- Jurisdiction
- Arizona
The situation is the following:
My husband and his ex wife divorced almost 8 years ago in Texas. She remarried a year after and moved kids to Arizona to her new husband without informing my husband in reasonable amount of time. Basically, she told him that she was planning to permanently move just a week before the actual move. For some reason his attorney at the time said that he couldn't do anything about it. Anyways, he left his job in Texas and got another one closer to the kids in California (he's in oil business, so Texas and California are really the only options). Since that moment his ex had started trying to reduce his already significantly reduced parenting time.
Summer 2012: they didn't agreed on the time of her picking up kids from California, he showed up at the agreed spot, but she just left without kids because she "had other obligations in Arizona". My husband told her that she could pick up kids any time she wanted but he couldn't drive at business hours (forgot to mention, she never worked and is unemployed). The next day she filed a motion for enforcement because she felt that my husband was responsible for the kids delivery (14 hours round trip). After couple thousands spent on attorney, he solved the issue pursuading her to drive half way (like it had to happen originally).
Summer 2014: one of the kids found an empty beer bottle and licked it, later he told his mother that now he knew how the alcohol tastes. At night we got the police at our house saying that they got a call about a drunk boy in our house. They interviewed the kids the next day, figured out the situation and said that the call was from the kid's mother. No report was filed because no criminal activity was detected.
Summer 2015: my husband was laid off. We decided to move to Arizona to save money and be closer to the kids. She refused to modify child support or parenting time in mediation so we had to file papers with the court.
Spring 2016: she lied to us about the length of kids new spring break (they were supposed to spend it with us). She took them somewhere in Utah and instead of 2 weeks we only got them for one.
Fall 2016: we moved to Arizona and agreed on 50/50 parenting time. In a week she filed a complain with DCS stating that I was abusing the children. It was found unsubstantiated.
Summer 2017: my husband finally got a job offer in California. We made a conscious decision not to inform his ex about it, because the new order was sign only in March 2017 and we didn't have another $10k for attorney. We didn't want to come back to the schedule where we basically had the kids for 20%. We maintained the 2-2-5-5 schedule pretty successfully for over a year.
August 2018: she found out that my husband got a new job. So she filed for:
- injunction against harassment against me based on the same claims she made in 2016 (it was granted and then dismissed at the hearing a week later)
- emergency temporary modification of parenting time based on the injunction against harassment (was dismissed)
- change of legal decision making based on the same injunction(she wants sole custody now)
- change of parenting time
- 2 different filings for increase child support with different numbers each.
September 2018: we were supposed to have kids for Labor Day weekend. She checked them out of school early and took them somewhere for camping. We called the police but most probably she won't be charged with anything.
October 2018: she started requesting her first right of residual. Basically if the parent doesn't spend the night with kids, we should offer her that time. (Note: she never gave us that right, she always used her husband or other relatives). Obviously my husband can't fly home every day on week days, but he occasionally does. He sent her the ticket but she said it was fake and checked kids out of school again. We called the police, but again, probably nothing will happen.
We agreed to send her tickets and boarding passes by 9 am on our parenting days to avoid stressing out the kids with police involvement.
Today he sent her all that info at 8:10 am california time. It happened to be 9:10 am arizona time. She decided she had the right to have kids anyway. After being on the phone with 3 different officers for the whole day, she dropped off kids at our house without any message or call at 9:30 pm...
I'm really sorry for that long reading. We are stressed, kids are extremely stressed. We can't plan anything because we constantly fight this battle trying to go on with our own life. We have an attorney and since the last court order of 2017 we've already spent $10k+.
The questions I have:
Is there any way to stop her from reporting all that bull crap?
Can my husband be rewarded a sole custody based on these situations?
Any personal legal experience and outcomes are really appreciated.
I understand that they are supposed to communicate, but it's literally impossible at that point. She tells kids about court and how bad we are, she tells them that their father abandoned them, she told kids to call her new husband dad... There's simply no relationship between us.
