Court Update

[Kimberley]

Well, we had our 2nd court date this morning. I have been able to have a few things ordered thankfully.
Firstly, they ordered him to pay his offer of $500 monthly due at the end of every month starting this month - he has not provided financial disclosure as of yet, so once he does the court will be adjusting the amount and also order the retroactive amount.
I have been given interim custody, they have listed his access for every 2nd Sunday beginning Sept 21, from 9am to 7pm. And they have further ordered that he retain the no-contact order in place on his live-in partner.
Also, since he stated through his lawyer that he would be bringing the matter to Superior court under the divorce act, the judge also ordered that it be done in a timely fashion, and the open date of 'reasonable' was not enough; so, she set a new court date of November 18th for him to bring the application of divorce, and to ensure he has provided financial disclosure to adjust the child support amount and order the retroactive amount.
The interim orders will carry over to the Supreme court, and the forms were also completed to submit to the FRO in court (since I know his SIN, Mother's maiden name etc this made it easier to complete right away).

Now it's a matter of waiting who knows how many months for child support to finally show up.

Thanks to all here, I will certainly update as things progress!

[dadtotheend]

Don't want to say I told you so...but I'm not at all surprised that you got interim custody, which is HUGE. It's all but over now. No way they are going to change that.

The child support (with retroactivity when his financials are done) and FRO orders are huge as well. As much as the FRO is a knee-jerk joke of an operation, it will work to your advantage, albeit slowly.

Bet your glad you went ahead "...on all the issues...". If you hadn't, the delays would have continued. BTW, did he and his lawyer show up? Did the lawyer try to argue, other than to bring it to Superior Court because of the divorce?

Bet you also not totally happy, just relieved. That's how I felt when I got custody.

[Kimberley]

I'm feeling a lot better about things, that's for sure.
His lawyer was there, he was not. I spoke to his lawyer before court about my response and his offer, he agreed that my ex needed to take responsibility, but that I was asking him for guarantees he could not give, I also told him that I did not feel comfortable leaving the portion about the filing for a divorce so open, thus he had agreed to state 3 months to the court.
The judge was obviously displeased with the lawyer to begin with. She asked me if the $500 was acceptable, I told her it was $500 more a month than he has been paying in more than a year.
She also wanted to know if I wanted him to even see the kids. She told his lawyer when he mentioned access "he hasn't bothered with them in months at all, barely visited in more than a year, what makes you think he'll change?"
I told her I wanted him to have access, the kids want to see him and I want them to have the knowledge that they would get to see him. So she first ordered the 2nd Sunday visits, but at his parent's place. I told her that if we bound him to that, he may very well use that as an excuse not to take them for visits, so she removed that requirement & instead added the addition of no contact to his girlfriend.

While I do realize that going the FRO route means I have to wait, if I do not go that route, I'm certain that he'd force me to go back to court yet again to try & get it dealt with, find him in contempt - whatever it took to make things more difficult on me. It was the best method to deal with it.

[singledad99]

Congratulations. So basically you got all what you wanted. Now if he wants to drag the matter, let him. I like the part where you insisted to have the access and that shows you are sincere to your children.

Did you get your costs as well?

[Tanya]

Congrats. But welcome to the world of the FRO. They are so slow, and I have yet to see a red cent from my ex, despite the fact he works for the TTC. You would think it would be easy for them to garnish his wages, but its been years.

Your best to consider yourself a single Mom, responsible for both emotional and financial support, and if your lucky, you get some help from your ex. But I find that once they move on with their lives and have a new partner and second family, they could care less about their first family.

Sorry if I sound cynical, but that is what happened to me, and because I live in co-op housing, same with all the other Moms. There are hundreds of us, and all in just one building. I am sure they are a hundred others like us in other areas.

I applaud the men that post here in support of their first families, but suspect they are in tiny percentage.

[Kimberley]

Singledad99 - I decided not to push the matter, what was most important was ordered.

The next court date is November 18th, which is more than 60 days after order - if I haven't seen anything, I will bring this up to the Judge - she was already angry that they had only offered $500 as she peppered his lawyer with questions about his financial not being filed and intends to check up on that in November, so we'll see.