Hi All,
Looking for a sounding board on my joint parenting issues lately, as I'm having doubts.
Background: Ex and I have 50/50 joint custody of D5 with a judge-signed custody and access agreement. We have had one previous court application where Ex tried (October 2013) and ultimately failed (June 2014) to move D5's daycare location to be closer to Ex's new home, 25 km away. You can search my post history for that thread.
Our custody agreement includes a paragraph that states we shall provide an itinerary to the other parent in advance of travel plans, and that written consent to travel shall be provided upon request.
1. I want to take D5 to Disneyland later this year with my parents and my partner. I've provided Ex the itinerary.
I've been asking in email since April 2014 over 10 times in various ways for Ex's signature on D5's passport application along with a signature on a consent to travel letter. Ex never complies, nor says what the issue is - either I get no response, or insistence on a face-to-face meeting.
I have tried requesting Ex's signature in person on two occasions, at D5 transition time, and during a soccer practice, along with stuffing the passport application in D5's bag during transitions and notifying Ex it was there in email. These attempts have been met with responses such as: "Oh well!" or "we need to make sure the travel works for both of us, book a meeting".
2. With regards to face-to-face meetings, given our conflicted past, and prior attempts at this with and without a third party councillor, these usually aren't productive. That said I've been trying to negotiate an order for a Parenting Coordinator with Arbitration Powers since January 2014.
Ex was wholly against the idea of a PC at first, but since their case was dismissed with costs awarded in June, where the judge highly recommended a PC, Ex has latched on to the idea of a PC as their condition to having any conversation with me - refusing to discuss matters in email.
3. Unfortunately we haven't been able to come to terms on this PC order.
Ex does not want arbitration powers to be given to a PC, and wants to restrict the PC to never meet with us individually or with third parties such as teachers/councillors, etc. Ex also wants the order to only be about retaining a PC for six months.
4. Ex's recent position is that they will sign the passport application but not provide travel to consent until we meet with a parenting coordinator (PC).
This seems like an attempt to coerce me into his watered down terms for the PC. Ex keeps telling me I don't know how to communicate, that I do not work to build trust and violate trust, and telling D5 that I am a poor listener (which she repeats to me). So I suspect this PC is going to be another blame session unless we have a strong PC that keeps us in line.
Ex also sent an ironically long email essay on the problems with written communication as an ineffective way to communicate , and that Ex has been resisting providing consent because they want to discuss ALL open matters regarding D5's parenting. This includes school location, their meal schedule, bedtime schedule, vaccinations, etc. I indicated that we both have parental autonomy on these matters, but Ex is insisting that all of these things should be joint decisions.
I presume a good PC will keep us both in check on this, but I am not sure.
SO, questions for the audience
1. If we cannot agree to terms for a PC, can Ex use this against me in court?
During our prior court application, Ex tried to use my unwillingness to mediate against me. I felt there was nothing to mediate -- we had a fundamental disagreement about D5's well-being.
The judge suggested that my unwillingness to mediate was part of her decision to only award me "full costs" rather than double costs in the previous court case. I'm not sure how to interpret that - should I be spending more of my money and time demonstrating my willingness to try to mediate, when it's traditionally been a waste? Or was it merely a warning to Ex? Perhaps both?
2. Should I apply to court to enforce our custody and access order re: consent to travel? Is this something that is usually decided as a morning chambers motion, or would it require special chambers?
My travel with D5 is coming up soon, and we won't have the PC order in time. There are no guarantees with morning chambers either, but there is a chance.
3. For this court application, I was leaning towards requesting a consent waiver for both of us - meaning that despite Ex's efforts to deny consent to travel, I trust Ex if they take D5 on vacation, I just expect Ex to do the same with me, and that we are expected to exchange Passports within 7 days of request, etc.
While my immediate need is that I want to travel with D5, my interest is not in removing Ex's rights, but rather to affirm that neither of us have the right to be gatekeepers to the other. Does this make sense?
4. Given that Ex wants to discuss ALL open parenting matters, I am tempted to present a comprehensive offer to settle, to deal with our pending schooling location issue and all other outstanding issues.
I am not sure this makes sense prior to my travel, I probably will provide an offer to settle if Ex just signs the damn travel consent letter and passport application, but I also am thinking to float a comprehensive offer to begin that discussion.
My concern is that Ex's head will explode upon receiving this. Our joint custody and access order is minimalist and THAT took almost a year to negotiate, and we only got to a signed order because both his previous lawyer and my lawyer clicked, to manage the mediation efficiently and ultimately to give him final draft so that Ex felt they "owned" the document.
My current belief is that a comprehensive offer to settle will never be agreed to unless we spend MONTHS in mediation to tweak it and ultimately let Ex rewrite the whole thing. That said, I'm not sure I have much of a choice here, other than court.... Thoughts?