My husband and his ex wife divorced almost 8 years ago in Texas. She remarried a year after and moved kids to Arizona to her new husband without informing my husband in reasonable amount of time. Basically, she told him that she was planning to permanently move just a week before the actual move. For some reason his attorney at the time said that he couldn't do anything about it. Anyways, he left his job in Texas and got another one closer to the kids in California (he's in oil business, so Texas and California are really the only options). Since that moment his ex had started trying to reduce his already significantly reduced parenting time.
Summer 2012: they didn't agreed on the time of her picking up kids from California, he showed up at the agreed spot, but she just left without kids because she "had other obligations in Arizona". My husband told her that she could pick up kids any time she wanted but he couldn't drive at business hours (forgot to mention, she never worked and is unemployed). The next day she filed a motion for enforcement because she felt that my husband was responsible for the kids delivery (14 hours round trip). After couple thousands spent on attorney, he solved the issue pursuading her to drive half way (like it had to happen originally).
Summer 2014: one of the kids found an empty beer bottle and licked it, later he told his mother that now he knew how the alcohol tastes. At night we got the police at our house saying that they got a call about a drunk boy in our house. They interviewed the kids the next day, figured out the situation and said that the call was from the kid's mother. No report was filed because no criminal activity was detected.
Summer 2015: my husband was laid off. We decided to move to Arizona to save money and be closer to the kids. She refused to modify child support or parenting time in mediation so we had to file papers with the court.
Spring 2016: she lied to us about the length of kids new spring break (they were supposed to spend it with us). She took them somewhere in Utah and instead of 2 weeks we only got them for one.
Fall 2016: we moved to Arizona and agreed on 50/50 parenting time. In a week she filed a complain with DCS stating that I was abusing the children. It was found unsubstantiated.
Summer 2017: my husband finally got a job offer in California. We made a conscious decision not to inform his ex about it, because the new order was sign only in March 2017 and we didn't have another $10k for attorney. We didn't want to come back to the schedule where we basically had the kids for 20%. We maintained the 2-2-5-5 schedule pretty successfully for over a year.
August 2018: she found out that my husband got a new job. So she filed for:
- injunction against harassment against me based on the same claims she made in 2016 (it was granted and then dismissed at the hearing a week later)
- emergency temporary modification of parenting time based on the injunction against harassment (was dismissed)
- change of legal decision making based on the same injunction(she wants sole custody now)
- change of parenting time
- 2 different filings for increase child support with different numbers each.
September 2018: we were supposed to have kids for Labor Day weekend. She checked them out of school early and took them somewhere for camping. We called the police but most probably she won't be charged with anything.
October 2018: she started requesting her first right of residual. Basically if the parent doesn't spend the night with kids, we should offer her that time. (Note: she never gave us that right, she always used her husband or other relatives). Obviously my husband can't fly home every day on week days, but he occasionally does. He sent her the ticket but she said it was fake and checked kids out of school again. We called the police, but again, probably nothing will happen.
We agreed to send her tickets and boarding passes by 9 am on our parenting days to avoid stressing out the kids with police involvement.
Today he sent her all that info at 8:10 am california time. It happened to be 9:10 am arizona time. She decided she had the right to have kids anyway. After being on the phone with 3 different officers for the whole day, she dropped off kids at our house without any message or call at 9:30 pm...
I'm really sorry for that long reading. We are stressed, kids are extremely stressed. We can't plan anything because we constantly fight this battle trying to go on with our own life. We have an attorney and since the last court order of 2017 we've already spent $10k+.
The questions I have:
Is there any way to stop her from reporting all that bull crap?
Can my husband be rewarded a sole custody based on these situations?
Any personal legal experience and outcomes are really appreciated.
I understand that they are supposed to communicate, but it's literally impossible at that point. She tells kids about court and how bad we are, she tells them that their father abandoned them, she told kids to call her new husband dad... There's simply no relationship between us.