All last week, the two lawyers went back and forth, trying to work out a deal to avoid going to court for today's hearing. A hearing costs each side $3,000, so I was interested in making a deal.
Up until late Friday, our side thought we had a one and that the child's mother would take the Order to Show Cause hearing set for today, off of the court's calendar.
As part of the deal, the child's mother had me visiting on Tuesday and Thursday from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm, and Friday overnight, from 7:00 pm to 7:00 pm Saturday.
I was relieved, until 6:00 pm on Friday, when the child's mother called and asked, "When are you picking him up tonight?"
What? Father and son have never spent the night alone. The child was still breastfeeding.
I signed her paper, even though I didn't like the visitation timing, and I figured that eventually, I will start doing overnights.
I asked to speak to my child, to get his opinion on overnights, but the mother refused to put him on the phone. So I refused to pick him up and start overnight visit right there and then. She asked me if I would consider doing it the following Friday, and I said I would, but only if the child agreed.
This was not acceptable to her. She was trying to use me to break the child's habit and attachment to her, and to get out of her maternal responsibility.
I am unwilling to do overnights for many reasons. First of all, it is a unilateral decision made by the mother, and neither child or father are given a voice in the matter. But more importantly, I realize that in this most stressful time for the child, a time of losing both father and family, that forcing my child to go through a further loss of a mother, even for one night, would be too traumatic.
This is just common sense, something lacking in most mothers during this time of heightened responsibilities, or as one mother put it, "baby jail".
Many divorced fathers have other women around them to help smooth the transition for young children to living with dad. Toddlers are able to cope better at being away from mom when they are comforted by grandmothers, aunts, and relatives from the other side of the fence. Even a father's new girlfriend might help in this transition.
I have absolutely no one in Los Angeles.
Common sense dictates that I do overnights only until the child is ready and comfortable being away from his mother. It will be the child's choice. Not mine, or that of the mother.
She figured as much. So she decided to go to court with her visitation plan to get the judge to force me to do overnights.
she called on Sunday to tell me she was going to court for the OSC hearing today and that I had better get my lawyer there.
What? What about our deal? She explained that because it was a domestic violence issue, the court could not postpone it.
Domestic violence?
One brief outburst of expletives during five months of the most stressful time in my life equals to domestic violence? And let's not forget what I'm so upset about - the timing of visitations being restricted to the child's nap time in the afternoon, which she refused to changed. Fucking bullshit.
We sat in court waiting a couple of hours for my lawyer to show up.
