Reply to Long-Distance Divorce, Primary Custody, Frequency of phone calls and visits?

Forum Index » Parenting -- Special Concerns

Reply to "Long-Distance Divorce, Primary Custody, Frequency of phone calls and visits?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Is your ex mentally impaired?  I’m asking this as kindly and as seriously as I can. You speak of him like a little boy who fell in love with a puppy at his grandpa’s house but who “just isn’t ready to take care of a dog”. That’s fine for a parent to say about a child, but it’s strange for one adult to say about another.. unless there’s a reason, a reason way beyond “I don’t like him anymore”.

Do you trust him to be alone with the kid? If not, you’ll need to get a court involved and document things he’s done that are dangerous.. you can’t and shouldn’t just tag the sister you like, as he’ll be the legal parent, she won’t be, and his wishes will trump hers even if she’s right.

I can’t figure out for the life of me why you don’t get lawyers to tell you what you’re entitled to and why you’d not want to have this documented, after all, your marriage was a legal contract, why would you disolve it and not replace it with another legally binding agreement?

As for facetime and the like, that isn’t the same as having a father around.  My kids have all said that not being able to hug and touch upsets them and this is only when facetiming with grandparents.. my husband and I are married.

As for dad facetiming to read a story, how will that work? “Sorry Johnny, stop playing with your friends, time for Dad to Facetime you… either your kid will be mad he’s got to stop interacting with people who are physically around him, or he’ll get real sad after the call meaning you’ll have a mess of a kid on your hands at the ass end of the day.  Why would you want that?  As for the 10 minute window, again “Time’s up, Johnny” this is his father not a therapist.

As for time spent with each parent, kids mature a lot.. we have a first grader. At the beginning of the school year she was more little kid, now she’s more of a big kid.  We watched a video on the science of the covid virus last night, she’d not have wanted to do that last spring.  Her sense of humor is maturing.  She’s showing more regulation in terms of her behavior.  She’s discovered she really likes nonfiction.

Kids won’t always tell you what’s bothering them, we had this same kid do a science fair project.. one she really got into but what she was embarrased about.. it involved pullups and diapers. It took her a week to finally whisper to me “I want to do the project but I don’t want my class to think I wear pullups”. Fortunately for her she has a little brother, and we had a nice talk about ethics, I told her I’d not have suggested the project if she didn’t have a sibling who was younger and who was a regular pullup user.

This is the sort of thing that’s hard to do long-distance.

Personally, if things are so bad that your ex can’t parent well, I’d go for sole custidy.  Harsh but there it is.  I’d also do it if his judgement was impaired.

No way would I do what you want to do or what others are suggesting. It’d be hard for you to find a serious relationship if you and he are “staying” at each other’s houses. It looks too much like a family, and these visit cycles happen just often enough to make it difficult for a new relationship to get off the ground.  If he is such a good dad and loves the kid so much, and you want him around, then you two need to live closer. Stay married if you have too,t hat might be the best solution especially if you know how his brain works. And, I have to ask, what about him made you fall in love with him, marry him and have kids? What changed so that now you are separating?  I truly want to know.  ” [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics