Irresponsible Mother: Any Of This Look Like I Can Get More Custody?
I live in California...
I was married for 4 years. During that time, my wife and I had two children (they're now 2 and 4 years old). I filed for divorce from her right at our 4 year anniversary and the divorce was final 6 months later. We agreed on joint legal custody and that she would have primary physical custody of our children with me having visitation. Both child and spousal support were established, I've always paid it on-time and in-full. A visitation schedule was specified at the time of the divorce, but it's been changed since then and support amounts recalculated as well (we negotiated an amount rather than using the court-calculated amounts since her income is unverifiable). When we were married, I worked full time and she was a stay-at-home mom.
The bullet-points of my issues:
- Whenever our children have had health issues (rashes, fevers, etc... ), she never does anything about it. I don't get notified of the problem but as soon as they come to visit me and I see it first-hand, I make doctor appointments and take them myself. I tell her about the appointments ahead-of-time, but she never goes. Both of my daughters have had really bad rashes in the past, the doctors have told me it's due to not washing sufficiently. When I pick them up from my ex, they're usually filthy and I immediately give them a bath/shower because they're so dirty. My ex actually admitted to me that she doesn't wash their hair because they don't like it being washed. She leaves it for me to do when they see me twice a week... that way I'm the bad guy.
- I enrolled our oldest daughter in preschool. Halfway through the process, my ex tried to say that she wasn't ready for school, lied to be about filling out the portion of the paperwork she was responsible for and hid the forms from me (when she promised me she would fill them out and return the papers to me), and tried to prevent her from enrolling. I eventually convinced her it was OK for her to attend school and finished the process.
- When enrolled in preschool (mind you it's an state-preschool, not a daycare... she's 4 so it's not mandatory education yet), I was responsible for taking my daughter two days per week and my ex was responsible for taking her one day per week. Of the 10 weeks of the school program, my ex only took her TWICE... she only missed one day that I was responsible for and it was due to a doctor appt. She's never provided legitimate reasons for the absences to me or the preschool.
- As mentioned before, I pay spousal and child support. I pay it every two weeks on paydays. It's deposited directly into her bank account by my payroll service, so it's instant and basically guaranteed for her. Whenever she overdraws her bank account, the letters from the bank come to me (she never changed the address away from our old PO box, which I still use myself). I get the overdraft letters CONSTANTLY. She admitted to me this week that the last two support payments (totaling $600.00) went entirely to bank fees and her account is STILL overdrawn. What's the point of me paying support to help pay for our children's needs if she's just pissing it away on bank fees because of her own irresponsibility!
- She lives in the garage of her parents' house with our children. She has her own bed, and our two children share a twin size mattress & boxspring that sits on the floor. Her boyfriend frequently stays overnight in the same room. The house is a two bedroom + 2 car garage (remember: my ex and 2 children live in the garage). One of the bedrooms has my ex's parents in it, the other bedroom has my ex's aunt and my ex's cousin. The livingroom has my ex's other cousin and her brother. The total people living in this 2 bedroom + garage house is 9!!
- She's always been a 'go with the cool crowd' personality. When we split up, she started hanging out with very questionable people and dumping our children off on her parents so she could party at-will. Her parents have grown tired of it and have kicked her out of their house for days at a time, on several occasions. She's stayed at hotels with our children because she had nowhere else to go (the children could have stayed with me but I was out of town on business each time). She recently picked up the disgusting habit of smoking because her friends do it (seriously-that's the reason she gave me when I questioned her about it). She's recently started to get tattoos and now likes to draw on our children with marker & pen so they have some too. Of course, they're young children so they think it's cool. Personally, I don't like tattoos; especially written in very hard to remove ink on my very young children.
- She's worked a few jobs since our divorce: housekeeping, newspaper delivery, a few under-the-table jobs for family members and friends. ALL unverifiable income. She quit her last job 3 months ago and doesn't seem too motivated to find more work. I'm guessing she's somewhat living off the support I pay to her (see above for notes about her money management skills). When we were going through court, she consistently claimed that she had no income because she was unemployed or between jobs.
