My crazy ex and his crazy live-in girlfriend are making my life hell, HELP!

[scarycheri]

I am new to this but I am going to jump right into it. I need to bounce some of what is going on lately with my ex off of some people who have been in my position. Sorry for the novel...lol
I left my ex in 2005. I was a stay-at-home mom to our only child. I gave him everything he wanted, except our daughter. Needless to say when I told him it was over it got ugly and he threatened me with a knife which resulted in a criminal record for him. Violence was not the norm in our relationship.

Due to his large amount of lawyer bills he requested that we see a mediator and make a separation agreement which we did. We have both moved on with our lives. Everything was going well until he cut off all communication with me and started using his live-in girlfriend as a go-between. It was a gradual thing that started with him asking if she could pick up our daughter for his access weekend because he was running late and escalated to his gf calling me to talk about additional access she had negotiated with my 9yr old daughter. Although I was uncomfortable with her involvement I allowed her to be involved as long as my daughter was happy. I had deviated from our agreement on many occasions so that my ex could have extra time with our daughter & even gave up some of my weekends with her to accomidate his plans.

About 4 months ago the crying started. My daughter would cry when I dropped her off at her dad's and he wasn't there. She didn't want to stay with his gf. I attempted to call my ex to talk to him about my concerns but was never able to talk to him because she would intercept the calls. I had expressed to her my concern with her level in involvement but nothing changed. I finally had enough & emailed him to let him know that I was not happy with the lack of communication between us. I told him that I was going to follow our agreement to the letter and that all communication from his gf would not be entertained by me.

Shortly before I sent this email there had been a situation where he had dropped by the daycare my daughter attends to visit her. Because I have full custody of our daughter he is not listed as a guardian on any of the forms there. The staff were concerned with his presence and expressed it to me. The daycare is run out of my daughters school and he had been at the school to see her teacher, which I consented to. He was escorted out of the school by the teacher only to re-enter through a side door to see my daughter. When I found this out I emailed him to let him know that myself and the staff at the school and daycare were not impressed. The email infuriated him which caused him to approach daycare officials. He produced a confusing paragraph in our agreement that he feels gives him the right to drop by to see our daughter when ever he wants. The daycare does not want to get involved and is confused by the whole thing.

I called my ex, who finally took my call after months of no contact. I had decided not to fight with him and let him know that I was ok to drop by the daycare to visit our daughter as long as he wasn't disrupting the program. He told me he got a lawyer and is going after me. I expressed to him that this was something we could work out ourselves. He would have nothing of it.

This weekend I gave him a letter drafted by me letting him know that I have enrolled our daughter for summer camp and require payment this week as I was required to pay the entire $1330 in full. I also did some research and drafted a letter asking for his proof of income for 2008. I provided mine to him with this letter, receipts for daycare, a copy of the simplified child support tables and the federal child support guidelines. During our conversation he expressed his concern that he was paying me too much so I thought I would resolve this by updating his support and his contribution to special expenses.

I was reading through our agreement and found that he has 30 days to pay me in regards to support and special expenses or I can file with FRO. He doesn't want me to use FRO. April 3rd will be 30 days since I requested. I was going to send him another letter this week reminding him that I will file with FRO if he doesn't pay me by April 3rd.

I guess what I am asking is; am I taking this too far? Is there another way to handle this?

P.S. I am still scared of him after what he did to me & I think he knows it.

[standing on the sidelines]

i would try to avoid FRO at all costs. There are so many horror stories about money taking forever the reach the CP even when it is taken off of NCP on a regular basis.

Did something happen between daughter and GF?? Maybe there was a discipline issue or something? It seemed like at the start there were no problems.

[yearsgone]

I know you meant well...

I had deviated from our agreement on many occasions so that my ex could have extra time with our daughter & even gave up some of my weekends with her to accommodate his plans.

but you have created this problem. You had an agreement in place and gradually let it slide. Also you should never put the daycare in the position of policing your ex. Daycare is not a place for him to "visit". Your only recourse is to get a legal document in place, pay for a lawyer and get things settled once and for all, in detail - and stick to it. Your ex is entitled to see his daughter, but it must be made clear that his GF is not him. Your daughter has to be protected first.

