Conference quokka::non_custodial_parents

140.0. "Life goes on???" by CAPITN::HIPP_KR () Wed Jul 03 1991 16:32

    I'm going to follow suit from note 122. and do some "venting".  I'm in
    the process of getting a divorce and I have a 2-year old involved.  I
    just file the papers against him (he lives in Hawaii, I live in Calif.)
    because I didn't want Hawaii to have jurisdiction over our daughter.  I
    did all the paperwork myself and typed up a Marital Settlement
    Agreement stipulating everything we had "agreed" on.  We had not
    discussed the visitation plans and I was very, very liberal.  I gave
    him every chance to see her.  Now I have 2 problems:  1) he's in the
    military, so he can't be served a subpoena, and he gets his attorney
    for free, and 2) he doesn't agree with the MSA.  There are a few issues
    that he said he didn't agree upon and I said that it was just a first
    draft and that I was willing to change things.  He said that I
    shouldn't have done it myself anyway and that he's going to get an
    attorney and I better do the same.  I'm so hurt and pretty upset.  It
    will cost me $$ that I don't have (especially when he doesn't want to
    pay the agreed amount in the Legal Separation). I know he's thinking
    that this way a total "power play" that I did all the paperwork myself,
    but I have a paralegal certificate, knew I could do it, and figured it
    would save alot of $ for us.  In reading the notes from different
    people I know how difficult it is for the NCP to not feel alot of pain,
    and therefore avoid seeing the child (which unfortunately I know will
    happen in my case), and I'm devastated.  I do not want that to happen
    to my daughter and reading note 122. I've gotten some good ideas on how
    to handle it.  Even though I'm jumping the gun a little, I feel I need
    to prepare myself the best I can for the upcoming questions.  My
    daughter today saw a program with a mommy, daddy, and a little girl,
    and she said "I have a mommy", and I told her she had a daddy, too and
    she said "oh".  He calls very rarely now that we've started with
    divorce proceedings.  Well, I'm just feeling a little blue right now
    reading this conference.  I guess there's no winners in this divorce
    "game".  
    Kristy

		Given your circumstances, especially since your ex is in the
	military, get to a lawyer. All divorces with children are ugly, painful,
	and require lawyers. I went through a divorce where we ended up with
	joint physical custody- one week here one week there... which is very
	difficult to achieve-judges are not very willing to grant this because it
	requires so much close communication bewteen the two parties. We were
	and are able to communicate and deal lots of issues but lawyers were
	still required. In fact we were able to comunicate well enough that
	on several occasinons we were able to stop the lawyers from actions that
	would have cost lots of legal bucks. But my case is unusual and over
	a year of joint counseling was needed to get there, and we still needed
	the lawyers. My belief is that anyone facing divorce with a child 
	involved requires both a counselor and a lawyer get through it.