Who do I tell about this during divorce?
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Anonymous
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In the middle of a divorce with one DC. STBX-DH sees DH 1x/week by his choice, and recently I’ve learned through DC that these visitation times are incredibly fraught. STBX screams at DC, brings up things like how the divorce isn’t his fault (he initiated it), tells DC the custody arrangement isn’t fair (this is the parenting plan we currently have in place), and tries to make DC be the middle man to get information about be and/or circumvent talking to me by trying to get info about scheduling or logistics via DC. It sounds like he has brought up a lot of adult and legal stuff with DC, but I try not to ask DC anything and wait for DC to share things on their own.
STBX has turned angry and during brief drives to/from our house with DC, he has exhibited what sounds like road rage while driving DC- swearing, honking, chasing cars down. These are 10 block drives on 25 mph streets, so it’s not like he’s dealing with a stressful highway merge during rush hour or something. The visits are so stressful that DC has been coming home with headaches and last weekend came through our front door and started throwing up. Where do I take this information and how do I manage it? I scheduled a conversation with my attorney to talk about it but I’m not clear on if there are any next steps that can be taken. |
Anonymous
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First of all: document, document, document. Figure out if there are any witnesses. Try to be as validating but neutral as possible with DC on the behavior and ideally have DC hear that it's not OK from a 3rd party (counselor?). Take DC to the doctor's office for the physical symptoms and get those documented too.
Second of all, parent classes or even better a parenting coach to try to get STBX-DH to stop this behavior, because as I'm sure you know your STBX is doing basically things number 1, 2, 3, and 4 NOT to do during divorce in order to keep kids from getting alientated. Your documentation can be used by your attorney to hopefully force this without a court order during some sort of settlement. |
Anonymous
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OP and here’s a dumb question but humor me: what are any of these people going to do with this information? It’s my understanding that basically any outcome for custody will be 50/50. I want to take some kind of action to protect DC but it doesn’t seem like there is a way to do so. I don’t think I can ask STBX to take a parenting class. Isn’t that something a judge would decide and only if we went to trial? And how would an attorney leverage any of this? Unless we were in court it seems like my STBX’s attorney would just brush any of this off as irrelevant.
Sorry for the rambling thoughts. My budget is tight so I always try to figure out what my specific asks should be to my attorney before I talk to them. |
Anonymous
| how old is your child? |
Anonymous
| How was their relationship before the divorce proceedings? |
Anonymous
10. Relationship wasn’t good. Before STBX filed he had switched his yelling/etc from me to DC. But even before that he was pretty critical, grumpy and uninvolved. He didn’t like the other dads at sports and didn’t like being interrupted while he was WFH and just didn’t have the patience to do things with DC. |
Anonymous
| Is supervised visitation a possibility? |
Anonymous
OP and from what I understand that would come from a hearing for temporary custody orders to replace our current parenting plan. But I’m not sure it’s a possibility. My attorney has suggested it is for far more extreme situations like drug abuse or physical abuse of a child. |
Anonymous
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He sucks. Protect your child and first document the hell out of this, ask your lawyer what kind of paper trail to create with your ex, take your poor DC to his primary care doctor and also a therapist. Have him talk to the school counselor.
Then, see if it’s feasible to go to court and try to get a judge to adjust the custody arrangement. Maybe supervised visitation and/or a parenting class for your ex. In the meantime, can you drive your DC to/from his dad’s? Then at least he’s spared the road rage. If your ex used to live where you and your son now live, maybe that’s triggering him. I feel very bad for your son and also for you. Get your son into therapy now. Wishing you both peace, OP. |
Anonymous
Theoretically a parenting class or coach would help him stop and do better. I have a STBX that I'm skeptical will stop behavior towards kids regardless of the intervention, so I get your concern. But if he doesn't stop, if you have a coach that person can testify in a future hearing along with your documentation if the situation escalates. A judge doesn't have to order a coach to begin with - you can just agree on it. That said, fighting anything here will cause your STBX's behavior to ramp up, so it becomes a terrible parenting decision no one wants to make: how bad does the behavior have to be before you're willing to temporarily make it worse to see if you can spend the money to make it better. You might get a custody outcome that's more like 70/30 than 50/50, and if the behavior is literally causing physical issues than wouldn't that be something? You never want to go into a hearing or mediation fighting to cut out STBX - that makes you look terrible in front of a judge or mediator. Plus it's bad for your kid to model that behavior unless there's a danged good reason, like the parenting coach saying that's what's needed for now. But if you come in with copious documentation - especially with backup from a school counselor, pediatrican, and professional the court trusts - you might get something. I mean migranes (headaches + throwing up reads migranes to me, correct me if I'm wrong) is pretty stinking terrible. |
Anonymous
Your therapist. Much cheaper than your lawyer. Your child should have a therapist, too. You sound like you think — or want — something will/to happen as a consequence of these things you hear about second-hand. It won’t. |
Anonymous
I believe that when we got divorced in Virginia both of us were required to take a parenting class by default. |
Anonymous
| Get your child a therapist asap. You want a trained provider to be able to support your child. Ultimately that provider may be useful if you have to get a GAL involved. In my case, I ultimately had to get a GAL. Document everything. My child refused to go into DH's car. GAL supported my kid and so did the therapist. |
Anonymous
I was divorced in Virginia and we were not required to do so. This was 5 years ago. We went through mediation but it was a very nasty divorce. |
Anonymous
Currently in the process and my lawyer indicated this is no longer a requirement. |