Looking for a sounding board on my joint parenting issues lately, as I'm having doubts.
Background: Ex and I have 50/50 joint custody of D5 with a judge-signed custody and access agreement. We have had one previous court application where Ex tried (October 2013) and ultimately failed (June 2014) to move D5's daycare location to be closer to Ex's new home, 25 km away. You can search my post history for that thread.
Our custody agreement includes a paragraph that states we shall provide an itinerary to the other parent in advance of travel plans, and that written consent to travel shall be provided upon request.
1. I want to take D5 to Disneyland later this year with my parents and my partner. I've provided Ex the itinerary.
I've been asking in email since April 2014 over 10 times in various ways for Ex's signature on D5's passport application along with a signature on a consent to travel letter. Ex never complies, nor says what the issue is - either I get no response, or insistence on a face-to-face meeting.
I have tried requesting Ex's signature in person on two occasions, at D5 transition time, and during a soccer practice, along with stuffing the passport application in D5's bag during transitions and notifying Ex it was there in email. These attempts have been met with responses such as: "Oh well!" or "we need to make sure the travel works for both of us, book a meeting".
2. With regards to face-to-face meetings, given our conflicted past, and prior attempts at this with and without a third party councillor, these usually aren't productive. That said I've been trying to negotiate an order for a Parenting Coordinator with Arbitration Powers since January 2014.
Ex was wholly against the idea of a PC at first, but since their case was dismissed with costs awarded in June, where the judge highly recommended a PC, Ex has latched on to the idea of a PC as their condition to having any conversation with me - refusing to discuss matters in email.
3. Unfortunately we haven't been able to come to terms on this PC order.
Ex does not want arbitration powers to be given to a PC, and wants to restrict the PC to never meet with us individually or with third parties such as teachers/councillors, etc. Ex also wants the order to only be about retaining a PC for six months.
4. Ex's recent position is that they will sign the passport application but not provide travel to consent until we meet with a parenting coordinator (PC).
This seems like an attempt to coerce me into his watered down terms for the PC. Ex keeps telling me I don't know how to communicate, that I do not work to build trust and violate trust, and telling D5 that I am a poor listener (which she repeats to me). So I suspect this PC is going to be another blame session unless we have a strong PC that keeps us in line.
Ex also sent an ironically long email essay on the problems with written communication as an ineffective way to communicate , and that Ex has been resisting providing consent because they want to discuss ALL open matters regarding D5's parenting. This includes school location, their meal schedule, bedtime schedule, vaccinations, etc. I indicated that we both have parental autonomy on these matters, but Ex is insisting that all of these things should be joint decisions.
I presume a good PC will keep us both in check on this, but I am not sure.
SO, questions for the audience
1. If we cannot agree to terms for a PC, can Ex use this against me in court?
During our prior court application, Ex tried to use my unwillingness to mediate against me. I felt there was nothing to mediate -- we had a fundamental disagreement about D5's well-being.
The judge suggested that my unwillingness to mediate was part of her decision to only award me "full costs" rather than double costs in the previous court case. I'm not sure how to interpret that - should I be spending more of my money and time demonstrating my willingness to try to mediate, when it's traditionally been a waste? Or was it merely a warning to Ex? Perhaps both?
2. Should I apply to court to enforce our custody and access order re: consent to travel? Is this something that is usually decided as a morning chambers motion, or would it require special chambers?
My travel with D5 is coming up soon, and we won't have the PC order in time. There are no guarantees with morning chambers either, but there is a chance.
3. For this court application, I was leaning towards requesting a consent waiver for both of us - meaning that despite Ex's efforts to deny consent to travel, I trust Ex if they take D5 on vacation, I just expect Ex to do the same with me, and that we are expected to exchange Passports within 7 days of request, etc.
While my immediate need is that I want to travel with D5, my interest is not in removing Ex's rights, but rather to affirm that neither of us have the right to be gatekeepers to the other. Does this make sense?
4. Given that Ex wants to discuss ALL open parenting matters, I am tempted to present a comprehensive offer to settle, to deal with our pending schooling location issue and all other outstanding issues.
I am not sure this makes sense prior to my travel, I probably will provide an offer to settle if Ex just signs the damn travel consent letter and passport application, but I also am thinking to float a comprehensive offer to begin that discussion.
My concern is that Ex's head will explode upon receiving this. Our joint custody and access order is minimalist and THAT took almost a year to negotiate, and we only got to a signed order because both his previous lawyer and my lawyer clicked, to manage the mediation efficiently and ultimately to give him final draft so that Ex felt they "owned" the document.
My current belief is that a comprehensive offer to settle will never be agreed to unless we spend MONTHS in mediation to tweak it and ultimately let Ex rewrite the whole thing. That said, I'm not sure I have much of a choice here, other than court.... Thoughts?
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