• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

Exhusband altered pre-established schedule due to Covid-19

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

madori79

Member
I am from Escondido, Ca and am looking for major advice and I suppose a second opinion on. My ex-husband and I filed for divorce back Feb of 2018 with it being final of Nov of 2018. At that time, we both felt we could handle our divorce without 3rd parties and my ex used a divorce writing service to do so. The first draft was presented by my ex and I objected for personal reasons of being the petitioner. My ex agreed to switch this but nothing else was changed as I have found out including a very important section that on the first draft had me with 80 and him 20. Now that it was flipped, this should have been as well but was not. We did not input any thing in for an actual schedule and only put that he and I would have joint custody.

I moved (with consent from my ex) to Escondido in May of 2018 and it was agreed that our at the time 7 year old daughter would move with me. However, once the school year came around it was discovered that the school I had intended for her to attend due to the high rating did not have enough room as it was an interdistrict transfer. The school nearest my ex was better rated and so it was decided for her education that she would live with him for the 2018-19 school and then she would re-join me for the 2019/20 school year as I would be able to start the transfer process much sooner.

After the 2018/19 school was complete, my ex and I agreed on a schedule going forward for the 2019/20 school in which I would have her full time except for every other weekend (my e stated he only wanted 2 weekends to focus on his new relationship). This worked great until Covid-19. I made the decision to keep my travel plans to see my friend in PA on April 9th to April 12th. I asked my ex if he would like her that weekend to which he declined. Her aunt said she would love to have her and that is where I dropped her off on April 8th. In the meantime, all precautions were being taking in terms of Covid-19 such as masks, social distancing, and lots of hand sanitizer. These continued while I was on my trip to PA.

On the evening of April 11th, I started to receive a slew of texts from ex as he had discovered I was in PA. He told me that he would be going to the aunts house and retrieving out daughter as I had just killed his entire house by allowing her there and not to mention my trip. There were hours of intense back and forth but in the end, he arrived at 10:30 on April 12th at the aunts house and removed her. I had contacted a lawyer and send a copy of our divorce papers and he was the first one to point out that even though there was a verbal agreement of custody, we did not have anything legally to go by. It was decided I would pursue going to court to get that revised.

Once I arrived back home, I was withheld from daughter from the period of April 12th until he finally allowed me to pick her up at 5pm on April 24th. After speaking with my lawyer, he advised me to inform my ex that we would be returning to our normal established schedule and provided the Admin Order that outlined custody in relations to Covid-19 and my ex had violated 2 out of the 4 orders. I advised him on April 26th of this and he soon called to demand that I return her to him. He made a verbal threat which I made aware to my lawyer. My lawyer recommended we try to get a restraining order the following day. On April 27th, I received an email from my ex stating that he had contacted the police who took a report and based on this one section with the child support area deemed that my ex had full authority to take her from me. I was told that the police said they were more than happy to go across county lines to get her back for him and he said they told him to proceed with criminal charges. My lawyer and I had already started the paper work for the restraining order prior to the email that my ex sent. The following day, the order was denied in my case as my ex had presented his side (to which I have found multiple out right lies and I have the documentation to show that).

My lawyer has proposed a schedule but my ex still refuses and has told me I have until 7pm tonight to return her.

I need advice on what my rights are since it will be a long while before this actually goes to court. Should I also contact the police? Would that one tiny section out weigh the fact that legally we have no schedule and have verbally established our own that has been in place for nearly a year. Any advice would be great!
 


PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
On April 27th, I received an email from my ex stating that he had contacted the police who took a report and based on this one section with the child support area deemed that my ex had full authority to take her from me. I was told that the police said they were more than happy to go across county lines to get her back for him and he said they told him to proceed with criminal charges. My lawyer and I had already started the paper work for the restraining order prior to the email that my ex sent.
The police don't make rulings like that or shouldn't and I doubt they did.

Stop taking and asking for legal advice from anyone other than your lawyer. Especially your exhusband.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
I am from Escondido, Ca and am looking for major advice and I suppose a second opinion on. My ex-husband and I filed for divorce back Feb of 2018 with it being final of Nov of 2018. At that time, we both felt we could handle our divorce without 3rd parties and my ex used a divorce writing service to do so. The first draft was presented by my ex and I objected for personal reasons of being the petitioner. My ex agreed to switch this but nothing else was changed as I have found out including a very important section that on the first draft had me with 80 and him 20. Now that it was flipped, this should have been as well but was not. We did not input any thing in for an actual schedule and only put that he and I would have joint custody.

