First off, I would like to thank everyone on this site, as it has been very helpful recently.
A little background:
I am self repping. My settlement conference is in April. It is a very easy case and one that I should not need too much guidance on (thanks in large part to my research on these threads )
My current partner and I have been together for 3 1/2 years. He also has a child from a previous relationship, with a final consent order for about a year now. He has EOW and one night a week for a 3 hour visit. Mother is VERY controlling and will not consent to increased time, and on average cancels one weekend visit per month and declines a make up visit (we have started documenting this). The weeknight visit is an issue. By the time he picks child up (6y/o) he only has 1 or two hours with her as she is normally already exhausted at this point and needs to be home at a reasonable time to be ready for school the next day. When he originally got the order, the child had just finished her first year of school. Mother was very difficult during court proceedings and would not allow visits for a long time. As such he was not familiar with her school schedule by the time he got his order. He has requested to the mother an increase from the weeknight visit of 3 hours to an overnight weeknight visit once a week (we would pick her up from school and drop her off in the morning). She has declined, but we knew she would. Her reasoning is that we live too far for her to be travelling to our house on a weeknight. For any curious minds, we live just outside the city, approximately a 15 minute drive to the child’s school from our doorstep.
My question is, do you think it’s reasonable to file for a motion to change on this. Based on the fact that material change has occurred because child is now in school full time and a weeknight visit for 3 hours is not feasible. Child would be fast asleep on us if we kept her for the full 3 hours. And the father would enjoy being more involved with her in school, and getting her up and ready to go to school at least once a week.
Also any suggestions on what to do about the constant visit cancellations would be helpful. They are never for a valid reason. Just “her friend has a birthday party Saturday afternoon, so she will not be coming this weekend” and stuff like that. Like I said we are documenting but what should the next step be? Contempt motion? From what I’ve read about them they sound daunting.
TIA
A little background:
I am self repping. My settlement conference is in April. It is a very easy case and one that I should not need too much guidance on (thanks in large part to my research on these threads )
My current partner and I have been together for 3 1/2 years. He also has a child from a previous relationship, with a final consent order for about a year now. He has EOW and one night a week for a 3 hour visit. Mother is VERY controlling and will not consent to increased time, and on average cancels one weekend visit per month and declines a make up visit (we have started documenting this). The weeknight visit is an issue. By the time he picks child up (6y/o) he only has 1 or two hours with her as she is normally already exhausted at this point and needs to be home at a reasonable time to be ready for school the next day. When he originally got the order, the child had just finished her first year of school. Mother was very difficult during court proceedings and would not allow visits for a long time. As such he was not familiar with her school schedule by the time he got his order. He has requested to the mother an increase from the weeknight visit of 3 hours to an overnight weeknight visit once a week (we would pick her up from school and drop her off in the morning). She has declined, but we knew she would. Her reasoning is that we live too far for her to be travelling to our house on a weeknight. For any curious minds, we live just outside the city, approximately a 15 minute drive to the child’s school from our doorstep.
My question is, do you think it’s reasonable to file for a motion to change on this. Based on the fact that material change has occurred because child is now in school full time and a weeknight visit for 3 hours is not feasible. Child would be fast asleep on us if we kept her for the full 3 hours. And the father would enjoy being more involved with her in school, and getting her up and ready to go to school at least once a week.
Also any suggestions on what to do about the constant visit cancellations would be helpful. They are never for a valid reason. Just “her friend has a birthday party Saturday afternoon, so she will not be coming this weekend” and stuff like that. Like I said we are documenting but what should the next step be? Contempt motion? From what I’ve read about them they sound daunting.
TIA
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