Child custody

[captincvmn]

Taboo subject

I’ve been struggling with child custody for years. It’s what got me into scooters. I suddenly had gobs of free time and desire plus I needed to squash my inner demons.

Today I had some relief. I had visitation extended by court order and the future although uncertain looks promising. Y’all are my friends. I’m scared and excited simultaneously. I haven’t had any of my three kids overnight in almost four years. I’m venturing into uncharted territory. Positive thoughts please.

Plus anybody have any thoughts on Woosner bearings?

[jbjhillbilly]

Glad you’re getting to spend more time with the kids. Nothing better!

It’s important to make sure the kids think of it as their home too. Because it is.

My advice? Go slow, and remember to make space for everyone to get used to the new way of things. It’ll be easy the first few times, but there’ll be some stuff to figure out. And everyone is going to have to get used to sharing the house in ways they haven’t before.

With going back and forth with overnights, absolutely expect things to get forgotten/left behind. That’s something you and your ex need to come to an understanding on. Stuff happens, and if it needs to get dealt with urgently, y’all need to calmly sort it out. I’ve spent a ton of time running back and forth to pick up, and deliver items.

Schedules are important because of consistency between homes. Mornings are hard for my kids, so that means me getting up before them and getting myself together so I can keep on top of them. And meal planning/shopping makes life easier (and cheaper than eating out all the time).

But I’m just ranting. So happy that you get to have your kids more in your life. You can’t trade that time together for anything else.

[aeroxbud]

That's good news Rob.

[milly]

Hope all goes well for you. I was very lucky when I split from my first had no problems with the kid's and court's as we still got on ok.

[pinkscoot]

I'm glad to hear that you are moving in a positive direction with this.

[FrankenMech]

Good luck! I hope everything goes OK. My kids are up and grown but I haven't seen them in too many years.

[captincvmn]

So if you’ve bookmarked the thread, my condolences because you’ve probably missed your kids a time or two also.
Rewind to December of 2018, I spanked my oldest who was 11 and bruised his buttocks. I’m not proud of it. I did a bad thing. I’ve learned from it. My X and I were living together still at the time but separated. I was reported and was tried by jury. Acquitted of assault but found guilty of harassment in the incident by the judge. Why would I even tell strangers this? It’s part of my story. It’s done and over. I cannot change it.

For almost four years I haven’t had any time alone with my children. And except for two weeks ago every time I’d seen them my X was never out of earshot and I only had four hours each week of visitation. Two weeks ago I had two days in a row with my two youngest and my neighbor was “supervisor” for both days. It was wonderful and weird all at the same time. I got 4-1/2 weeks time in two days.

Now to this week. On Tuesday I got word that my supervised visitation has been removed by the court based upon information they now had. I’ve been freed of the shackles I placed myself in four years ago. It goes beyond that though into giving me the gift of a solid week with my two youngest. I haven’t had any of my kids overnight at my house since February of ‘19 when they all moved out.

It’s scary and exciting to be presented with this opportunity to be with my kids again. I’ll start an alternating schedule after this week of weekends with two nights per weekday of time with them. I don’t even know them truly anymore. It’s going to be awkward but interesting.

It will be hard on them also. They know why they’ve been kept away, mom has made sure to keep them well informed. I am determined to be a good person and a good father and teacher to my kids.

Vent rant over.

[geoffh]

Rob,glad things are looking up for you,I am on my 2nd wife so I am no relationship guru but I have a large extended family of all ages and have learned they do not need my advice on life,but half decent communication with ex partners seems to work,if boundaries are set for both homes your kids won,t be able to play you and your ex off against each other. It,s admirable you felt able to reach out, rant on as you like,blokes love gossip.

Geoff

[milly]

Things are what thing's are. We can neither change the past or predict the future but we can live in the now with our kids and enjoy the time we have. Hope all goes well for you and the kids Rob.
Funny really when I was at school we often had the blackboard rubber thrown at us by the teachers which was mostly a 6" piece of wood and got the cane at least once every two months and no one thought any difference about it. How times have changed.

