Response to cynthiag

[Harmony163]

Jurisdiction

Maine

Continuation of this thread: Motion to Modify Child Custody

I am not sure why it was locked and was not given a reason, so I will respond to the latest post here.

Your continued insistence that it's basically all his girlfriend's fault you've been put into this position to begin with weakens your argument that you're only doing this with your child's best interests in mind.

I am only doing this because my son, when I asked him how his weekend went with his father (who hasn't been talking about what he does with our son for the past year and a half) was wondering why daddy was asking if he wanted to spend more time with him. My son told me that he doesn't want anything to change and that, that is what he told his father. My son and I are very close and he comes to me with his problems, such as the night that he went to cuddle with his father in the middle of the night and met his new (at the time) girlfriend in bed with him. It startled my son and he came to me with his concern because he feels like he can.

I want my ex-husband to be content, I truly do. It was very difficult for me to accept that I could never truly love him the same way that I used to and that our family would have to be fragmented.

You said in an earlier post that before this girlfriend came along, you had a great friendship and co-parenting relationship with your ex, but I wonder if he would describe it the same way.

Yes he would, he used to love to be able to just swing by my house and grab our to son to take him out for an ice cream. One of the significant changes in his motion to modify is the detioration of our communication, but conveniently it doesn't state the cause of such.

I wonder if he was going with the flow and trying to keep things on an even keel to placate you, knowing you had a need to be in control and that if he tried to exert himself you would be upset and possibly try to restrict the time he was allowed to spend with his son.

Not at all, we used to happily do things together with our son, and I am not now, nor have I ever been power hungry. I just know of the importance for consistency and black and white thinking for children, and want his schedule to be conserved.

I wonder if having this girlfriend on his side actually is what helped him to see that things could be done differently so that he was allowed more time with his child.

Any time he has felt the need to spend more time with his son, he would always stop by and hang out or take his kid for a drive somewhere. In the last year and a half he has spent less time with his son than before, and now is asking for more time than he has ever had, by a quantum leap. His girlfriend simply has demands that he is trying to satisfy, namely a family

Time that he wanted to spend with his son without you there, because face it, if you both enjoyed spending that much time together, you probably wouldn't be divorced to begin with.

We were nothing more than friends, and when a couple gets together at a very young age, it often takes them many years to come to this realization due to their lack of romantic experience. My ex-husband is much too supplicative to women, and unfortunately it now implicates not only himself but his son.

In an earlier post, you said something along the lines that your ex was willing to hurt you in order to prove something to his girlfriend, so that tells me that you are focusing a lot on how all of this makes you feel, rather than simply focusing on what is best for your child.

I can see how you would think that and it is definitely a valid point, thank you. My concern is that my child has had a peaceful and content life and that this motion to modify is not derived from the best interest of the child, but rather, how the prospect of me losing time with my son makes his girlfriend feel. How does it make her feel? It makes her feel more secure in that she has the power of the situation and over her boyfriend, my ex-husband. So it has nothing to do with how I feel, and everything to do with how she feels, as they have initiated this entire, unnecessary dilemma.

But at some point there needs to be a compromise if you want your son to have a good relationship with his father, as I believe you said earlier. And by good relationship, I mean a relationship that they forge themselves and that doesn't involve you.

I agree, and as aforementioned, I wish my father's son would reach out more. In the last year and a half, he has never called to speak to his son, or stopped by to grab an ice cream with him, as he has on countless occasions in his life. I understand that now he has a girlfriend who requires a certain amount of time and his attention, but I wish he would work more on his relationship with his son, I truly do. This hurts no one else but our child.

I hope you can come to a point where you are willing to loosen your grip a little bit, and understand that your son needs to be able to see his father and have a relationship with him that isn't filtered through your perception of what their relationship should be.

I have never tried to influence their relationship, I am very open-minded and flexible, but not when a situation is forced upon with me zero intention of communicating like adults regarding how this will affect our child.

 

[adjusterjack]

This is just conjecture on my part but I think your other thread was locked because you kept saying the same things over and over in a thinly veiled attempt to get responders to agree that you are right and your ex is wrong.

Well, that's not going to happen and here you are doing it again.

For that reason I'm locking this thread, too.