Right of First Refusal
agibby
member
DH and BM CO is written as : if either parent cannot be with the child for 3 or more hours they need to offer right to care for that child to the other parent. DH and BM have 50/50 EOW.
I hate this clause. It has caused so much drama. BM never follows it, we've busted her at work at 8:30 at night before, and she just lies about it. She said she had "just dropped into work for a minute". Uh, we have the schedule of the class she teaches, hence the reason we called her at work! There have been many, many other times we've heard about her being at work or out at a party, and having SS being watched by someone else for over the 3 hours, many times overnight. When DH confronted her, she has always claimed it was a lie, going as far as to say 5 y/o SS was lying.
Yet, one time when we went 5 hours away to visit DH's family and SS and other kids went to sleep at grandma and grandpa's while DH and I were out for a bit, she heard about it and made a huge deal over it. Um , we were FIVE HOURS AWAY. By the time she got up there, she would have had to bring him back, in the middle of the night.
Did I say I hate the ROFR clause?
We have decided to ask BM to either change the ROFR or throw it out. It's ridiculous. They have 50/50 and she lies about it anyway, so what's the point of having it?
I think it should be written as overnights for work, and possibly 5 hours for daycare. I just think if either parent is gone overnight for work, the other parent should be able to have SS. And if SS is at the sitters for over 5 hrs, the other parent should be able to hang out with SS during that time.
DH thinks it should just be thrown out of there.
What do you all think?
Of course it all ultimately comes down to if BM agrees with any of it. Can't see why she wouldn't since she is the one breaking the CO all the time.
Re: Right of First Refusal
I don't know how we can prove it though. We know she'll just lie in court, she has never had a problem with making things up to suit her. Her family is the same way and would lie for her too. I'd like nothing more than Travis to file contempt, but won't the judge want proof? I'm not sure how that all works.
We have the recording from when we called her at work at 8:30 at night (DH is off work at 4pm) but there she lied too and claims she doesn't punch in to work so there's no record of her hours.
We did exclude family from the clause. For example, if DS wanted to have a sleep over at grandma's on my time, then I don't have to offer the ROFR.
Now that we live apart, we removed the clause and just have a verbal agreement to communicate if we are going to be gone for a whole week-end. I went to Chicago last Spring for 5 days, I offered them to his dad first. If his dad is going to be away his entire week-end, then we will often switch so that he can see him another week-end.
I got a babysitter for tonight, I'm going to a work party for about 4 hours. His dad lives 3 hours away, it just doesn't make sense to drive the round trip when I can get a babysitter for that time.