This is my first posting to this site. My husband and I have read much of what is posted here and are so thankful for this site! To begin, my husband and his ex divorced in 2003 after she walked out on him and their two young children. She had been cheating for who knows how long and just left. When it came time to draw up the divorce paperwork, my husband allowed his ex physical custody, due to his work schedule, which has since changed. They have joint legal custody. Visitation is set up as every other weekend and "as mutually agreed upon by both parties". We have learned that a mutual agreement isn't worth much, as now his ex won't agree to anything unless she needs a babysitter. He used to have his kids pretty much every day- he'd pick his son up from daycare as soon as he got off work, and pick his daughter up from school almost every day.
Unfortunately, once he and I started seeing each other, his ex slowly started to make excuses for not letting him pick the kids up, then finally denied him everything other than Mondays and every other weekend. She changed that to Thursdays about a month later. Then, when my husband didn't give her the answer that she wanted over some matter with the kids, she said "ok, no more Thursdays". She and her new husband call the police over everything, filing phone harassment charges when my husband tries to talk to his kids "too much". She refuses to abide by anything in the divorce decree that doesn't suit her. We want to file contempt charges very badly, as she has just put my stepson on ADHD medicine without testing, counseling, etc...she took him to the children's clinic and got one of the random doctors there to prescribe Metadate for a 4 yr old and it hasn't even been studied in children under six! Our attorney is trying for mediation, hoping that will work before we file contempt charges on her.
All we want is for the kids to be happy. We hear horror stories from them both, and have called DHS over mental and physical abuse to my stepson. They have been in the ex's house several times and have said that there is no more they can do unless something new happens. We turned in our summer vacation schedule request a few weeks ago, and when we dropped the kids off over there yesterday, she has vetoed it based on her interpretation of what the divorce decree says. My poor stepdaughter saw the whole thing and started crying because her mother won't let her go to Florida with my mother-in-law unless it falls on one of our weeks to have them. We don't understand how she can have this little regard for her children, how she can tell them to hush when they beg to see their father during the weeks we don't have them. Did I mention we live about a mile and a half apart? I could go on for hours, but if anyone else has any advice, please pass it on. We are at the end of our ropes here in Mississippi (which claims to be one of the states that doesn't favor the mother in custody situations- ha ha!).