Desperately need your advice
RnMommy1
member
After almost a year of disagreements I am at a fork in the road with baby daddy: We are either going into a terrible battle in court or settling in mediation.
I gave him access to our child and even allowed his family to see her as he requested. However, once he got a wiff of what the child support guidelines were he changed. He then began demanding 50/50 physical custody. All throughout my pregnancy he threatened me with taking my baby 100% of the time or 50/50. In the past month he has gotten a new lawyer who is helping him build a case against me. Since he barely spent time with her (perhaps 2-3 hours per week) he all of a sudden began demanding overnights (she is still breast feeding and 9 months old) and would harass me with emails every single day. I responded with asking him to spend more time with her first and to wait until we wean her from breast feeding.
However, he would ignore my requests and send yet another email saying he needed overnights to bond. He went as far as bringing his family to my home and having one of them take video footage of the baby crying and me consoling her. However, the baby cried hysterically with him for an hour and would only be consoled by me. The footage that she took was cropped to make it look like the baby cried with me only and she would zoom him out of it and then she would take footage when i returned the calm baby to him (and stop taping the moment she began to cry). I have a witness who saw exactly what she was video taping and they were outraged at what they were doing!
I finally spoke to baby daddy and he clearly stated in front of our family that he doesn't want physical custody at least until she is much older because he can't handle her. He is ok with mediation but he doesn't want to go with our lawyers. He has been quite a bully so far (and has on numerous occasions screamed at me to the point where he's come to my face and people had to stop him) and I don't want to go into mediation without my lawyer. My lawyer has been supportive of me and she refuses to let him bully me any further but he doesn't want her there. His main problem is child support. He doesn't want to go according to guidelines and wants to pay only for the needs of the child. This is really what has been his issue all along (even though he's claimed I'm the one who wants money). BTW.... he hasn't paid any child support in about 7 months and I haven't asked him for a penny. I also cannot get any of it back since I didn't file until this month (which is what prompted a bigger mess).
I'm willing to go below the guidelines in order to settle this and in order for my baby to comfortably work towards getting to know her father better... but I'm not comfortable going into mediation without my lawyer.
Any advice?
Re: Desperately need your advice
I would see what you and he can come to an agreement on. It is hard but I realized that I had to compromise on things because I was wanting it more for myself than the benefit of the father daughter relationship. As for the video taping I would have asked them to leave. It's good you had a witness to back you. Take it one day at a time. I found myself worrying about the future outcomes of my custody drama and it was stuff I had no control over. As long as you are being the best mom you can be then he shouldn't have much of a case to bring against you. I have heard breastfeeding is a big factor in regards to time away from the mother. Sorry such a long response. We have such similar issues! Feel free to message me. Best of luck, stay strong for your baby!
You can keep your lawyer. In my state you go to mediation through the family court and your lawyer cannot be present nor anyone else. But that doesn't mean you cannot consult your attorney before and after the mediation. After mediation you have 10 days to change your mind on what you agreed to and just go in front of a judge.
A good lawyer should be able to advise you on what type of visitation schedule is standard in your circumstance. And you can go into the mediation asking for that. And if it comes to it you may have to go to court.
Remember that visitation and child support are two separate things. You can go to mediation to make a visitation schedule. If you cannot agree to a schedule during mediation, then it goes to the courtroom, which you can have your lawyer at.
Then you go to a separate hearing to establish child support, which I believe you can agree to a certain amount that isn't what the court will figure out using whatever formula they use with both your incomes and expenses.
BTW, your baby daddy sounds like a real winner bringing his family into his business like that. Mine threatened to fight me for full custody, and said he had a great lawyer and stuff, but when that first hearing came around, and *I* was there prepared, with an attorney, and he had nothing, he changed his tune pretty quickly. I know it can be rough at the beginning, but I hope things smooth out for you. It's taken us 7 years to get to the point we're at now, and things still aren't fantastic, but they are much better than when we first split.
I can't imagine a court letting him have overnight visits if you're breastfeeding that makes no sense. It sounds like mediation isn't going to help much if he acts like that.
My daughter is 11 and we've been on a 50/50 schedule with her for a few years, and it works out fine w/me and her Dad. The only child support I get is to pay for the health insurance, otherwise we split any other costs up pretty evenly.
Sometimes it gets better when they are older. My daughter's father and I had issues when she was younger, but now we get along fine.
"Your truth is different from my truth, and we're both right."
TTC since March 2013. BFP 4/13/13, blighted ovum discovered 6/6/13, m/c 6/8/13.
BFP 11/10/13, EDD 7/25/13 - stick little owlet!