I live in Michigan.
Part I
I am the Father of 2 children and shortly before this past Mother's Day I had learned that the childrens Mother would be out of the State (in LV, Nev) during most of the time of the Mother's Day Holiday.
I ended up dropping the kids off at the children's Grandmothers house at the usual weekly dropoff time, which is Sundays at 5 PM.
The Mother is recently claiming that she is entitled to 2 days of parenting time, for the Friday thru Sunday at 5 PM that I had the kids during the Mother's Day Holiday (MDH) that she would have had the children, had she been present.
There were NO contracts signed, No emails sent, and No phone dialogue concerning any 'agreement', 'request', 'change of schedule', etc, inititiated by either parent regarding the MDH Parenting Time.
My view, right or wrong, was simply that their Mother had forfeited her Parenting Time for this holiday by choosing to be unavailable.
This is the end of Part I. Is the mother entitled to the 2 days back in your opinion(s)?
Part II
In a rare verbal exchange with the Mother, I've come to find out that she really just wants the 2 days back for kids Grandmother and Step-Grandfather, so that they can take the children out of the area for 2 days on my scheduled time. A request to have the children during my time is not uncommon by the mother, I simply ask for the time back at a later date.
Basically, she wants to exchange or allocate the 2 days she 'gave away' in my mind, and give those to her own mother and step-dad during my time.
My position is that the children can go with their grandparents during my time, as long as I get that time back, but the Mother is unwilling to concede the time back, citing the 2 days I ‘owe’ her for the MDH that she was out of state during.
This is where this saga gets outrageous, and now I'm just primarily venting/sharing an extraordinary circumstance to get it off my chest, bare with me.
The grandmother asks me, unbeknownst to the Mother, if she can take the kids. She offers me a $50 gift cert to my fav resturaunt to sweeten the pot and sway me. I didn't realize that this was actually a bribe in exchange for the time I always request back. The grandmother agrees with me that since her daughter was not in town, she shouldn't even be asking for the 2 days back, but rather than tell her daughter this, she decided to call me and offer this bribe.
When I brought up the fact that dinner or no dinner, I want in writing that the mom will give me these 2 ‘grandparents’ days on my time back, the g-ma was dejected, and basically said, so that's the way you want to do it? That's when I realized the dinner cert was a bribe.
So.....this 'forced' the g-ma to confront her daughter and ask her to quit asking me for the 2 MDH days back, and just let the kids go with them in exchange for giving the time back, and all is well. Expectedly, the mom blew up at this idea and was not 'happy' with her mom.
So, back to square one which means the 'deal' was off for the g-parents taking the kids out of town on my time in exchange for me getting the time back. Kids are Bummed out, mom thinks it's my fault, kids thinks it's the mom's fault, grandparents blame the mom as well, and I'm in a position where relenting is not an option, based on prior precedence.
Based on pressure from the g-parents, the children, and my wife, I cave and refer you back to the verbal exchange I had via a telephone call that I didn't want to make with the children's mother.
During the call, the mother reveals for the 1st time, that she actually thinks that Mother's Day should have been a 'wash', ie meaning, that she does NOT feel that she should have the time?! She agreed I should have kept them like a normal non-holiday weekend, and she would have done the same!?
She further explains for the 1st time, that her real issue was in regards to 10 months ago (!?) when WE were out of state from Sunday 5pm (normal drop off) to Tue afternoon. However, the difference here was that We HAD worked something out with the Mother prior to even booking the vacation itself, and she DID consent to dropping the kids off in the care of kids 23 year old step-brother. The kids actually like the step-brother very much, and they were more than comfortable with being in his care, however, I realized regardless that the Mother still had to consent to this arrangement otherwise the kids would have to rightfully so stay with their mother a couple of extra days until we got back from vacation and that furthermore I would be willfully forfeiting these 2 lost days. Hence the agreement BEFORE the trip was even booked.
Even though the mom consented to the normal dropoff, I had my doubts she would actually do it right up until the long distance phone call confirmation that they were at our house.
This is where my aforementioned apprehensive phone call with the mom gets twilight zone bizarre. The Mother proceeded to tell me that since she didn't know this individual on a personal level (which is very true, she doesn't know the kids step siblings at all) she couldn't rule out the possibility that our daughter wouldn't be RAPED by the step-brother!!! When I asked the Mother why she would drop off our daughter into an environment that she thought could be unsafe enough whereas our daughter could have been at risk of being raped, she said she HAD TO bc the Friend of the Court TOLD her that if she didn't drop off the kids she could be ARRESTED and Sent to Prison/Jail?!!! WTF?!!
So, in order to save herself from Jail Time, she put our daughter in danger of being raped, this is all in her eyes/mind, not mine of course.
After I continued to persist on this outlandish scenario, she said this conversation was becoming off-topic, her voice quivering, and she hung up on me.
Still no resolution to the original problem, and I’ll sign off with some Ironic Facts:
1) I DON’T let our daughter stay at or with her step-grandfather’s house/care bc the kids Mother is on record stating that he physically abused her as a child.
2) The grandmother alluded that her daughter most likely brought up the outlandish rape scenario in the 1st place, because of ‘things that happened to her (the daughter) many years ago when she was very young’?! So we have g-ma inferring that her own daughter has been not only physically abused, which I knew about, but sexually abused, which I had sorta suspected, but never had confirmed.
bd
Part I
I am the Father of 2 children and shortly before this past Mother's Day I had learned that the childrens Mother would be out of the State (in LV, Nev) during most of the time of the Mother's Day Holiday.
