[mchadis1]

Hi

My son is 8 and in 3rd grade and living with his mother in the States. I have not seen my son since he was 3 although I had a court order that allowed me to call and communicate with him via skype video conferencing. To make the story short , my son has only seen me for the first time after his age of 3 last month after I got a new court order ( from the States) and I have a lawyer in my case.

My son, given all what I have mentioned, likes to talk to me and he was positively engaged in our conversation. In my last week contact with him I ended my conversation by saying that I love him, he replied that he does too. His mother intervened and said to him: ‘How dare you say that, did you really loved him”. As a result, in our yesterday’s skype contact he didn’t say anything. Anything I said to him he was responding: I don’t know and I don’t remember. He even said that he don’t remember how many teachers he has when I asked about that.

Court order allows me to have 15 mn skype with him and with the way he was acting I didn’t find anything to say.

I have a lawyer in the case but I am a little behind in my payment and therefore my lawyer would not file a contempt petition. It is not easy to file from overseas. The petition I filed in summer 2011 was adjudicated in September 2012.

My concern is about how the mother is damaging this relationship with my son especially that I am starting this relationship from scratch given that my son has no memories of me. Mother is in race against time to change everything in the boy’s life so he rejects me. She even changed his first and last name. Mother has a plan to give him to another family in few years if she becomes incapable of taking care of him as she claimed.

The Judge was well aware of mother’s efforts to destroy this relationship and wants to give me legal custody at certain time , but after I reintroduce myself to my son. Judge interviewed my son who said that he wanted to talk with me. This legal custody will allow me to contact his school, counselor… and I will request my contacts with my son to take place somewhere else. But I am not ready for this at this time, at least financially.

My relationship with his mother is very bad and mother deeply believes that I must not be part of my son’s life although she has an advanced degree in early childhood development and worked so much with children.

Mother has incredible control over my son and I am concerned about how my son perceives me and his state of mind.

I don’t know what to say in our skype when he is not responding and actually resisting. Please advise.

Thank you