Single Parents

Does anyone do visitation w/out a legal custody agreement?

When my ex and I broke up 3 months ago, he insisted we could work out custody arrangements amongst ourselves without lawyers. During the first year after our son was born, we all lived together, but my ex was distant, selfish, and incredibly unreliable. He showed very little interest in us and basically left everything up to me. Hence, the break-up. He is now living with a buddy about 20 minutes away from us and he has admitted their place is really not suitable for young children. He works part-time as a restaurant server and is a part-time student.

In the interest of being friendly, I've allowed him to come visit at our house and occasionally take our son for short outings. He refuses to commit to a regular arrangement like every Saturday or Tuesday nights or whatever. So, I've told him repeatedly, I need him to make a plan with me each week with specific times he wants to visit. It is not fair to just call a few hours ahead of time or just show up when he feels like it. After seriously putting my foot down, he finally started giving me more notice and following through with his plans. But it is still so inconsistent. He still shows up hours late sometimes, changes the plan without warning, or cancels if he's too busy or too tired. I asked him to give me $100/ month for CS, but haven't seen anything since he gave me $20 two months ago.

 I just can not put up with his half-ass involvement anymore. I am here 24/7 raising our son, 100% committed, and 100% responsible for him. I'm a full-time student and have a part-time job, but I can't ever "cancel" feeding my kid dinner, dealing with his tantrums, or waking up with him every morning just because I don't feel like it. I am so tired of constantly nagging my ex and lecturing him about being a responsible parent. I've tried keeping my mouth shut and letting some of his behavior slide, but it still makes me extremely angry and resentful. I'm constantly walking a fine line between encouraging his efforts to participate and calling him out on his immature, inconsiderate behavior. How can I hold him accountable without a court order? I'm starting to think it may not be possible.

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Re: Does anyone do visitation w/out a legal custody agreement?

  • I would never do visitation without a court order .. even when we had a court order, he was inconsistent on his visits .. would show up late or not at all .. would let me know minutes before that he wasn't coming .. or he wouldn't show up at said time so I would leave since I had other plans for the day, he'd show up late and be furious that I wasn't there yet waiting for him to arrive .. 
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  • Surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but a CO protects you and your LO. Hopefully this would never happen, but with no CO in place BD could refuse to return LO with little or no legal repercussion. Good luck!
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