Drama never ends.

[Soiled]

Thanks for the input Clean, I appreciate it.

Avoid all phone conversations and limit all emails. Trust me it is cheaper than trying to reason with them.

That's the most amusing part of everything to me. The first thing her new lawyer did upon being retained is send me a letter stating that if I attempt to contact my ex in any way, they will use that as evidence for a no contact order.

Help her lawyer rack up billable hours by passing on routine kid messages? Done deal, not a problem for me whatsoever... Kids got a vaccination scheduled, that's an email to her lawyer. Confirmation of where the kids will be while schools done online, that's another email.

Her bills are likely obscene.

[Soiled]

In the end the EICC resulted in a consent order for the kids to be able to see a psychologist and one parent cannot remove consent now. In addition the practice note 8 parenting assessment will happen, with her paying all costs herself, retainer for that is at least $35,000. I have no idea how she is gonna afford that on top of her lawyers fees.

Didn't have to consent to the PN8, but with how the judge was talking and how the ex seems to be bound and determined to fight a crazy fight, I figured I could at least come across as somewhat reasonable and at the same time make her eat the costs for now. The assessment should be very interesting with all the issues she's had of late in her relationship with the children. I'm going to make a separate topic for some of that though.

[cranberry]

Wow, that's insane. The retainer for our private assessment, requested by and paid fully by him, was $15K.

[Soiled]

Wow, that's insane. The retainer for our private assessment, requested by and paid fully by him, was $15K.

Her and her lawyer have been trying to make me give in to their demands by scaring me with how much family law costs. One of those scare tactics was to request that one of the most expensive psychologists in the city do the assessment, and saying I would have to pay half the costs. Backfired in the end it seems.

[cranberry]

When the judge granted my ex's request, he ordered that he choose three professionals but I got to choose. One could say the 15K was my "fault" lol. The assessment itself backfired on him. He was expecting her to declare our boys be removed from me immediately. She didn't and pretty much recommended everything I had put in my OTS. What a waste.

[Tayken]

Assessments are useless. They should never be used.

[Soiled]

An update in the event that somebody with questions on this sort of situation comes across the thread.

Assessment is still ongoing, it only actually started 3 months ago, and the assessor figures he will be done around the end of summer. It's a pretty ridiculous process so far, feels as though the assessor is just filling in the blanks on a pre written form most of the time. There was even a full day that consisted of approximately 1700 multiple choice / sliding scale questions.

Entire thing feels as though its generally geared towards much younger children (mine are 12 & 14), questions involving changing of diapers, actions taken when the child is crying, etc. Observation sessions have included the board game 'Trouble' as well as lego and drawing pictures.

What's astounding to me is that there is no questions for, or on, or interest in my step-daughter that my kids have lived with every other week for the past 9 years.