[repherence2]

Bless! Bless!

i understand you pain my bruddah. Love. Love.

i have a daughter and a son from my first marriage. i got shit-canned (divorced) when my daughter was 4 and my son was 2. i was young, it hit hard. i walked in the shadows, contemplating self-destruction. good thing i had solid friends that kept me from self-destruction. 2 years later, i was married to hispanic woman from Texas and had a daughter with her. she came to live in hawaii, but it seemed toxic from the get-go. people talk about domestic violence, and it is usually portrayed as the man as the aggressor. this hispanic woman would get angry and throw punches. im from Hawaii, i no care if you throw punches to the body, but when you head-hunt, that is a different story. one day she got mad and started head-hunting. told her to stop. she was like, well what are you going to do? i bruise easily, who are the cops going to believe? so in my head, i was like, OK. i took Fencing in highschool. she threw 3 punches for my head, i parried (blocked/deflected) each punch and i reposted (counter attacked) by jabbing my pointer and middle finger into her rib cage. after the third repost to the rib cage, she folded and walked away. ...so what you going the cops?...i poked you with my fingers? she took my daughter back to texas to visit her family when my daughter was 14 months old. she filed for divorce, and they never came back.

so there i was, paying my first exwife 500 a month for, and $500 to my exwife in Texas. a few years go by and my ex from hawaii wants to send my daughter to an expensive private school, i talk to my ex in texas about it, and she get's mad and decides to "fight for what is fair for her daughter". then texas child support agency tells me that i owe my hispanic wife %20 of my gross and i had to pay medical insurance for my daughter and $1050 was going to be garnished from my monthly pay in accordance with texas law. ex hawaii wife finds out about that and then she decides that she needed to "get what is fair for her kids". then hawaii garnishes me $1600. so, total monthly garnishments was $2650, on the income that i pay taxes for.

...so i paid monthly subscription fees and never even got to see the magazines. my visitation rights for my hawaii kids are saturday and sunday 4pm-8pm. throughout the years, my ex would always have stuff for them to be doing and they would be busy during my appointed time by the court. instead, when i got off of work at 3pm on saturday, i would pick them up and take them to the play ground and play Chase Master (mainlanders call it "tag"). i did it so that they built up their agility and they knew how to climb poles and fences. it was for peace of mind so that i knew that my children, when they were little, would be able to scramble and run away from any adult just in case some adult tried to harm or kidnap them. these were sessions that were 2-3 hours long running around with a 4 year old son and 6 year old daughter. my texas daughter finally came to visit me at the age of 10. she is turning 15 on friday. the last time was in her presence was in 2018. my darkest days was when my youngest daughter went to texas. waking up in an empty nest, hoping that one day they might come back, but that never happened. ever so ready to self destruct but i did not want to leave an ugly scene for my family so i took up body surfing, even though i am not a good swimmer. i started going to Sandy Beach, hoping that one day the ocean would take my breath away and end the pain. this went on for months, every day, Groundhog Day. but i would always make it out of the shore break alive and then go to work on 2nd shift. every day, i would complain to my hawaiian coworker about making it out of the ocean and coming to work. finally one day he told me, "Soulee (soul brother) you need to stop thinking that. it is not your destiny to drown, you have lot's more work to do for Akua (God)." several months later he told me, "I know you miss your kids, so this is what you do, Honi (touch noses and foreheads together and breathe in the breath of life (the hawaiians call the breath of life, HA)) with your kids when you see them." i told him, "but i'm not hawaiian". he told me, "it does not matter. you know when animials come up to each other? what do they do? they smell each other. they look at each other and ask, 'you alive???. ahh, yes! You Alive!'. it's the same thing with your kids Soulee. you Honi and the first breath is this, You Alive? You Alive! the second breath that you share is this, 'Give me you Fears and Pains'. and the third and final breath Soulee is, 'I give to you Strength and Peace'." he ended by saying, "it is possible to transfer Chi, Mana (hawaiian for power), and Knowledge when you Honi with your children. i know you miss your kids. when you Honi with you kids, you share the same breath. no matter where they are in the world, you will never miss them because you always share the same breath as them."

