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AK lawyer · Oct 10, 2010, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by JudyKayTee

This is a red flag to me. If you come to a "civil agreement" (whatever that is) and he takes the child and doesn't return the child there is absolutely NOTHING you can do. With an order you can get the legal system involved.

It should be very easy to agree among yourselves (="civil agreement"), and then get it rubber stamped by the court. That way, either one of you you can enforce it later if need be.

Don't forget, the two of you had a "civil agreement" to have sex together. But at some point the arrangement became un-civil. There always a chance that the arrangement can get that way again.

Lostsoul123 · Oct 10, 2010, 01:56 PM

What I think I'm going to do is file for a motion and when its time to bring it to court see if we can come to an agreement on what days he can see him and at what times he is to pick him up and bring him home. That way it is a court ordered civil agreement that we ourselves agreed upon threw the court. My friend and her ex husband have a court ordered civil agreement as to when her husbandcan see their daughter and so on. But they can also not be alone during pick up and drop off and they meet in safe public places due to previous arguments between the two. Which I'm sure will probably happen with us as well.. But we will see how court goes and take it from there

AK lawyer · Oct 10, 2010, 02:27 PM

A restraining order that is only in effect on certain days and under certain conditions? I doubt that the court will want to do that.

What you want to do is to simply disolve the restraining order so that the two of you can talk (if he is interested in any kind of a relationship with his child - we don't know that he is). Then, once you have had the chance to work things out, you can agree upon a child custody, support, and visitation order. This can be adopted as the court's order if the court has no problem with it. But I don't think you want to try to use the restraining order mechanism as a visitation order. It's not designed to work like that.

Fr_Chuck · Oct 10, 2010, 02:42 PM

Agreed a restraining order is either there or not there, not for certain days and time.

And a child custody agreement and child support are all "civil" agreements since they go though civil court and are either agreeed or forced to agree.

The issue here is that without court orders you have little or nothing to do

JudyKayTee · Oct 10, 2010, 02:50 PM

I cannot understand why the parties would try to teach an agreement between themselves instead of asking the Court to either make a determination or ratify their agreement. Sounds to me like there is a reason parties don't want to go to Court.

In NY the Court does NOT necessarily ratify an agreement between the parties.

Lostsoul123 · Oct 10, 2010, 03:17 PM

I wasn't saying I was going to use the restraining order mechanism as a visitation order what I was saying is that I will dissolve the restraining order and talk to him about days and times that he will have him while still at court that way we can

Lostsoul123 · Oct 10, 2010, 03:19 PM

See if heis interested in any type of relationship with our child and come to an agreement of when support is to be paid and how muchis to be given on a weekly or monthly basis.

AK lawyer · Oct 10, 2010, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by lostsoul123

i will dissolve the restraining order and talk to him about days and times that he will have him while still at court ...

Only problem is that I don't know if there will be a hearing. What I was thinking was that when you file the motion to dissolve, the judge will simply sign it - no hearing required. And evern if there is a hearing, what makes you expect your child's father to attend?

Originally Posted by JudyKayTee

... Sounds to me like there is a reason parties don't want to go to Court. ...

We don't know what the parties want, we only have heard from the mother.

The father has not been in contact with OP for at least 15 months. So we don't know what he wants; the only clue is the fact that he has not brought her back to court. I could guess at several reasons for this.

I gather the OP doesn't want to go to court because of the anticipated complexity and cost.

Lostsoul123 · Oct 10, 2010, 03:31 PM

My guess is that he does not want to have to deal with the costs of taking legak actions and taking me to court because if he wanted to he could and I wouldn't be bothered by it because then maybe we could discuss past matters and move on for the benefit of our child. I just feel like if we were to take it to family probate court that the process will be much longer before an agreement between us and the court is set in stone where as if we go to a district court we can make agreements through his lawyer if he has one and my safety advocate in my local court house. I believe that it will be less of an expense for both of us where I have no income right now and where idont know if he is working or what because when I was last with him he had just lost his job. I guess we will see what happens when the time comes.

Lostsoul123 · Oct 10, 2010, 03:33 PM

Im not sure whether he will attend but Im sure if he wants anything to do with our son then he will mowt likely show up or we could only hope anyway!

cdad · Oct 10, 2010, 04:20 PM

For your own protection keep the restraining order in place and just work on the custody issue.

This is from your state.

Quote:
If you have a restraining order against your child's other parent, and you have agreed to, or the court has ordered, visitation between the child and the other parent, YOU CAN HAVE THE RESTRAINING ORDER AND VISITS CAN STILL TAKE PLACE. You can keep all of the protections that you need in the restraining order, and make only those changes in the order needed to allow visitation.

Ref:

Child Custody and Visitation - MassLegalHelp

Massachusetts Law About Child Custody and Visitation