Immediately introducing his girlfriend to the kids and moving in with her weren't the only things XH was ignoring in the court order. The paperwork stipulated that there was to be no substance use during or 8 hours prior to our parenting time. XH was still drinking around the kids, but he seriously thought it was okay because he asked their permission first. The paperwork also said the kids either had to be with his family or with me during the day while he was at work...but he was leaving them home alone with his girlfriend's kids all day. The problem was that there were 5-6 kids (ranging from 12 to 2 when his other kid was there) and they didn't get along. This led to arguments about who was the "boss" and phone calls to me asking what they should do when one of the kids was being mean...or whatever they were arguing about at the time.
When the school year started, XH basically abandoned his role as a parent all together. The kids started living with XH's parents during all of his weekday parenting time and often one or both of his weekends each month. It seemed interesting that he'd tried for so many years to get custody and say he was the better parent...then he just stopped caring and relied on his family to raise the kids in his absence.
Meanwhile, he got engaged to his girlfriend in December 2015 and the girls weren't oblivious to the fact that he was seeing his girlfriend's kids more than his own. My guess is that the girlfriend wasn't as interested in playing mother to his children as previous girlfriends were, and he was more interested in his life with her.
Things continued to get worse. The kids would come home with disturbing stories of the fights between XH and his girlfriend...which included calling my children names. They also talked about things her kids were doing while they were home alone...like throwing knives around and breaking light fixtures. During the weekends when XH actually did pick them up, the kids would be locked out of the house all day while XH and his girlfriend hung out inside. At one point, my oldest daughter wasn't feeling well, but they still wouldn't let her in the house. She ended up falling asleep leaning against a tree. Even XH's mother started to voice her concerns about the situation.
The kids got to the point where they didn't want to be around XH's girlfriend at all anymore...even if it meant not seeing their dad. They had gotten used to him not being around anyway so there wasn't much difference for them. During spring break, I filed a motion to modify custody and we readied ourselves for XH's reaction. As expected, he was livid. He picked up the kids from school the day he got the paperwork, yelled at them for a few hours, then dropped them off at his parents' house and didn't see them again until after court almost two weeks later.
Our first hearing was held on April 4, 2016. The judge gave each of us a few minutes to state our case. I explained all the ways XH wasn't following our existing order, that he was seeing the kids less than every other weekend, and some of the things happening at his girlfriend's house which caused the children to decide they didn't want to be there anymore. I'd prepared my case with dozens of pictures, text messages, Facebook posts and conversations, etc. to prove everything I'd written in the affidavit. As it turned out, I didn't even need all of the evidence...XH pretty much made my case for me.
XH didn't deny the allegations. He confirmed when he started dating his girlfriend, when he brought her around the kids, and when he moved in with her...all which happened in less than six months. He seemed confused and didn't have an answer when the judge questioned why he would go against the order. XH moved on to say that he wasn't seeing the kids because "some of us have to work" and that his parenting time is for his family to be able to see the kids, too. However, he left the kids home alone during the summer and over spring break instead of having them spend time with his family. His defense to that was that there isn't a state law dictating how old a child has to be to stay home alone. The judge told him it didn't matter what the law allowed, it was in the court order that he agreed to and is expected to follow.
Then in the same desperation it was originally conceived, XH held up the picture of the bruise on our daughter's leg from October 2014...and proceeded to give an entirely different story of what had supposedly happened than the story he'd written in the PFA affidavit. The judge asked him if this was something new that happened or if it had already been brought up in our last motion to change custody....because he wasn't going to listen to things the court had already ruled on. So that was dropped again.
The judge wasn't impressed. He issued a temporary order granting my motion while we completed the rest of the court process. The children would be living with me full-time and XH would see them four hours on Wednesdays and every other Friday-Sunday. The judge instructed him to actually spend that time with the kids unless he was at work and he was ordered not to have the kids around his girlfriend at all.
That same day, XH broke up with his fiance and moved back to his parents' house. The next day, he quit or was fired from his job. A short time later, the bank foreclosed on his house and his truck was repossessed.
His mom felt like what happened in court was a wake-up call for him, but I wasn't convinced. He was posting memes on Facebook all about being a dad and telling everyone that he was just going to focus on himself and his kids...which is what he does every time one of his relationships ends. It only lasts until he finds a new girlfriend and then she becomes the focus again. I assume all the talk about being a dad is just to impress potential women anyway.
I didn't know what to expect when we went back to the courthouse for our settlement conference, but I was shocked when XH said things seemed to be going fine and we could just keep it the way it was. After a decade of fighting over the kids, I didn't anticipate that. We spoke with the judge briefly and agreed that I'd be preparing the journal entry. And then that was it...no drama or frustration.
I typed up the final paperwork, which was basically just changing the dates and rewording from a proposed motion into a final parenting plan. However, when it came time to actually sign the paperwork, XH had a problem with the fact that things were no longer equal. For example, a portion of the paperwork stated that he'd forfeit his visitation if he was 30 minutes late without notifying me of the delay. XH wanted it to apply to both of us. He didn't understand that I didn't have visitation...the kids would be living with me. I think he was just desperately trying to hang on to is desire for control. And of course he took issue with the fact that he would now be paying child support, but that's standard when you don't have custody of your children. It's not like I came up with the amount...it's based on a specific formula defined by the State and prepared on a worksheet based on that. I even increased my imputed income so it would be less than what he could have had to pay...not that he appreciate it at all. He eventually signed the new paperwork and it was filed on June 1, 2016.
Despite losing shared custody and the judge lecturing XH, he continues to show complete disregard for the court order. He's not supposed to drink around the kids, but he still does. He's not supposed to immediately introduce and live with his girlfriends, but he keeps doing it. He's supposed to pay a portion of the out-of-pocket medical costs, but he doesn't. I doubt things will ever actually change.
The recommendation of the CCI still echoes in my mind. Her statement that XH should end up with primary custody because he had a job, could provide more stability, and was involved in the kids' extra-curricular activities is laughable, at best. It wasn't true back then, but it certainly isn't true now. Everything XH had when she wrote that...is gone. He was fired from that good-paying job (and has been unemployed multiple times since...including by choice in order to avoid paying child support), has not had a home of his own (he lives with his multitude of girlfriends or friends and family), and didn't have a vehicle of his own since his truck was repossessed in 2016 until he bought a different truck in January 2020...then lost that too. He can't provide stability for himself, much less his kids. And not only is he not involved in the kids' activities, he's gone long periods of time without even seeing or talking to the kids at all. I wish that CCI could see how things turned out and just how wrong she really was.
What has my life been like since the CCI recommendation?
Read on: Part 5: The Remarriage