Question about DH going to mediation with BM (long)
sjones771
member
My DH is going to be going to mediation with BM in a few weeks. He wants to alter their agreement on parenting time. DH wants SS everyother weekend. He only gets him Tuesday after school through Thursday when he drops him off at school, less than 48 hours. When he tried talking to BM about it before she said she would work with him and let him have SS everyother weekend, end of story. To us, that wasn't going to fly, so to mediation he goes.
BM says a lot of crap. We recently went on a vaca and have a email where she says we could have SS an extra day and drop him off at school and she would keep him an extra day the following week. Ok, fine. The day we leave to come home she says she is worried about SS safety and that DH made a unilateral decision to keep him and violated court order, and she was going to call the police (which I don't think she ever did). When we did get back, we walked SS to school and not 5 minutes after leaving we see her pull out of a street (which is directly across the street from her work and our apartment) and go to pick him up from pre-k. I feel like she had been waiting for us.
My main question is how likely is it for DH to get what he wants? It's completely fair and he never does anything to cause concern for SS. BM is a little crazy sometimes and has been worse than this. Will the mediator see that she this? That she is unfair and not looking for the best interest of her son? DH has never had a mediation before and any attempts to try to discuss things with BM ultimately fail.
Re: Question about DH going to mediation with BM (long)
The mediator is not a judge or magistrait. BM is not forced to agree to anything in mediation and either parent can leave at anytime and seek an attorney. The mediator can;t go to a judge either and say BM was like this in mediation and BF was like this. Mediation is basically you go into a room with a mediator you both sit and try to discuss concerns, issues ect. If she is willing to agree and your H agrees as well it's put into a court order, if she walks out then it's put in as no agreement was made and later on a paper is sent out with the results.
You'll have to look at your local rule and see what the court feels is the most reasonable for a school age child. This is the least amount of time the non-residential parent should have and will be awarded unless the court feels the parent is unfit. For the most part it's every other weekend and 1 day during the week for three hours, 1/2 the summer, 1/2 every break and every other holiday. If she does not agree then you can get an attorney, hire a guardian ad litem (attorney for the children) and go through a court battle...but yes the agreement can;t work when the children get into school...it can however work if your H lives in reletively the same school district or has a car and is able to transport the kids to school...if this is the case the guardian and judges may go ahead and rule that the current agreement is in the best interest of the children and keep it as it is...
Be prepared for the mediator to side either way. My DH and I just got done with months of mediation with his ex and it did not go well at ALL. DH's ex is nothing but difficult and clearly did not have my SD's best interest at heart and the mediator sided with her anyways. We gave document after document to this mediator with not even a response from her when we would ask her to clarify her decisions or why she reached desicions. (DH's ex is sooo diffucult we only communicate by email and document everything - we had more than enough proof - we even provided proof that DH's ex was violating the Court Order numerous times even during this process and the mediator said nothing)
It was as if the mediator was bff's with DH's ex and had something to prove against him and was in no way shape or form going to let a guy have any say or decision regarding his child.
It was so bad and discriminating against my DH that we are in the process of going back to Court after I complete a very long complaint against the mediator.
We went from having two days a week and every other weekend (longer days and weekends in the summer) with my SD to only having her every other weekend all year long (with holidays). A Court Ordered schedule that had been in place for over 13 years. AND the Court order as well as the mediators contract states the mediator can not make changes to the Court order unless both parties agree. Even scarier the requests we requested to have put in place are also clearly outlined in our Court Order to take place when certain situations occur. DH's ex is following the mediator's decisions so we have no other choice but to go back to Court and get everything resolved.
Sorry to be vague on the "issues", but wanted to share our story so you can mentally prepare yourself. We had no idea things could go completely back words and wish I would've known what could happen so I could have been better prepared to deal with the outcome and to know it was not going to be resolved quickly, fairly and appropriate for a child and both families.
I wish you the best of luck and do not give up!!! I know in my heart that we can not give up and if we fail even in Court at least we did our best and everything in our power to have my SD in our lives.