- As part of the divorce, I had to buy some assets from her. I paid her a lump-sum payment of $13,000 when the divorce was final; I had to borrow the money and am still paying on the loan. She blew the money on roadtrips with her boyfriend (while leaving our children with her parents), parties, etc... Within 5 weeks the money was spent... the only benefit that I could tell that our children saw of their mom getting all that cash was some new clothes from Salvation Army (I'm not joking either).
- She's admitted light drug use (smoking weed) to me a few times. I don't think it's something she does on a regular basis. She has no health problems, so I know she doesn't have a prescription.
- Her sexual promiscuity is apparent by just talking to her and her friends. I don't have any proof that anything is said/done in the presence of our children. I'm worried about the long-term impact this will have on our children. Since our split over a year ago, I've had one relationship (with a woman who had a child in the age-range of my own children... it was like a constant play date for all of them), she's had over 6 that I know of. What will seeing 'mommy' with all these different men do to my children?
- She carts our children around with her while she drives her boyfriend around for errands. I'm pretty sure they smoke in the car with our children sitting in the back seat (they wreak of smoke when I pick them up for visitation). I KNOW she smokes with them around though... they've told me that they don't like her cigarettes and that they stink. I've seen them in public with the cloud of smoke surrounding my ex and children... it's not like they know to avoid the smoke. It's MOM'S JOB to keep them out of harm's way, right?
She just doesn't care! My family is convinced that my ex is just using my children as a paycheck. Honestly, it's just money so I don't care if she is... I just don't like that our children are growing up in an environment where they see this level of irresponsibility. I don't want them to grow up thinking this behavior is the norm.
I own a business that I founded myself 5 years ago. I have a steady, reliable income. I have a good, clean place to live (granted, I share a house with 3 other people; we all have our own rooms). I've never had any problems with violence, drugs, alcohol, mental problems, etc... I work a lot but spend two FULL 24 hour spans each week with my children... the time is completely about them... no work or anything... just them. If I had more days with my children, I would have to get daycare so I could work at least a 9-5 shift to continue making a living. To afford daycare, I would need to reduce support payments to help pay for it. If my children lived with me, I would gladly make any change I had to do in order for their lives or living situations to be better.
Things are fairly amicable between me and their mother at the moment. I've mentioned to her that I want our children to spend more time with me but that I need to sit down with her to discuss it in more detail. I have a feeling that as soon as I mention reducing support a bit to help pay for childcare will be a deal breaker with her. She'll just say "well, I'll take them back while you're at work so you don't have to pay for childcare". Honestly-I've never been a big fan of daycare (hence the reason my ex was a stay-at-home mom when we were together... my mom way a stay-at-home mom and I wanted my children to grow up with the same thing) but I REALLY think they're better off in a daycare environment than with their mom all day.
Anyone think I have a case worth taking in front of a judge? I live in a house with friends and don't have a 'dedicated' room that my children can live in at the moment. If I was able to get primary or sole custody, I would move into my own house/apt in a heartbeat so my children could have a better living situation. Would the fact that my children would have to attend daycare for part of the week hurt my case? My fear is that if I DO have to take this to court, she'll turn a cold shoulder and things will get REALLY difficult between us until the court proceedings are over with. I have to see her 4x each week (our children come see me for one 24 hour span at a time, 2 times per week) so it's not like I can lay-low until it's over and hope for the best. If I take it to court and lose, all I will have accomplished is stirring up bad feelings towards me from my ex and her family. I didn't have an affair or anything, but they still don't really like me because I divorced her. At this point, they tolerate me.
I promise you none of this is exaggerated... I re-read everything twice just to make sure.
Any input at all is very appreciated. Thank you for reading this incredibly long post.
