My ex and I went to court in July 2010 for custody, visitation and child support for our child who is two now. I was awarded primary physical custody while father has certain visitations and we both share joint legal custody. Since my ex and I decided to split up, he has more often than not, harassed me, threatened me, and not followed his court papers. In the papers, they say that we are not to harass one another, not to speak negatively about one another in front of or to the minor child, and on Halloween, the father is to get "at least (2) two hours for trick or treating."

My ex gets our son for visitation every other Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and every other Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Starting this month, he get's to have our son over night on the Fridays that are his.

First of all, Friday, my son was with his father and his girlfriend from 9:00 a.m. until 5 p.m. He is supposed to pick him up at 7:30 a.m., but said he couldn't until 9:00 a.m. My son had an appt. with the dr. that day to get his flu shot so I asked my ex if he would pick him up from day care at 9:00 a.m. and take him to the dr. for his shot and then call me afterwards to let me know how it went. I never received a phone call. At 12:30 p.m. that day, I called his cell phone and no answer. I called again around 1:30 and again around 2:30. No answer. Finally at 3:40 p.m. he answered. He said everything went fine. I asked to speak to my son over the phone. My ex started yelling at him saying "GET OVER HERE!" and I could hear our son crying. I asked my ex if he had given our son a nap yet today. He said he slept for 30 minutes. I told him that was not long enough and that our son usually takes a 2.5 to 3 hour nap daily and that may be a reason why he was upset. Not to mention getting a shot that morning. I asked him politely if he needed any tips in helping him go down for a nap. He said no and was very disrespectful. I said okay and asked him if he would please have our son in the clothes I sent him to day care in when I came to get him at 5:00 so that I could put his costume on him real quick since our son was competing in a costume contest at 5:30. We have had problems with this multiple times before. In fact, my ex REFUSES to put him back in his clothes EVERY single time he has him. Even if it is just for a two hour visit. I told him this was so I could put his costume on over his clothes since it was cooler and would be quicker. He got very upset with me and screamed "NO!" and hung up the phone on me. I did not call him back. At 5:00 p.m. I met them at the courthouse where the contest was. He was not in his clothes. He was in another costume that they had bought for him and he was not in a good mood. I just walked up to them and said, "Okay well we're going to go, I don't have time to change him and then put his costume on." I told my son to say bye and I picked him up and started to walk away. I had parked on the other side of the courthouse across the street at the bank. My ex and his girlfriend followed us all the way to my car screaming profanities at me and calling me names telling me to turn around and give them their (bad word) costume back now. I kept my mouth shut except to tell them to leave me alone and when I crossed the street, my friend was in his truck and waved. I said "Help me please!" and so my friend jumped out and walked with me to the car. My ex and his girlfriend came right up to the car and demanded that they have their costume back right then and there and called me names in front of our son. My son was screaming crying telling daddy to stop. My ex kept saying "Look what you're doing to him!" He started to walk off and his girlfriend said, "No I paid a lot of money for that costume I want it back!" so they kept harassing me. I just decided to take the costume off of him and give it to them. My son was so upset. He just screamed and cried the whole time. My ex kept telling me this was all my fault so I stood up and told him it wasn't and to go away again. My friend was there the whole time and witnessed the entire event. I finally took my son home and had to consol him for a few hours off an on. He didn't sleep well that night and kept waking up from bad dreams. My son rarely ever has bad dreams.

Secondly,since Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, my ex decided not to tell me anything until the night of October 30th in a voicemail that he would be keeping our son for two extra hours and that it is what his lawyer said the papers claimed. But that is untrue. The papers do not say that. They just say "at least" not "additional." He had our son from 9 a.m. that morning and for the previous two days for multiple hours. I am not trying to be difficult, I am just trying to follow the paperwork. Last night (Halloween) he refused to give our son back to me and I went to the police station and spoke with an officer. The officer gave my ex a call and told him that that is what the papers said and that he needs to be more cooperative. My ex got so infuriated with the officer and started arguing with him and eventually hung up on him. It was ridiculous! He really upset the officer. The officer advised me to be at my ex's house at 5 p.m. to pick up the child. If the father was not there, then document that I was there and to wait a little while. I waiting until 5:30 p.m. and no one showed up. I even called my ex and told him I was there to get our son and told him the court papers said 5 p.m. He just told me to file a motion with the courts to find him in contempt of court.