so i took the words of my Soulee to heart. from when my daughter an son from my hawaii wife was 6 and 4 i started to Honi with them whenever we met and whenever we had to depart from each other. they became Experiment #1 and Experiment #2. my children attended a private school for children of hawaiian ancestry. they are hawaiian by blood from their mother. i am not hawaiian. however, i was the only parent at that school that would Honi with my kids and my kids have no shame in it either. they look forward to it, they no care if their friends or other adults are looking. but i know it makes other parents uncomfortable and i do not care because i am not hawaiian, but my hawaiian coworker told me to Honi with my kids. it makes a lot of other hawaiian parents feel uneasy. most recently, i Honi with my son when seen him at his high school wrestling state championship, then he goes off to hang out with his freinds. then his match comes up, heavyweight division 285 pounds, and he wrestles at 240 and wins for the second year in row. when my daughter was a junior, i gave her a Honi before her Kayaking league tournament, and she came in second place. in her senior year, i gave her a Honi before her state championship in canoe paddling and her crew smoked the competition to win the girls state title.

as far as discipline, long time ago when my first daughter was 1.5 years, she was in here Terrible Two's. i told my coworker about it and he told me, "you better break her soon". my daughter was naughty. i seen her mom bent my daughter over her leg and give her some spanking. but it never seemed to work. my coworker told me, get a 3 foot 1/4" dowel from the hardware store and you sting them on the bottom of their feet. it leaves no marks or bruises, but they learn Real Fast." so there came a point where my daughter did not car about getting spanked by her mother. so i used the dowel. after the 3rd time, my daughter understood "the stick". whenever she got out of hand, all i had to say was, "you need the stick?" and she would quickly say "nope" and find something else to do. buy the time she was 3, all it took was "that Look" and she knew that she should stop what she was doing and find something else to be doing, because whatever she was just doing, i did not approve of that.

as the non custodial parent, i realized early on from hearing my kids complain about their mom, i learned to choose my words very carefully when i speak to my children. since my divorce from their mother, i have never yelled at or scolded my children, i have never made them do anything for me, they are not my servants, they do not owe me anything, and i have never been mad at them. when you never really know the next time you are going see you kids, you learn to choose your words wisely. i made sure to never push my kids away with my words. my mom told me never to speak out of anger because when people are angry they can say harsh and hurtful things and you cannot take those words back. i took on the role of guardian adult, child advocate, elder friend, mentor, spirit guide. i told both of them that if life ever gets to rough, and you feel like checking out, at least call me up first and we can talk story. they know that i am their biological dad, but i always treat their presence as a Gift and not a Right. to be in their presence is the Precious Moment in and of itself. me and my kids can just sit there and have silent conversations and be all good about it, just being in each others' presence i good enough for all of us. when their mom and stepdad was reigning down punishment for grades or behavior issues, i was simply having talks with them. i have always spoken to my kids as adults and i have always treated them with Respect and Dignity. that's all kids are looking for, is to be treated with respect and dignity.

you know, when it all went down, it felt like the greatest curse, but now with hindsight 20/20, it turned out to be a blessing. at least as the non custodial parent, my kids have no need to lie to me. they know that i am their advocate. they know i was the one there at their championship sports events when their mother was working. they know i was the one that gave them a Honi when their grandfathers passed away to make their tears stop.

...everyone's path is different. i wish you Strength and Peace of Mind.

Bless Bless my Braddah!

[sinfull]

Congratulations to you and your family. All positive energy for you and your family 🙂😀

[captincvmn]

Damn repherence, that’s a long post but I’m ever so glad to be thought of and to be part of your life here online and also this scooter place. Hugs and cleansing breaths back to you. Let’s see where the future takes us.

[jackrides]

Be on time and Treasure your time with them! Go for a walk and toss a Frisbee around. Just Enjoy each other! Best Wishes!