[scarycheri]

I guess by not being a bitch & trying to be flexible and accomidating I created an issue. I thought that I was doing the right thing. I guess not. As for a new issue between my daughter & the gf, I don't think there was a specific issue. My daughter is pretty easy going. I have no problems with her being disaplined by my current husband or anyone else for that matter. When I asked her why she was upset she explained that her dad works a lot during his access weekends & she doesn't get to see him much. I know he is required to be on call every few months but he should plan ahead and trade with a co-worker. As for getting a lawyer it's not in the cards. My husband was re-negotiating his agreement with his ex and had to stop mid way because we ran out of money. I am doing this on my own.

[billm]

I think that that you are being resonable in most ways. I think that if your daughter does not want to go to her dad's when he will not be there, then it is reasonable to pull back to the original agreement. Otherwise you should encourange additional time with her father.

As for support payments it should be straight forward. He should follow the agreement, assuming that it is reasonable and follows close to the child support tables. If he does not comply with the agreement then I think the FRO is a reasonable solution for you - he can avoid it simply by paying what he agreed to and by suppling income information as is part of your agreement.

You need to make it clear that you will not deal with the gf - he is the parent as are you and you need to communicate directly.

Access during day care I think is an issue that you should be flexibile on. If he wants to visit his child when you are not in direct custody then he should be treated like a parent and allowed access.

Be simple, be fair, be straight forward. Tell him what you think is reasonable and in the end if you can't agree then the agreement is the deciding factor. If you both decide to deviate from the agreement for the better of your child then that is the right thing to do, I don't think that is a problem, that is being reasonable.

[FL_Needs_To_Change]

I too feel that once you have started with the FRO it may aggravate the situation as they are over worked and understaffed. They have difficulty at time enforcing orders and in some cases they loose sight of things and go over board for the minor infractions and ignore the major issues. Things tend to get all messed up when using FRO. The basic principal behind the FRO are great, but in reality they simply do not work.

FRO in my opinion, is primarily for those couples that simply cannot get along on any level, and that does not appear to be your situation.
I see that the ex has sloughed off some of his parental responsibilities to the new GF, which to him seems reasonable as she is there all the time and his schedule does not always allow for him to be. And you appear to have accommodated this well. I really think this is a bump in the road that can turn into a nasty pot hole or can be smoothed over depending on the road taken by both you and your ex.

You obviously have an ability to get along with respect to the daughter. I feel like dad is using the day care as a convenient means to see his daughter given his hectic schedule. I agree that he should not be treated like an intruder in his daughter's life with respect to the day care or their personnel. However, they should not be made to feel like they are in the middle either, as this will disrupt the program and the others working there as well as the other children. Day care in this age is hard enough to get you don’t want to loose it because of this.

I think that he should be allowed access at day care if it does not disrupt the routine of the day care providers. A simple explanation that this is the daughter’s biological father, that his schedule is hectic and that if it is ok with them can he have some time with the daughter while she is in their care? Perhaps just a heads up from him that he’ll be there on a certain date would be satisfactory. The extra time if afforded means he gets to spend time along with his daughter without the GF. This works for both dad and daughter. It can be seen as their special time. Alternately things can get ugly if he’s denied this. First he’ll feel that you’re alienating him, and he’ll feel like you are treating him like a stranger in his daughter’s life when all he’s looking for his extra time alone with her.
Your reaction and how you deal with this will have a huge impact on how this turns out. If you make it out to be a terrible thing, it will be perceived as terrible by the day care as well as the daughter and they will respond according to you. I think it’s good that dad wants more time with the daughter and if it is ok with day care it will indeed be a good thing for the daughter, and she’ll have her one on one time with dad that she is craving.

I’d still make sure he knew how it upset you and how it disrupted the day care. Explain he needs to be more aware of how his actions affect the daughter’s routine. Then try to hammer out the CS (as that should be black and white) his income, relative to the table amounts, plus his proportionate share of other costs. Did you mention the summer camp to him in advance and that you intended to enrol her?
Sometimes even the best intentions are seen as negative to the paying parent because they come from left field. Not to mention because you are having the issues with the GF and the day care this may be seen as you using money as a means to get back at him even if that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s extremely difficult, I know, to step back and ask, how is this perceived, how does this affect the daughter even if she is not a personal witness, your stresses can be felt by her. Kids are super perceptive in their younger years. Try stepping outside the box and looking in, maybe that’ll help you understand him more and allow him to understand you more. You obviously have a good ability to work with him, as you’ve demonstrated, I think it’s worth the extra effort to make sure it doesn’t go south now. You two are going to be parents for along time to come.