faith4two
Platinum
Reged: 11/11/07
Posts: 353
|
|
Several months ago, shortly after separation, there was an agreement put into place where the STBX and I would see a social worker to discuss issues as they relate to the child. That first meeting, with both the STBX and I experiencing a host of raw emotion, was disastrous.
One of the topics which came up for discussion was right of first refusal. It was the first I'd ever heard of it, being this is my first divorce which involved a child, and I liked the idea, thinking it was the right thing to do for the child. What better than to have Dad care for her when Mom couldn't and vice versa?
The STBX adamantly refused. In fact, since refusing ROFR, I have run into a situation with her school where I named someone to pick her up, and he interfered with that. That has since been resolved in that I jumped through a bunch of hoops - pulling state childcare licensing regulations and confronting the director who had basically lied to me about the school and state regulations. But the email from the STBX was "if you can't care for her, I will."
Having been on this board for some time now, I'm MUCH more familiar with the ROFR concept. I still think it's the right thing to do, at least in the case of my own child. I don't want to refuse STBX's parenting time, but I'm also not going to be bullied and/or manipulated about moving on with my own life and exercising my own options for childcare on my OWN parenting time, either.
It's been this past week, as I've been preparing for a major life event, and figuring out the logistics of how to incorporate our daughter in the event without imposing on the STBX's parenting time and the parenting schedule in place, that I realize how his refusal to do ROFR has really backfired - ON HIM.
The school can't "regulate" that he picks her up in my absence. And even if I'm in the hospital, he can't keep me from having a family member or friend present to care for her.
Ironically, I think he honestly thought that he and/or his family were better for her and by denying ROFR, he'd limit my contact with our child.
Funny how that stuff works, huh?
|
ssrachel
Platinum
Reged: 05/23/07
Posts: 2070
Loc: a better place :)
|
|
[quote] I still think it's the right thing to do, at least in the case of my own child. I don't want to refuse STBX's parenting time, but I'm also not going to be bullied and/or manipulated about moving on with my own life and exercising my own options for childcare on my OWN parenting time, either. [/quote]
your post was a bit confusing. you seem to want ROFR, but are choosing not to exercise it if you get the clause in your agreement. the whole point of ROFR is that the other parent gets first option to be with the child if you can't be there on your OWN parenting time. yes, you can have whomever you wish caring for your child on your parenting, BUT, your stbx should have the first option, if you are not available.
i certainly don't know your entire situation, but i'm looking at it from your stbx's standpoint...you are still legally married to him, yet you're preparing for the birth of a child with another man. i'm living this, too, and, it is a very hard, bitter pill to swallow. so maybe your stbx is having a hard time swallowing that pill. not excusing his potential interference in your parenting time, just trying to get you to see if from another point of view.
kat
--------------------
What you reap is what you sow and so it goes...
|
saamrodi
Platinum
Reged: 06/14/07
Posts: 2902
Loc: here
|
|
Faith, please dont take this as a personal attack on this thinking as Im sure alot of it is due to resentment, but to be honest, I agree with Kat. I also dont think it would be wise for all parties involved if you didnt allow him to keep the child when you are not able to ....and he is willing.
ROFR it may be on paper, but keeping her from him out of spite or just not allowing him to have her when he wants to keep her will only breed more resentment towards you from him. Therefore, when it comes time that he cant have her and you would like to have her...he'll find somebody else... so-called "payback".
I understand the frustration, I really do, but this will only hurt all three of you in the long run.
Orders are orders and should be followed to avoid conflict, but wouldnt it be nice to have both sides lenient, without possible harm to the child, regardless of orders in order to provide more time with each parent? I know its tough if its the other side that is stubborn, but it has to start somewhere and its usually with the "better person".
--------------------
"...And what a beautiful mess this is
It's like picking up trash in dresses..."
|
faith4two
Platinum
Reged: 11/11/07
Posts: 353
|
|
Sorry for the confusion. It's just been in the past few weeks as I've been putting together the logistics of childbirth and hospitalization that I've seen the impact of ROFR in my own situation. I'm still a bit baffled by the irony of it and probably didn't communicate it clearly.
The concept of ROFR is good when both parents are reasonable and willing to work within its parameters. This isn't the case here. He refused it. There's just too much water under the bridge related to who he deems "worthy" of caring for the child, and having been the second woman he had children with, I can attest to the fact that his X's or STBX's are all evil and non-deserving of raising their own children. I can go out and earn a six-digit living to support his whims, but I can't care for a child. It's hogwash.
At the time he refused ROFR, I was NOT pregnant. In fact, the situation is such that I live 800+ miles from my family and support structure, and all of his is local.
His refusal of ROFR, at least in my opinion, detracted from his definition that time his family provided childcare was the equivalent of time spent with him. Had he agreed to ROFR, he would not have been given the choice to dump the child on his family without offering me that time first. He wasn't about to do that. If time spent with his family was such that it maintained an upper hand in supporting the notion of "primary caregiver", then he was going to opt to have his family care for the child, not me.
The birth of the child with the OM is a separate issue from ROFR, and I wish I could offer comforting words to soothe that sting for you. I'm not here to share the saga of how I got here, or to justify it. And I haven't held this divorce process up. If anything, his actions have been at the root of the delays.
I could have said I was going on a business trip and placing the child in the care of someone else whom I trusted. The point is that he refused ROFR, thinking it would be to HIS advantage, and in the end, it has become an advantage to me as I do spend more of my parenting time with our child than he does on his own parenting time. Since separation, I've made one attempt to have someone else care for her, and he made a huge, and somewhat public, stink out of it. To overcome that, I had to do a lot of hoop jumping to get it resolved. But the realization that has come in hindsight is that if I do designate someone else to care for our child on my parenting time, there's nothing he can do about it - at least from a legal perspective.
