Custodial Father has had enough & so has the daughter!

[fastboat]

I have been the custodial parent since my daughter was 2 years old, she is now 11 years old. I love her more than anything on Earth and I have always provided for her in every way possible. Her mother only agreed to signing the divorce papers years ago, if I listed our custody as "Joint" on the divorce papers. Thru the years, the mother has done nothing outside of her normal every other weekend visitation and paying for SOME of child care thru the years. I finally had enough and filed for Child Support that was way overdue, after she decided one day to stop paying for part of child care...and just never paid it again! I won the child support case and she was directed to pay her monthly amount. Now, she thinks that she is a 50% parent in raising our daughter because of this court order, that is only a year old and remember, we have been apart for 9 years! In this time the mother has also made NUMEROUS bad judgement calls and has failed to be any significant part of my daughters life. Never attending school events, barely calling my daughter on the phone and repeated cancellations on the nights that she was supposed to get my daughter during the week (Wednesday night). This led to me just saying forget it and we went back to just every weekend, which actually means 4 nights a month (Friday night, Saturday night, and daughter comes home on Sunday). During cheer season, she doesn't even go over on Friday, instead she stays with me to insure that she gets to her game on time and her mother gets her from there...meaning she gets her over night on those weekends. It is sad! Anyway, the mother has been very negligent in her actions with my daughter, from taking her to the tattoo parlor with her to wait while mommy gets new tattoos, taking her to a motel with her while mommy visits her man friend, allowing men "friends" (yeah right) to stay the night on the couch after they have been out drinking...while my daughter is sleeping in the next room AND is sleeping in the same bed as her mom because mom wanted to save money so she only got a one bdrm apartment! My daughter is 11 and has to sleep with her mom for goodness sake. I can go on and on and on......the list is tiring actually.
I really want to get FULL custody of my daughter and she is begging me to do so. She no longer wants to go to her moms apartment and she has no respect for how her mother treats her. Her mother makes it clear that mommy is the adult and my daughter has to respect whatever decisions that mommy makes! REALLY????
I am worried about the consequences on my daughter if she was to be honest with her mom and tell her that she no longer wants the situation to remain the same. As for the legality of her giving me full custody, She can still have visitations (which is all she really has now, she just likes knowing that the paperwork reads JOINT) only there will be ground rules. It truly is hard to express in writing ALL that this woman has done without taking all day to write it or bore you fellow readers to death. What can I do? Has anyone else been in this situation???
Thank you and I apologize for the length of this post.

 

[army judge]

Forget ever getting full custody unless mom does something horrific.

None of the things you cited would a court take notice of, sadly.

The standard for parenting is lower than it is for owning a cat!!!

But, this is the woman you chose to sire.

What can you do?

Grin and bear it for another seven, or so, years.

Your child will be an adult one day soon.

Then, and only then, can she make choices.

Until that happens, you must obey the existing court order.

Yeah, she isn't obeying it, and probably never will.

If you allow her to own your thoughts, ahe'll take your happiness.

Grin and bear it.

This, too, shall pass.

If you don't want to waste your time and money going to court, that's all you can do.

Sure, you can take her to court, but why?

You'll never get the satisfaction you seek in court.

The judge will chastise her, warn her, and sometimes threaten her.

However, that rarely works.

She may behave for a week, and old habits reappear.

But, you picked ths loser.

You and your child are stuck with this bum for seven more years, or so.


That is what the court will say.

If you doubt my wisdom, consult with a couple of local attorneys.

The initial consultation is often free of charge.

Others will chime in, and they might have happier responses.

Good luck.

 

[Proserpina]

This boils down to parenting, not legal, issues. Nothing you've said here Dad points to Mom being legally negligent.

Also, full custody won't mean that you can give Mom ground rules about how she must parent the child during her parenting time, or how she must live. It won't change anything at all. During her time, she's allowed to parent the child according to her preferences.

And seriously Dad - your ex is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Mom IS the parent, and your daughter darned well SHOULD be going by Mom's decisions during Mom's parenting time. If you're encouraging your daughter to disobey her mother or disrespect her, you're doing your daughter a grave disservice - and not that I want to scare you, but if you do it too much, you could lose custody completely.

To MOM.

I'm sure that's not what you want, is it?