I'm once again needing advice. I've posted before about my friend and his two daughters and our situation and now I'm back again.
A refresher: I'm living with a friend who is separated from his wife. The only papers filed so far is the initial "separation" forms, saying they're legally separated. Nothing has been filed in respect to their two daughters, but they have agreed to joint legal custody and 70/30 shared physical custody. In other words, he has them 2 nights a week and EOW. Originally he only had them one night a week but it was increased to two last fall. This spring, the two nights became two sleepover nights because they were getting picked up so late.
His wife and I have an uneasy relationship. She goes from hating my guts and not wanting the girls left alone with me to leaving them with me while he was out of state to wanting me gone because I'm costing him money that she should be getting to having me watch the girls when she can't find anyone else to now wanting me gone by the middle of July.
The most recent situation was caused by an accident that gave the oldest daughter (almost 9) a few burnt fingertips. On Father's Day, the girls wanted to give Dad breakfast in bed. The oldest daughter loves to help with things so I had both of them help prepare the breakfast so that it was ready to be put in the oven when he gave me the signal that it was time. When he gave me the signal, I said that it was time to put breakfast together. She asked if she could turn on the oven and I said yes. Not a big deal. I asked her to open the door so I could check something and noticed that I had to move the rack down one level. She asked if she could do it, and because she'd done it before and I WAS right there, I said yes. She reached in and grabbed the heating element on top, giving herself a burn on two or three fingers. I had her immediately put her hands under cold water but it still left a bit of redness.
As anyone knows who gets burned like that, the heat continues for a while. She was holding onto a wet cloth to keep her fingers from hurting. Mom showed up unexpectedly to drop off some clothes she'd bought for the girls AND to apparently drop off a gift she'd bought for dad. Daughter shows mom the slight burns and Mom makes a big fuss out of it, causing daughter to cry (something she didn't do when it happened or even up until Mom showed up).
Fast forward a week. Girls are visiting with their godparents for several days, will be home about a week and then will head to paternal grandparents for 3 weeks. Mom calls Dad and tells him that she wants me gone by the middle of July (before the girls come home) because she says I'm a danger to them. If I'm not gone, she's going to call her lawyer and sue for full custody and cut his visitation down to supervised visits.
Dad loves his girls and wants no chance of losing them and she knows this. She's used it as a threat before and knows it works most of the time. He, of course, doesn't bother to say anything in rebuttal to her demands.
I want to tell her off but I don't need him having further problems with her. I just wish she had the guts to tell me stuff face to face.
I don't plan on doing anything or saying anything to her. I have no desire to make it harder for my roommate since he is my best friend. I think what I was looking for, more than advice on how to handle it, was if she would be able to win sole custody based on the one incident. Oh well.
No sole custody would only be awarded if there had been a substantial change in circumstance or abuse. This did not happen from your post, so I would doubt it.
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