Custody and verbal/emotional abuse of kids?
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Anonymous
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DD is 10. I was always the target of DH’s instability and rages, but that changed and he turned on her. He is very smart to never make physical contact, but what DD has experienced is certainly just as painful.
What I am struggling with now with my attorneys is the expectation of 50/50 custody, especially because DD does not want to be around DH. At what age does DD have to be to assert preferences about who she spends time with and when? |
Anonymous
| Be very careful with this. With a man like this he can be highly manipulative and could turn it around so he gets her to not want to be with YOU, or he claims parental alienation if you attempt to influence her to not be with him. The die is cast, he is already her father. IMO it is sometimes best to support her as she gradually figures things out for herself about who her dad is. |
Anonymous
Thanks. I’m being crazy cautious and even as I work through how this split will work, I’m being obsessive about making sure that he is offered more than equal time to be with her, to be in the house, take her to activities, etc. And at the same time she’s saying stuff to me that she’s afraid of how he’ll act this time or that she is dreading him driving her to practice or whatever. I probably need specific legal guidance but I worry that even validating her fears could be used against me as alienation ammo. And at the same time, I’m legit afraid for her to be with him if I’m not there, because he is moody and angry and unpredictable. |
Anonymous
Follow up to ask if you think it’s better not to split so I can keep her safe? |
Anonymous
| You won’t get more than 50/50. |
Anonymous
Yes, I understand that and so I’m wondering: 1) at what age does DD get to pick where she gets to go and for how long 2) if the choice is 50/50, is it better to be in an abusive household 100 percent of the time with a mom to protect you and run interference, or an abusive household just 50 percent of the time but with no protection? Question 2 is what I’m really stuck on. |
Anonymous
Ugh, im so ssorry. Getting into the nitty gritty, what is his schedule, how often is he home, what is your version of protecting her? I do think it's big that if you're still married, if he's being that way you can up and take her shopping and he can't do anything, if you're divorced she has no choice but to sit with him and take the abuse. My dad was like that and my mom would take me to sit at Burger King for hours to get away from him. They divorced and nothing is as great as the peace we felt in our home alone, but that was in the days where the primary parent got custody and I only had to see him a few hours on the weekends where he generally took me to a movie and to see his parents so the only bad time was in the car alone. Living with him 50% of the time would have been torture. |
Anonymous
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Usually around the age of 14 kids can express a preference, but if he is difficult, he will likely challenge her ability to make her own decision. Expect psychological evaluations of your daughter, parenting evaluations of you, accusations that you are manipulating her, accusations of alienation, etc.
Assuming you are both staying local, child’s preference is usually something like where the child lives during the school week (which school she goes to, etc). Generally your child can’t express a preference for mom or dad having sole physical custody. If you become the school week parent, the court will try to offset it with non-school time for dad, which is actually more time with dad. |
Anonymous
I left 9 years ago and have an 11yo that I coparent with. He still speaks and engages poorly with her, and certainly is emotionally negligent, but I kindly make suggestions for how they can improve their bond, he sometimes suggests things to me, and sometimes we listen sometimes we dont. Leaving is a little better because neither parent wants to get dragged into court for mistreatment or ever doing anything that isnt in the “best interest of the child”, which is clearly defined measured and outlines in your jurisdictional code. You should be able to look it up online. The parent that best supports the best interest of the child is the primary driver of decisions in family court. Children have many interests. How you succeed in having her needs met married vs divorced you need to consider how you coparent now, and how you would coparent after divorce. The equation is different for everyone. However, you deal with that manipulation crap? Appoint a GAL for the child, so they have legal advocacy that is unbiased. Sometimes the court will appoint one on their own with no cost to neither plaintiff nor defendant. The court sometimes covers the cost. I was awarded sole custody with visitation at my discretion, and we eventually went to 50/50 shared physical with me primary legal. This was after family counseling post divorce and a lot of healing and hard self work occurred. She can express her preference at 10. Everything she says matters. Ensure she has credible representation. You can also hire a GAL or aplit the cost between yourself and husband in divorce costs. How is your daughter responding to Dad’s mistreatment? |
Anonymous
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DD is responding to her mistreatment by her dad as one would expect. I think he assumes she’s still an infant with a goldfish memory. She sobbed in the closet with the dog the night he did it and has been quiet all week, except to ask when he was coming back and then she got upset when she found out he was coming back on x day to get clothes. I’m trying not to say too much because I’m afraid I’ll get accused of putting words in her mouth. I did say that I know she has big feelings about what happened and that it’s normal, and that it’s also ok to react differently than me or to have her feelings change over time, and I offered a few different adults for her to talk to (both family friends she’s close with and professionals) if that would feel helpful.
A GAL isn’t an option I had thought of and I will discuss that with an attorney when I meet them this week- thank you for that suggestion. I can handle any of this but I don’t want her to acclimate to it. |
Anonymous
Re: his schedule- he travels erratically for work. Some months it will be two international trips that span sat/sun through Friday. Some months it will be 2-3 shorter trips that go Mon-Thurs or Tues-Fri. His office hours start as early as 6 am or go as late as 7 pm depending on the day and which teams in which time zone he’s talking to. In other words, his schedule is very erratic and inflexible and I worry that even in divorce I’d be forced to flex around him to keep my DD’s life stable. |
Anonymous
This. |
Anonymous
| In my experience if DD starts staying with you beyond 50/50 time, it’s actually going to be very hard for him to get the court to do anything about it. And increasingly hard as she gets older. Just saying. |
Anonymous
| Are you the OP who posted about needing to board her dog when leaving with her daughter? |
Anonymous
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Similar situation. Waiting a few more years for kid to be 14/15 and have a say on who they stay with.
I would run interference and carve a busy life with you and DD to minimize time with him. Once she is closer to 14, begin the process |