge. Also, at this point, you definitely should find online a link to Oregon laws to better prepare yourself. You can find that link on this forum. This way, when you and the attorney talk, you will understand a little better what he's saying.

You can also ask him if OR will allow the child to testify and grant any credence to her testimony. Eleven may be too young, and realize that a childs testimony is only taken into consideration by a judge, a child may or may not get what she wants.

Also, do you have documentation of every single time visitation has been denied? He needs to sit down and work that out, including every telephone call denied.

On this webiste: www.deltabravo.net/custody/
there is something called a "parenting time tracker." Use it to track every second of visitation or denied visitation.

 

[weyer4]

we haven't kept documentation as we are suppose to have her every other week and for the last 3 years she has denied him. and as far as going for cutody, we stated in our reply that we are seeking full custody of trisha. do we still need to file a petition for custody? why doesnt the attorney let us know this stuff I have been looking all over the web for pages regarding the laws the only reason we did not take steps regarding the contempt is we did not want to drag trisha through this crap but at this point we want trisha living with us full time as we dont want to have to deal with this every couple years. plus trisha so wants to live with us. we have asked about trisha speaking with the judge because she strongly wants to, the attorney said that judges normally dont like doing that because the child should not be involved anymore then she allready is, but she is so strong willed about it. i had thought about getting her someone to speak for her but that costs alot of money and unfortunately we did not ready ourselves for this stuff. one more thing.... trisha's mom and stepdad make more money then us, is that going to be a big major deciding factor?

 

[VeronicaGia]

Check this out:

http://www.dadsusa.com/croupd.htm

Also, you may be able to find OR family (domestic) law on this website:

www.dads4kids.com

Try the state resources link