I ended up dropping the kids off at the children's Grandmothers house at the usual weekly dropoff time, which is Sundays at 5 PM.
The Mother is recently claiming that she is entitled to 2 days of parenting time, for the Friday thru Sunday at 5 PM that I had the kids during the Mother's Day Holiday (MDH) that she would have had the children, had she been present.
There were NO contracts signed, No emails sent, and No phone dialogue concerning any 'agreement', 'request', 'change of schedule', etc, inititiated by either parent regarding the MDH Parenting Time.
My view, right or wrong, was simply that their Mother had forfeited her Parenting Time for this holiday by choosing to be unavailable.
This is the end of Part I. Is the mother entitled to the 2 days back in your opinion(s)?
Part II
In a rare verbal exchange with the Mother, I've come to find out that she really just wants the 2 days back for kids Grandmother and Step-Grandfather, so that they can take the children out of the area for 2 days on my scheduled time. A request to have the children during my time is not uncommon by the mother, I simply ask for the time back at a later date.
Basically, she wants to exchange or allocate the 2 days she 'gave away' in my mind, and give those to her own mother and step-dad during my time.
My position is that the children can go with their grandparents during my time, as long as I get that time back, but the Mother is unwilling to concede the time back, citing the 2 days I ‘owe’ her for the MDH that she was out of state during.
This is where this saga gets outrageous, and now I'm just primarily venting/sharing an extraordinary circumstance to get it off my chest, bare with me.
The grandmother asks me, unbeknownst to the Mother, if she can take the kids. She offers me a $50 gift cert to my fav resturaunt to sweeten the pot and sway me. I didn't realize that this was actually a bribe in exchange for the time I always request back. The grandmother agrees with me that since her daughter was not in town, she shouldn't even be asking for the 2 days back, but rather than tell her daughter this, she decided to call me and offer this bribe.
When I brought up the fact that dinner or no dinner, I want in writing that the mom will give me these 2 ‘grandparents’ days on my time back, the g-ma was dejected, and basically said, so that's the way you want to do it? That's when I realized the dinner cert was a bribe.
So.....this 'forced' the g-ma to confront her daughter and ask her to quit asking me for the 2 MDH days back, and just let the kids go with them in exchange for giving the time back, and all is well. Expectedly, the mom blew up at this idea and was not 'happy' with her mom.
So, back to square one which means the 'deal' was off for the g-parents taking the kids out of town on my time in exchange for me getting the time back. Kids are Bummed out, mom thinks it's my fault, kids thinks it's the mom's fault, grandparents blame the mom as well, and I'm in a position where relenting is not an option, based on prior precedence.
Based on pressure from the g-parents, the children, and my wife, I cave and refer you back to the verbal exchange I had via a telephone call that I didn't want to make with the children's mother.
During the call, the mother reveals for the 1st time, that she actually thinks that Mother's Day should have been a 'wash', ie meaning, that she does NOT feel that she should have the time?! She agreed I should have kept them like a normal non-holiday weekend, and she would have done the same!?
She further explains for the 1st time, that her real issue was in regards to 10 months ago (!?) when WE were out of state from Sunday 5pm (normal drop off) to Tue afternoon. However, the difference here was that We HAD worked something out with the Mother prior to even booking the vacation itself, and she DID consent to dropping the kids off in the care of kids 23 year old step-brother. The kids actually like the step-brother very much, and they were more than comfortable with being in his care, however, I realized regardless that the Mother still had to consent to this arrangement otherwise the kids would have to rightfully so stay with their mother a couple of extra days until we got back from vacation and that furthermore I would be willfully forfeiting these 2 lost days. Hence the agreement BEFORE the trip was even booked.
Even though the mom consented to the normal dropoff, I had my doubts she would actually do it right up until the long distance phone call confirmation that they were at our house.
This is where my aforementioned apprehensive phone call with the mom gets twilight zone bizarre. The Mother proceeded to tell me that since she didn't know this individual on a personal level (which is very true, she doesn't know the kids step siblings at all) she couldn't rule out the possibility that our daughter wouldn't be RAPED by the step-brother!!! When I asked the Mother why she would drop off our daughter into an environment that she thought could be unsafe enough whereas our daughter could have been at risk of being raped, she said she HAD TO bc the Friend of the Court TOLD her that if she didn't drop off the kids she could be ARRESTED and Sent to Prison/Jail?!!! WTF?!!
So, in order to save herself from Jail Time, she put our daughter in danger of being raped, this is all in her eyes/mind, not mine of course.
After I continued to persist on this outlandish scenario, she said this conversation was becoming off-topic, her voice quivering, and she hung up on me.
Still no resolution to the original problem, and I’ll sign off with some Ironic Facts:
1) I DON’T let our daughter stay at or with her step-grandfather’s house/care bc the kids Mother is on record stating that he physically abused her as a child.
2) The grandmother alluded that her daughter most likely brought up the outlandish rape scenario in the 1st place, because of ‘things that happened to her (the daughter) many years ago when she was very young’?! So we have g-ma inferring that her own daughter has been not only physically abused, which I knew about, but sexually abused, which I had sorta suspected, but never had confirmed.
bd
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