Anonymous wrote: OP, I don't live in your state and am not a lawyer, but I have some thoughts.

First, I would take ds to the dr next time he comes home with a headache or vomiting. This is documentation for you. Also, I'd get him into therapy. It helped my dd to have someone to talk to-although our divorce was not difficult, ex still said a few crazy things and this helped. And defenitely talk to your actual lawyer.

I would try to get use of an app like OurFamilyWizard ordered, so communication is kept track of and can be viewed by a court (if necessary). Also I would get put in the order that neither parent can disparage the other to the child. Will this stop him? probably not, but it would give grounds to file contempt (but I'm not a lawyer so ask yours about it).

One thing that I did that I think helped dd a lot was to tell her she can ask me or tell me about anything she wanted to including anything her dad ever said-that I would never get mad or hurt at what she repeated. That way she knew that I would never be upset (to her) if she repeated something negative about me.

Communication can be viewed by the court without OFW too. Texts just have to be properly exported, for example.

OP, I don't live in your state and am not a lawyer, but I have some thoughts.

First, I would take ds to the dr next time he comes home with a headache or vomiting. This is documentation for you. Also, I'd get him into therapy. It helped my dd to have someone to talk to-although our divorce was not difficult, ex still said a few crazy things and this helped. And defenitely talk to your actual lawyer.

I would try to get use of an app like OurFamilyWizard ordered, so communication is kept track of and can be viewed by a court (if necessary). Also I would get put in the order that neither parent can disparage the other to the child. Will this stop him? probably not, but it would give grounds to file contempt (but I'm not a lawyer so ask yours about it).

One thing that I did that I think helped dd a lot was to tell her she can ask me or tell me about anything she wanted to including anything her dad ever said-that I would never get mad or hurt at what she repeated. That way she knew that I would never be upset (to her) if she repeated something negative about me.

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’m making some assumptions here: it sounds like you would prefer not to incur the costs of trial, correct? Unfortunately, there is really no way to get these issues in front of a judge without going to trial. That’s where the leverage is: “if you don’t accept this settlement, we will tell the court about your road rage.”

Has your ex asked for more parenting time?

Your ex will then assess 1) how compelling that argument and evidence really is in terms and 2) if he really thinks you are willing/able to put $75,000+ and the 85% custody you currently have on the table to go to trial.

My recommendations are to find a therapist to help you identify/accept what you can/can’t control and what appropriate boundaries are with your ex and your child, and then document everything else in the event you do go to trial.

Before you talk to your attorney, identify what you want in this situation: full custody with supervised visitation? The status quo? Then ask your attorney what you need to prove to accomplish that. Specifically, what kind of evidence do you need: what is the threshold for abuse in your jurisdiction? What are possible allegations/defenses to anticipate from your ex? What are the outcomes your attorney typically sees in your jurisdiction in these circumstances? What are projected expenses to accomplish this?

And then you ask about alternatives, and decide if you can live with those alternatives.

Does your ex actually want 50/50? Or does he not want to pay child support? My ex asked for 50/50 and then decided he didn't want custody at all.