I moved (with consent from my ex) to Escondido in May of 2018 and it was agreed that our at the time 7 year old daughter would move with me. However, once the school year came around it was discovered that the school I had intended for her to attend due to the high rating did not have enough room as it was an interdistrict transfer. The school nearest my ex was better rated and so it was decided for her education that she would live with him for the 2018-19 school and then she would re-join me for the 2019/20 school year as I would be able to start the transfer process much sooner.

After the 2018/19 school was complete, my ex and I agreed on a schedule going forward for the 2019/20 school in which I would have her full time except for every other weekend (my e stated he only wanted 2 weekends to focus on his new relationship). This worked great until Covid-19. I made the decision to keep my travel plans to see my friend in PA on April 9th to April 12th. I asked my ex if he would like her that weekend to which he declined. Her aunt said she would love to have her and that is where I dropped her off on April 8th. In the meantime, all precautions were being taking in terms of Covid-19 such as masks, social distancing, and lots of hand sanitizer. These continued while I was on my trip to PA.

On the evening of April 11th, I started to receive a slew of texts from ex as he had discovered I was in PA. He told me that he would be going to the aunts house and retrieving out daughter as I had just killed his entire house by allowing her there and not to mention my trip. There were hours of intense back and forth but in the end, he arrived at 10:30 on April 12th at the aunts house and removed her. I had contacted a lawyer and send a copy of our divorce papers and he was the first one to point out that even though there was a verbal agreement of custody, we did not have anything legally to go by. It was decided I would pursue going to court to get that revised.

Once I arrived back home, I was withheld from daughter from the period of April 12th until he finally allowed me to pick her up at 5pm on April 24th. After speaking with my lawyer, he advised me to inform my ex that we would be returning to our normal established schedule and provided the Admin Order that outlined custody in relations to Covid-19 and my ex had violated 2 out of the 4 orders. I advised him on April 26th of this and he soon called to demand that I return her to him. He made a verbal threat which I made aware to my lawyer. My lawyer recommended we try to get a restraining order the following day. On April 27th, I received an email from my ex stating that he had contacted the police who took a report and based on this one section with the child support area deemed that my ex had full authority to take her from me. I was told that the police said they were more than happy to go across county lines to get her back for him and he said they told him to proceed with criminal charges. My lawyer and I had already started the paper work for the restraining order prior to the email that my ex sent. The following day, the order was denied in my case as my ex had presented his side (to which I have found multiple out right lies and I have the documentation to show that).

My lawyer has proposed a schedule but my ex still refuses and has told me I have until 7pm tonight to return her.

I need advice on what my rights are since it will be a long while before this actually goes to court. Should I also contact the police? Would that one tiny section out weigh the fact that legally we have no schedule and have verbally established our own that has been in place for nearly a year. Any advice would be great!
You did not give us a direct quote of that "tiny section" so no one can comment on that.

However, if there is no official custody schedule then you have just as much right to have the child with you as he does with to have the child with him. The police are NOT going to assist him in any way nor will they be arresting you or anything like that. You need to follow your attorney's advice and stop listening to your ex. He is lying to you.

I do have to agree however that it was pretty irresponsible of you to take that trip to PA and to leave your child with someone else under the current circumstances. However that is just my personal opinon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: t74

madori79

Member
You did not give us a direct quote of that "tiny section" so no one can comment on that.

However, if there is no official custody schedule then you have just as much right to have the child with you as he does with to have the child with him. The police are NOT going to assist him in any way nor will they be arresting you or anything like that. You need to follow your attorney's advice and stop listening to your ex. He is lying to you.

I do have to agree however that it was pretty irresponsible of you to take that trip to PA and to leave your child with someone else under the current circumstances. However that is just my personal opinon.

Yes I understand your point of view on my choice to go there. The section that I am referring to you the Basis of agreed support section 3 that states 80/20
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
Yes I understand your point of view on my choice to go there. The section that I am referring to you the Basis of agreed support section 3 that states 80/20
80/20 what? You have to give us the exact word for word language if you want us to understand what that says.
 

madori79

Member
80/20 what? You have to give us the exact word for word language if you want us to understand what that says.
Yes it states that
3. Under our agreed parenting plan the child will be in the physical care of Petitioner 80% of the time and the Respondent 20% of the time.


But there is no schedule in the paper work at all. It just says N/A
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
Yes it states that
3. Under our agreed parenting plan the child will be in the physical care of Petitioner 80% of the time and the Respondent 20% of the time.


But there is no schedule in the paper work at all. It just says N/A
What does your ATTORNEY say about this matter? It is irresponsible for anyone here to advise (or continue to advise) because you are represented.
 

t74

Member
It sounds like you did not let him know of your travel plans when you offered him the weekend.

If you were going from CA to PA and back for a long weekend then you chose to fly for a pleasure - not essential - trip. IMO, since you were at high risk of exposure, you should have voluntarily quarantined yourself from everyone - especially your child - for at least 14 days following your return to CA. During this time you should have voluntarily given dad your custody time.

I hope the judge considered your irresponsible travel in reviewing the circumstances of your complaint.
 

stealth2

Under the Radar Member
All I really see are two "adults" behaving like children, with a 7yo in the middle. Poor kid.
 
  • Like
Reactions: t74

zddoodah

Active Member
I need advice on what my rights are
That's why you have a lawyer. Also, creating a list of legal rights would serve absolutely no useful purpoe.


Should I also contact the police?
Nothing in your post suggests that any crime was committed, so no.


Would that one tiny section out weigh the fact that legally we have no schedule and have verbally established our own that has been in place for nearly a year.
I have no idea what "that one tiny section" refers to, and obviously, no one here has read your divorce papers. It sounds, however, like the two of you did a terrible job documenting things in the divorce and that a wholesale modification of the divorce judgment might be in order.


Yes it states that
3. Under our agreed parenting plan the child will be in the physical care of Petitioner 80% of the time and the Respondent 20% of the time.

But there is no schedule in the paper work at all. It just says N/A
There's nothing at all enforceable about that.
 

t74

Member
OP, You and your ec are relatively recently divorced. Your shared child would benefit more if the two of you cn learn to cooperate and use the money you both will spend on attorneys and court fees on something directly benefitting the child - like a college fund, summer camp, books, ...
 

Ohiogal

Queen Bee
OP, you have issues because quite frankly fighting at THIS point in time is ridiculous and immature. You both need to grow up. What 20% does he get? What 80% do you get? You don't get to dictate that. And you were selfish to travel and thus possibly expose the mutual child to COVID-19. Did you consider that?
 

madori79

Member
I appreciate the feedback and for those of you who think that we should just grow up:

My ex and I used to have a great co-parenting relationship. I was always very flexible and understanding of why it was that he had to work so much and gladly took care of our during that time. It why we felt that handling our divorce the way that we did was because of how we co-parented. However, he has changed over the course of the last few months.

To those of you on offering your opinions on the travel:

My daughter was with family and not just some random person off the street. At the time, I did not see an issue for the travel as I practiced wearing PPE, staying 6 feet away, and only stayed with the confines of my friends house. So no, I did not feel that I was putting anyone in danger. However, regardless, the Admin Order 003 that I have linked https://www.occourts.org/directory/family/pdf/Admin_Order_No_003.pdf here clearly states that NO ONE, regardless of how they feel about my travel, is allowed to use Covid-19 to alter the parenting schedule. For the record, once home, I self-quarantined myself for 14 days.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Would I make the same decision again? The answer is no.
 

t74

Member
I appreciate the feedback and for those of you who think that we should just grow up:

My ex and I used to have a great co-parenting relationship. I was always very flexible and understanding of why it was that he had to work so much and gladly took care of our during that time. It why we felt that handling our divorce the way that we did was because of how we co-parented. However, he has changed over the course of the last few months.

To those of you on offering your opinions on the travel:

My daughter was with family and not just some random person off the street. At the time, I did not see an issue for the travel as I practiced wearing PPE, staying 6 feet away, and only stayed with the confines of my friends house. So no, I did not feel that I was putting anyone in danger. However, regardless, the Admin Order 003 that I have linked https://www.occourts.org/directory/family/pdf/Admin_Order_No_003.pdf here clearly states that NO ONE, regardless of how they feel about my travel, is allowed to use Covid-19 to alter the parenting schedule. For the record, once home, I self-quarantined myself for 14 days.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Would I make the same decision again? The answer is no.
While a person may not legally be able to change the parenting plan without the consent of the other parent, the parent exposed to your situation should have , IMO, voluntarily allowed extended visitation with the unaffected parent.

I thought your complaint was that you did not get the child back upon your return. Was the inconvenience of a quarantine over the current limitations really worth it? Many of us have given up far more important "events" - doctor's appointments, shopping trips for essentials, ... - because of the risks to ourselves, our families, and the community.

I am glad you have changed your mind about the appropriateness of your travel. Now reflect upon the battle you and your ex are in and make the first step to call a truce for the benefit of the child. The stress is not doing anyone any good.
 

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top