cyberthrasher_706
04-25-2008, 08:32 AM
Well, some of you may remember what's going on with my custody issues but most may not so I'll lay out the basics. Back in September our kids' biological father took his mediated custody to enroll them in school on the reservation after he got out of jail. At this point, the end of summer, we had had them enrolled in school in town and had them in our custody since February. Well, he said he was going to enroll them at the reservation and be living there. We had our weekend custody and the usual arrangement was for his sister to come and pick them up from our house and drop them off. This happened a couple of weeks in a row as normal then one day she said that he never brought them "down". This was strange because they live 7 miles east and we're in a valley. Down would mean that they were up the hill somewhere, closest town being 30 miles away.
Well, his father happens to live about 80 miles north at another reservation. So we asked her what she means "down" and she told us that he "took off" with them up to where his dad lives and then left them there and his dad took emergency custody of them and enrolled them in school there without ever trying to reach us. Obviously she was aiding in this whole thing. At this point she told us that we have a hearing 3 days away in this town that's 80 miles away. We filed an emergency order with the local tribe and took jurisdiction because we had a previous order stating that we have joint custody. We won that one even though his father was trying to say we're not fit parents because we're not tribal members (they don't realize that I am a tribal member, just not that tribe. I'm just to white to be recognized).
Since then they picked up their dad (he's been on parole this whole time) about 2 months later. This whole time he's had visitation according to the emergency order. He stopped by once when he got out of jail in February and we haven't heard anything from him since. Now we have another hearing today which is a mixture of a follow up to the emergency order and a full blown custody modification. He hasn't responded to the custody modification at all, and that deadline was Wednesday.
So we have it laid out that he gets supervised weekend visitation (due to the previous abandonment, not to mention his constant drug use and psychotic violence in front of the kids) with no overnight visitation. I don't think we should have a problem since he hasn't even tried exercising his current rights but my wife is still terrified to death of him (that's enough to fill an entire forum, not just one thread) and it's likely that he's still going to show up today and try to scare her into submission like he did at the original mediation (I wasn't allowed in because we were only engaged at the time), and he's probably hoping to catch us off guard. He's said before that the only reason he wants custody is to keep her from having them and he doesn't think it's fair that he should have to pay child support. We've already discussed that we don't care if he pays child support. We don't need his money, I'm perfectly capable of providing for my family and when it comes down to it, all he is is a sperm donor, not a father.
Well, I guess that's a pretty good rant/release. So like I said in the title, wish us luck, pray for us to whoever it is you pray to. Hopefully this all ends soon so my wife can start living her life without fear, I can go play some paintball without worrying about her and the kids.
Well, his father happens to live about 80 miles north at another reservation. So we asked her what she means "down" and she told us that he "took off" with them up to where his dad lives and then left them there and his dad took emergency custody of them and enrolled them in school there without ever trying to reach us. Obviously she was aiding in this whole thing. At this point she told us that we have a hearing 3 days away in this town that's 80 miles away. We filed an emergency order with the local tribe and took jurisdiction because we had a previous order stating that we have joint custody. We won that one even though his father was trying to say we're not fit parents because we're not tribal members (they don't realize that I am a tribal member, just not that tribe. I'm just to white to be recognized).
Since then they picked up their dad (he's been on parole this whole time) about 2 months later. This whole time he's had visitation according to the emergency order. He stopped by once when he got out of jail in February and we haven't heard anything from him since. Now we have another hearing today which is a mixture of a follow up to the emergency order and a full blown custody modification. He hasn't responded to the custody modification at all, and that deadline was Wednesday.
So we have it laid out that he gets supervised weekend visitation (due to the previous abandonment, not to mention his constant drug use and psychotic violence in front of the kids) with no overnight visitation. I don't think we should have a problem since he hasn't even tried exercising his current rights but my wife is still terrified to death of him (that's enough to fill an entire forum, not just one thread) and it's likely that he's still going to show up today and try to scare her into submission like he did at the original mediation (I wasn't allowed in because we were only engaged at the time), and he's probably hoping to catch us off guard. He's said before that the only reason he wants custody is to keep her from having them and he doesn't think it's fair that he should have to pay child support. We've already discussed that we don't care if he pays child support. We don't need his money, I'm perfectly capable of providing for my family and when it comes down to it, all he is is a sperm donor, not a father.
Well, I guess that's a pretty good rant/release. So like I said in the title, wish us luck, pray for us to whoever it is you pray to. Hopefully this all ends soon so my wife can start living her life without fear, I can go play some paintball without worrying about her and the kids.