And I found that a bit ironic.
|
faith4two
Platinum
Reged: 11/11/07
Posts: 353
|
|
I'm not offended. I'm a little frustrated that I'm not saying this the right way. LOL
There is no court order which bounds us to ROFR. If there were, I'd be happily doing it!!!! I have more time to spend with the child, hands down.
I still think it's the RIGHT thing to do, if you're dealing with someone who agrees its in the best interest of the child, and isn't refusing to do it because it provides him an upper hand. THAT is the point I'm trying to get across.
Furthermore, the individual(s) I have designated to care for the child are people he would have agreed to anyway - my mom, our next door neighbor, etc. - if we were still together.
It is the motivation behind WHY he refused to do ROFR which I find ironic here. He thought it would give him a legal upper hand due to my work situation and travels at the time (which, thanks to him, aren't an issue anymore as I'm unemployed!).
|
faith4two
Platinum
Reged: 11/11/07
Posts: 353
|
|
Saam, there are no ROFR orders. I would have liked that, at least in theory, back when it first came up. However, the water that has passed under the bridge since that discussion, and I'm grateful that he wanted nothing to do with ROFR.
He has, at least twice, made the attempt to manipulate my parenting time by scheduling something for our daughter and notifying me at the last minute. He, and his attorney, also ignored a request 2.5 months before Thanksgiving to negotiate a holiday schedule outside of a 72 hour rotation which has been in place since five days after we separated.
I've been around these forums long enough to know that a judge, if they will even hear it, doesn't take too keenly to one parent playing games with parenting schedule. After realizing that my options were to have the arguments in court come up as "she gave up her time with the child willingly" (as in ROFR) vs. "She wouldn't cooperate with me on the schedule", I can't win.
I decided back in the late fall, after speaking with two different attorneys who had differing opinions on the matter, that I would take my chances and be as flexible with my parenting time as he chooses to be with his. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The times it has worked, the difference of parenting time has been a whopping two hours of modification either way.
I agree with any poster here who says that the biggest loser is our daughter. I desire MUCH more flexibility with parenting time, but when the risk of being flexible is that I'm going to be painted as having no interest in our child, no thanks.
The bottom line here is that our daughter will be spending time with my mom while I'm hospitalized, give or take a few hours of windshield time with a mutual friend/neighbor of both the STBX and I to get to/from school to the hospital. It is in NO WAY different than how he chooses to exercise HIS parenting time, using his family as babysitters and taxi drivers.
If ROFR had been in place, my daughter would have missed that time with her grandmother (as I would have been forced to offer him that time, and without question, he would have taken it), and she would miss out on the hospital experience of welcoming her new baby sister. In fact, I have intentionally scheduled the birth on my parenting time (they're inducing two weeks early due to a single umbilical artery) so that she can be a part of the experience. Shoot, if SHE had any say, she'd push the doctor aside and be the catcher! LOL
|
malone
Platinum
Reged: 12/30/07
Posts: 2031
|
|
I get your point completey. My STBX would do and say the same things and does!
He would say no to ROFR as a way to show the world that I am a bad mother - i.e. that there were times that I couldn't be there for my child, and expected other people to do stuff for my child instead - like him. My own STBX would want to manipulate anyone he could into thinking that it all goes wrong if I can't rely on him being there. (The ROFR).
With two normal or nearly normal parents, the other parent would naturally and happily slot in to meet the need of their child.
with an STBX like mine, he would only do it if he could sound off loudly to other people about 'how much I had to rely on him, and that without him, nothing would happen'. I had this patronising, belittling put down stuff going on all of last yeaer. It was controlling and manipulative - I hated it.
6 months into our separation, he's starting to get better, but we still have these issues from time to time. When we do, it's about makng me look bad instead of looking after our child.
He definitely did it all the time while we were married and immediately after we separated.
|
faith4two
Platinum
Reged: 11/11/07
Posts: 353
|
|
Exactly, malone.
Yet another example, the last time our daughter was sick and scheduled to visit the doc, I made the appointment on his time, as the doctor's office didn't have anything available during mine. I let him know I wanted to be there.
As part of explaining to our daughter that we would both be there for that appointment, she asked me if I'd promise her that I'd be there for any further doctor's appointments. I told her, "Baby, as long as I know about it, I'll be there." We shook on it.
Wouldn't you know that he took her to the doc today, and I didn't hear of it until exchange time when he handed me the prescription for the antibiotic.
I am wholly on board with keeping promises like that to our child, not because it's to save face in front of a judge, but because it is important to HER.
How do you make that one up to your child without slamming the STBX???
|
Samsung
Platinum
Reged: 06/14/07
Posts: 2211
|
|
How do you make that one up to your child without slamming the STBX???
You need to slam yourself on this one. You made a promise that can't keep. Your ex did the right thing by taking he child to the doctor, and followed through by giving you the meds.
|
Samsung
Platinum
Reged: 06/14/07
Posts: 2211
|
|
You mentioned at one point that you have read book after book on co-parenting. I am not seeing co-parenting in your post. I'm seeing manipulation to control the other parent's time.
"Ironically, I think he honestly thought that he and/or his family were better for her and by denying ROFR, he'd limit my contact with our child."
You are using the non-existance of a ROFR, to limit HIS contact with the child.
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
