Custodial parent gave child to Non Custodial Parent now wants him back?
My husbands ex called us back in October and said that she could no longer handle their son (he is 7) and she was afraid she would "snap" one day and hurt him so we moved him in with us. My step son calls his mom on a daily basis he is doing better in school, and as a family have started counseling. Nothing has been done legally because we can not afford anymore attorney's fees. Throughout the time he has been here we offered to meet her halfway so she could have him over the weekends and stuff but she showed no interest in doing so finally over christmas she called and said she would like to have him on Christmas Eve until the weekend before he had to go back to school. So we agreed we met her on Christmas Eve with the intentions of getting him back this weekend.
We called him the night before last to talk to him and he was ready to come back and his mom got on the phone and was saying she wanted to start him in school there after the Christmas break. After we disagreed and told her we didn't think it was a good idea for him to be going back and forth to different schools and he has come so far (with his behavior) since he's been here with us. She kept disagreeing saying there was nothing we can do so we ended it at that and asked if we could talk to him again to tell him that we love him and stuff. She then said "he can't come to the phone he's playing outside with his new daddy"
Is there anything we can do or any suggestions? Our counselor said that we should try whatever it takes to get him back so we thought about calling her and telling her that we want to see him the rest of the holiday break and then not give him back. I know that sounds bad but we just don't know what to do. There is a history of violence (she has been arrested several times for assault and battery against my husband) it got to the point where the judge put in the order we have to meet for visitation change at the police station and in most cases an officer had to be present and she still continued with the assaults. She lives on an Indian Reservation where her and is on the Incian Counsil and we have called DHS several times because he would come to our house with bruises that he would say his mom did etc. and they have 14 cats/dogs inside their home. Every time we turn it into DHS they "forward" the information to the tribe and then the tribe always respondes with "no findings" we have been inside her house and it is so nasty. We just don't know what to do. We have cut back on everything trying to save money to take her to court but with the economy we have both been cut back on hours at our jobs. We just don't know what to do ?