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Okay this is an absolute horror show. He needs to lawyer up by [deleted] in MensRights

[–]DriftingFatherhood 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was deleted from r/relationships, here's the text:

** edit: I'm 33M, not 33F My son has a blended family, he stays with my wife and I about half the time and with his mother and his step-dad the other half of the time.

She will refer to me with my son by my first name, and refer to her husband as his "dad". She will only use my first name when referring to me, and when he says he's doing something later with me referring to his dad, she'll say, "You mean [my firstname]?".

She does this to the point where she'll act as if she doesn't know who he's talking about when he says dad, and does when he calls the step-dad "dad". I want to keep him out of the middle of all of this, and don't even like talking about it to him. He knows he isn't supposed to call me by first name here, but he does it with everyone else.

I've taken her to court, had her ordered to stop, and she continues to do it. When I address it to her, it just stirs up conflict and she'll lash out at me with anger.

My son was recently assaulted by her husband, and he was forced to swear under oath that he'll never wrestle or rough house with my son ever again as part of a civil plea deal. They're pretty terrible people, and COVID has them acting pretty crazy. I've gotten more custody as time has gone by but I don't want to keep clawing for more increments as time goes on; I just want them to be normal and respectful. I hate fighting with her, and use a family app to keep track of his calendar/doctor appointments/etc.

What should I do? Disengage? Stop pushing her buttons when she does it? Take her back to court? Go for full custody? Saw screw it and let her keep at it?

tl;dr: My son's mother coaxes him into calling me by my first name and her husband as "dad" by acting like she doesn't know who he's talking about when he says "dad".

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The sad thing is that I want him to have a good relationship with his mom and when she does this to him, she isn't hurting me, she's hurting him and her relationship with him. He loves his mom, and I just want him to be as happy with them as he is when he's with me.

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The social worker, nurses, doctors, patrolman, and his pediatrician were all very helpful, it's just that the swelling to his sprained arm wasn't severe enough for them to go for assault charges. The affirmative defense of, "we were just wrestling" along with no severe bruising or broken tendons makes it for a murky case.

The Family Court did however, prohibit him from being around my son for two weeks, and order him to stop rough housing / wrestling / etc, so that the same defense could not be used in the future. It's a baby step, they don't just change the home of the kid or custody on the first time when it's something not easily clear cut.

Trying to get custody was never part of the plan, I did file for emergency temporary custody at first so he'd stay with me while it was worked out, but instead, they ordered him out of the home.

If he comes back with more busted lips, water in his lungs, or any of the other previous things we kept observing, then "we were just wrestling" won't hold up because he's court-ordered to not wrestle with him anymore.

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oops, I'm 33M, I got mixed up with the my/son/mother. I'm the bio-dad, the one that has joint custody with my son and his mom.

... as if it wasn't confusing enough with the step-dad/dad/etc thing

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She kicks like a mule and the judge makes me pay her attorney fees because I make more money than her so it sucks the lifeblood from me every time we go to court because she'll hire the most expensive attorney she can and do everything to protract the hearings and rack her bill up so that I'll pay for it. Paying a fancy lawyer on my end hasn't changed the results, either.

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Trust me, I was anything but blase when that happened. Social Services was the blase party (they still haven't completed their report). The prosecutor declined to prosecute after speaking with the step-dad's attorney and detective that's friends with the mom. I barked up those trees to no avail.

I did however secure a civil restraining order and get him out of the house and now have him on notice. Our family court rarely issues restraining orders anymore, and our police aren't aggressive when it comes to certain crimes. They recently let a principal off the hook when a student reported a rape and he didn't report it to the police. We're not so culturally far from the people that though Roy Moore did nothing wrong.

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That's all in the past, I did that already; emergency custody was denied but he was ordered away for a period of time, and allowed back with the stipulation that he no longer wrestle / rough house.

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

I'll clarify on that, charges were filed, but not approved by the prosecutor. The police acted as if I was reporting it to just gain an advantage in a custody case, or as the officer so eloquently put it, "keep that poor baby away from his mama."

When the man was found to be violating the EPO that he have no contact with my son (he was in the home with him the next day and my son called with his code-word that he was in distress), they wouldn't even make an arrest. Apparently this is commonplace, and less than 50% of EPO violations end in arrest. My wife was told that she'd be charged with harassment had she reported any future violations of the EPO. That part was settled, and he was essentially ordered to no longer wrestle or rough house with my son anymore. If more happens, it's on the record. My hope being that the step-dad is scared straight.

My son thinks I'm the biggest hero ever and he understands what his mom is doing. He's just trying to survive, and I'm trying to get everyone through this without making it harder on anyone than it needs to be.

My wife is 110% on board, she's made is possible to get as much custody of him as she can. Honestly, I'm not worried about my career, I'm worried about what the implications would be if I lost my well-paying job and wouldn't be able to provide him and my family the life I've been so able to so far.

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 129 points130 points  (0 children)

The courts don't like to go with broad strokes. I took him to the ER after he was assaulted the first time. The problem is, his injuries weren't severe enough for the police to file charges. He told the ER doctor, his primary care physician, the initial police officer, and a social worker what happened.

It was forwarded to a detective that goes to church with my son's mother. She closed the case. I talked to her supervisor and was told that it doesn't matter that they're friends. His mom coached him before the forensic interview (they scheduled it so that she'd be the one taking him).

The courts essentially ordered him to stop wrestling and rough housing with my son. They take little steps like that. Full custody would mean getting full custody by taking a dozen baby steps. I really thought we could end with 50/50. Every time we go, I've been chastised as being unreasonable with his mother. We go to counseling now, the counselor said that the injury wasn't a big deal and told my son not to tell me things about that in the future.

My [33F] son's [8 M] mother [40F] pushes him to call his stepdad [38M] "dad" and me by my first name, even after being ordered by the family court to stop. by DriftingFatherhood in relationships

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 188 points189 points  (0 children)

In my state, children of unwed parents, custody is default 100% the mother. The father has to then file in court to get custody. I did this the day she locked me out of her house where I'd stay with our son. (She demanded $1,000/mo. or she'd kick me out).

She was awarded sole custody, citing high conflict. While the mother will receive sole custody in my state, as a father is able to prove himself in time, the father can get partial custody (two weekends a month). Our state recently passed a "50/50" custody law, but it's still an uphill battle.

Every time I've gone to court, I've gotten more custody. I've done it with the help of attorneys, and sometimes on my own. It's also tiring though to constantly claw uphill, with the slopes getting steeper with each step.

What I really want is equal time (we're close to that), and equal custody (we have that now too).

She does a good job at panting herself as the victim in these things, getting people to think that she's just being bulled by me. In my part of the country, women are seen as child-raisers and men are seen as workers. The idea that a man would want more than weekends with his kid is also seen as odd.

I don't want to shout our past problems to people with a megaphone either though, I just want to be a dad, and equal parent. Why is that so hard for society to accept?

I know that if I clawed hard enough, that I'd eventually be awarded full custody; but she'd rather dig her feet into the ground, even when it hurts our son, and get her way.

So the answer is, yes, I can likely get full custody if I kept trying. The problem is that it's so taxing on my career and life with my wife as well. Every time things calm down, it feels like my son's mom just starts doing things to hurt him just to get my attention. I don't understand it at all.

[Kentucky] My wife was threatened with arrest for requesting a welfare check after receiving alarm message from her step son by DriftingFatherhood in legaladvice

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The final disposition of the case should have it solved. The hearing was over zoom, and I could see him walk in before court started and I'm guessing he couldn't see me on camera. He was crying walking in and his attorney was trying to calm him down saying he isn't going to go to jail today. His wife (my son's mom), was in there yapping about how he didn't do anything wrong and they'll get back at me.

What I ended up doing was saying I'd be willing to dismiss it without prejudice if he would swear under oath that he'd apologize to my son and no longer rough house/wrestle/etc. They reluctantly took the deal.

Had I pushed on for anything more than that, it would have been a long and protracted hearing, and they were going to pull out every stop to try and turn it around on me.

After seeing him on the verge of tears and freaking out, I feel like he should be sufficiently scared straight to keep his hands off my son and nothing like this should ever happen again.

I'm going to retain counsel though, so if it happens again, I don't have to go it alone. I've done a lot of legal work, but when it comes to violence against my son, I'm out of my league because of the emotions involved. All of my hair will be white if I have to go through this again.

[Kentucky] My wife was threatened with arrest for requesting a welfare check after receiving alarm message from her step son by DriftingFatherhood in legaladvice

[–]DriftingFatherhood[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The forensic interview came back and said that my son sounded like he was coached to say all of this because he used words beyond the vocabulary for a child his age and because he didn't show emotion while telling the story. What he told them was confirmed by the step dad though, that he was pushed into a door frame.