Question by MJS: Wanting to become primary parent.?
My boyfriend of 3 years was involved with his daughter from the day she was born until just after her first birthday. After her birthday him and his ex broke up and she changed his number, moved and made it impossible for him to contact her. He was only 18 at the time, did not have knowledge of his rights and did not have the money to get a lawyer. In June of 2009 my friend saw her walking out of an apartment building, were she lived, we found her number through the complex and he called her and said if you do not let me see my child I will take you to court. She let him see her for about 2 months and he paid her child support at the time. She told him to sign papers legalizing the child support and he said he would be happy to if she would sign papers giving him visitation rights, she refused and told him he could no longer see her. He then proceeded with a lawyer filing for joint custody. During the custody battle she lied on court documents saying he never paid her child support. While in fact he has checks that she endorsed where “—-‘s Child Support September 2009″ and continued providing her with checks each month even after she did not allow him to see her, she just chose not to cash them, yet he does have proof that he was sending her something in certified mail each month. In the end he was awarded joint legal and physical custody. The parenting plan says he gets her every other weekend from 10 am on Friday till 10 am on Sunday. Also every Wednesday from 10 am till 6 pm. And the Mondays following her weekend custody time from 10 am Monday till 4 pm Tuesday. Because she is legally responsible for doing half the driving, that is to our house she said it would be easier for them to just do him having her Wednesday at 10 am until Firday 6 pm one week and Wednesday 10 am till Saturday 6 pm the next. So essentially they were splitting time in half. Recently, because they got into an argument she decided to “punish” him by insisting they go back to the court ordered schedule. She refused to drop her off that Wednesday as required and said “if you want to see her you have to pick her up” he called her a particular word and filed a police report saying she violated the custody agreement and went to pick her up. When we arrived at the house her fiance and “father in law” were waiting at the door in an intimidating way. Right away we had a police officer join us to pick her up to keep the peace (my boyfriend has already been physically threatened by her fiance and we don’t want to be involved in any altercations). Her fiance tried to be aggressive even in front of the officer and we have a voice recording of everything that occurred, including the officer telling him to “Stop being aggressive and just give him his child so he can leave”. He has a history of violence, punching holes in walls in which cases the police were called and such. My boyfriend has offered to take co-parenting classes with her since it would be in the interest of their daughter if they got along, she refused. She refuses to refer to him as dad when speaking to their daughter and just says oh “You are going to Matt’s house” not dad’s house, which is belittling as a parent and we would never do that to her since it just hurts the child. And she doesn’t find his time with her to be important. She also insists on her attending a school that has “below average” scores while we live in a great school district and have even offered to do the driving if she goes there. Because she is so unwilling to get try along and because of his anger issues is there any chance that he could fight to be the primary parent? Not to mention they are both young parents, she is 20 and has had her second child and plans on having more in the near future, she receives more specialized attention with us (also, the last judge even said “she has two kids?” in a shocked sort of manner). He by no means wants to take custody away from her, he believes she deserves a relationship with her mother. He just believes she has a more stable household with us (especially because of her fiancé’s anger problems) and that it is her interests to live primarily with us, rather than her. We are seeing a lawyer tomorrow, we just are interested in what to expect. We live in Missouri if that helps.
That was really complicated so I will list the reasons he wants to be the primary parent:
Her fiance has been extremely violent and has anger issues.
Neither of them support her relationship with him while we do. We even refer to her soon to be step father as “Daddy Mark” because that’s how she know him.
She refuses to work collaboratively.
She does not involve him when it comes to doctors and day care nor does she want to hear his opinion, when he has a legal right (joint custody) to have a say in it all. She just brings him bills and tells him to pay half.
Best answer:
Answer by George McCasland
This will help.
http://dads-house.org/EducationalManual
http://ChildSupportRights.org/ChildSupport-WhatUNeed2Know
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Federal Child Support Enforcement Handbook for Non-Custodial Parents
http://ChildSupportRights.org
http://childsupportrights.org/ChildSupportNTaxes
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