My son will be 11 in July. I broke up with his father 4 years ago (we were never married), because he was abusive. I got PFA from his because I started to date my partner & he began to send threatening text messages & harassed us. the PFA we had our custody agreement written out. A few months later, I decided after my then 8 yr old son was missing school, basic homework & always late because he lived in another district 15 minutes away that I would file for custody. I was represented by the domestic abuse project who doesn’t do trial but mediation. The only reason I got the agreement I did was the next day he was scheduled for court because he was driving around with suspended license (which is suspended until at least 2050) he was drunk & he several bottles of unmarked pills. They dropped his drug charges if he pled guilty to DUI So he received weekend visitation. One week Friday -Sunday the next week Saturday -Sunday that was his choice, I offered him Friday after school until Sunday at 8pm. He took less because he wasn’t just as “weekend dad” he also he was able to pick up on Tuesdays for 2 hrs. IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE PAPER THAT HE WAS NOT ALLOW TO DRIVE MY CHILD. but every week he would show up and every week we would fight & the end result was that he would take the car & hide it if the police were to come and claim he took the trolley or the train.
Around this time my son (8) started hinting to his father selling drugs until now where he can tell me about xanax, and percs and weed etc etc. I moved out of the apartment that we shared as couple and later with my partner, moved to a much nicer neighborhood this pass summer with better schools.
My son was very comfortable with the scheduling now. He started having friends at our old places and going out to play. We signed him up for cub scouts in 3rd grade right after the 1st agreement & we invited his father to be there, because I was still in the mindset that children need their father’s. So we did every other weekend and then finally it was we switched his tuesday night to wednesday night and he took him to scouts. I thought it might be a good bonding experience & I couldn’t really get the time off from work to go camping. he was fired/let go or quit his job, he was on unemployment even though he told me he threw a soda at his boss.
During this time I sued for child support. My logic was my son is 10, He eating like a grown man, he’s rough on shoes, he grew taller in one school year he went up 3 sizes. I pay for all his medical insurances, all of his school needs (supplies/uniforms) all of his clothing, coats pretty much anything. At the end of my pay week – I barely had enough money for cigarettes and I’m finding out he’s eating 75 dollar steaks on the boardwalk and going to Atlantic city and Las Vegas and all these places and we and his son are struggling – if it wasn’t for my partner who I depend on and the 3 of us work as a family unit sometimes we’d be without.
he then sued for 50/50 custody. we couldn’t come to an agreement so the master made up some ridiculous schedule for the past summer to show his father what it was like to have our son that long. The master also statement that bc his father was home more than our son should be there instead of with my partner aka playing with his friends when I was at work (it was summer). He was still ordered to pay child support. 500 dollars a month coming directly out of his unemployment. & 1st and foremost he was NOT ALLOW TO DRIVE MY CHILD.
When his father was kicked off unemployment he got a job that paid so much lower than expected. We went back to court in Oct for more mediation. His father changed the schedule because he now had Sunday’s and Monday’s off. At this point I had pictures of him driving, a police report of him coming up to our son’s new school in an illegal pickup truck trying to drive my son home because his girlfriend’s car was smashed in an accident. Our son had already missed school assignments and it was always october.
He was awarded saturday at 430 until Monday 6:30 and every other week in the summer my son cried and cried. My son told me he forces him go driving him, he swears my son is stupid bc he talks about drugs and sells drugs in front of him.
I got a lawyer who told me get a PI to get catch him with dealing. I hired a PI to try to caught him he drives so fast the EX fbi agent can’t legally keep up with him. He will testify he’s driving my son. My son really just doesn’t want to spend weeks of his summer at his dad’s house with his 8th girlfriend since we broke up who just recently moved in with him last one moved out 2 weeks ago. When he got caught in my new town driving that truck the cops here told him if they see him driving they’re putting in jail so he can’t get our son to school anymore since his old gf left – so I have to go to his house at 9pm sunday’
Chosen Answer:
His rights as a father should be denied do to his abusive history! And He probably shouldn’t even be granted custody!