This is so frustrating. I just want to live my life and follow the court papers. I believe my son needs his father in his life, but I do not believe my ex understands that he does not have custody, I do, and that he is continually making it hard on our son and me. I do not harass, I do not badger, I do not cuss, I do not flip off, I do not say anything derogatory, nothing. I offer his parents one day a week that is not on my ex's visitation days to spend with our son. I offer my ex's grandmother hours every other weekend with our son. I let him get away with so much and offer his family more than they even deserve. I can still call up his mother and have a conversation about anything with her. It is just my ex and his girlfriend that keep making things difficult. I want to file a motion against him to find him in contempt of court because he cannot harass like that and he cannot speak negatively about me to or around our son. This is causing psychological damage to our son!

So my question is this, how do I go about this? Do I have to get another lawyer? I really don't have the money for one. I am a single mom and finishing up college. What would happen if this was presented to the judge? Could we call the officer that spoke to my ex on the stand to show how angry he gets? What would happen to my ex? I want what is fair and just and I want my son and me to be safe from this kind of abuse. What can I do?

In the real world, about the best you can hope for here is that you'll file a motion, wait weeks for a court date, maybe spend money on an attorney, and BEST case scenario...the judge wags a finger at dad and says "you know, you really ought to be nicer". The reality of custody and contempt issues is that for minor issues like this (yes, these really ARE minor issues), the court isn't going to dish out punishment on dad. You chose a guy with a short fuse and control issues to be the father of this child. The courts can't fix that after the fact, and the courts aren't about to get involved in issues of a couple of hours of visitation here and there. (And of course DAD has a complaint too...that you made a doctor appointment for the child during HIS visitation time.)

I get it that his behavior is frustrating...but there's nothing here REMOTELY close to anything of magnitude that is going to get the court anything more than annoyed with hearing the complaint. THis is going to be a case of choosing your battles. If you've got endless money and emotional energy, you can file a motion every time dad so much as raises an eyebrow outside the guidelines. But in reality most cases see DOZENS of SUBSTANTIAL cases of contempt, before anything other than a finger wag and a few loud words are sent down from the bench. Why? Because the courts WANT the child to have as much access as possible to BOTH parents - and they consider action against a parent like incerceration for contempt or lessening of visitation time as a detrement to the CHILD.

The best thing you can do for your CHILD is to learn that there is a HUGE difference between being RIGHT and being HAPPY. Remember that it takes two to fight, and even if you're right, it's sometimes the better strategy for the sake of the child to just swallow it, smile, and move on. Standing in the street fighting hurts the kid even if you ARE right. The courts simply can't FORCE dad to be pleasant, or even reasonable, and it's going to take a HISTORY of SUBSTANTIAL violations before there's any possibility of any actual ACTION against him.

This is the guy you chose to be the father. You know him better than anyone else. Look at your history together, and realistically evaluate how your conflict resolution methods and his conflict resolution methods interacted. Obviously they DIDN'T interact well, since you're no longer together. So try a NEW approach - with the goal of the child being exposed to as LITTLE conflict as possible. That doesn't mean to be a carpet - only to pick and choose what's really IMPORTANT. When there's a child involved, the "principle" takes a back seat to conflict reduction.

You also may consider checking out a book called "Joint Custody With A Jerk" - you can find used ones on Amazon.com for just a couple of dollars. It offers some very good insights into strategies on dealing emotionally and practically with this type of mess.

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