When I met my husband, he told me that he had a child from a former relationship. I quickly asked if he had visitation with the child. "Yes..." That was all I needed to know. A Dad who was involved with his child was enough for me. Had he said the opposite, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. We are married and have two children of our own. A daughter who is 4 and a son who is 2. I am also the "step-mom" to an extremely loving young boy who we will call "Bruce" for anonymity purposes. He is now 11 years-old and we are fighting once again (like heck) to get more time with him. Currently we have about 35% and we are seeking a 50/50 timeshare. This battle has been on-going for the last 5 years or so. They used to have a verbal agreement to every other weekend, but as soon as the Egg-Donor was married, this became less frequent and my husband had no choice but to go to court to have it ordered. He received every other weekend and half of his summer and holidays right away. As soon as we moved from Sacramento to be closer to him, we received an additional night to Monday. The next time we went to mediation, he got another overnight to Tuesday. Now we just sit stagnant in the trenches of Tehama County's Family Law System waiting until we are deemed "good enough" to have more time. Three more nights a week every-other week is all we are asking for and it's been an uphill battle. Our motivation is that we want to spend more time with him. The court system has not given one good reason why not. The Egg-Donor states that "it's not fair to her and that she doesn't want to lose her role as his mother". Due to previous attempts at restraining orders based on false information, we have an order to audio-record every conversations between us during exchanges and such. We actually have this on recording! We have plenty of recordings that we are allowed to use in court, but have not yet had the opportunity to do so.
The purpose of this blog is to share with you the difficult trials and pain my husband has had to go through seeking an equal share of physical custody of his son and perhaps shed some light on the subject. There are so many Dads out there who pay their support and actively try to participate in their children's lives, but are denied time and time again. Thanks to the wonderful county of Tehama, he already has 50% legal. That's right, he is legally responsible for anything Bruce does and can make medical decisions etc, but not "good enough" for 50% physical. It's laughable!
Our family has been put through so much and my husband has been treated like a first-class jerk during this entire process. The mother who we'll call "Egg Donor" can lie like no other. Lies fly out of her mouth seamlessly as though she is truly convinced that what she is saying is fact. I have no doubt it's pathological and that it is a learned behavior demonstrated by her very own mother who does the same. Her own mother went as far as to lie about having an affair with their church pastor. It eventually came out that she was lying, but imagine the heartache his family went through. The Egg-Donor in our case enjoys being seen as the victim in any situation. Her tactics to gain leverage in their custody case are inhumane and vicious. Filing for restraining orders, false accusations of abuse to CPS, and brainwashing Bruce to name a few. Her current husband is no better and she actually blames him any chance she gets.
Despite all of this, it's easier for me to be nice to people rather than waste my own energies hating them. I actually do not hate the Egg-Donor. I pity her.
