Part 4: "You have the right to pay child support"

The next month (May) we finally get into mediation. We re-negotiate everything, and finalize the debt, the property etc.

At this point my total legal bills were well over 20k, I was paying $2200 a month in child support and alimony, and I was broke as hell every month; so I was hoping this would be the end of it, and things would settle down. We agreed to state standard visitation (vs. the every other week we had before, but was NEVER followed). The standard visitation is 1st, 3rd, and 5th weekend, and every Thursday night. Fine. The Child support goes up to $1850 a month, and alimony goes down to $350 a month for 1 year, but in the end I get stuck with another year, so $350 a month for 2 more years. ... still $2200 a month, which means ex-wife can continue to live off child support, and not work.

For the first few weekends, everything goes ok, I get my visitations etc. Things are starting to look up, then the crazy once again enters the picture. See... my daughter's 13th birthday was coming up, and the Ex had made big plans for a slumber party etc. , but it fell on my weekend, and per state standard visitation, the ex only gets 2 hours from 6-8pm with my daughter. Now.. I know full well that she would not do shit for me, and I would only get the 2 hours, IF I got that, But it is not about me, it is about my daughter. So I work out a deal with my daughter the weekend before her birthday:

Thursday she comes over with me like normal, Then Friday morning (her birthday) We will have her favorite birthday breakfast, go shopping for clothes (what she wanted for her birthday), then take her back to her moms that afternoon so she can have her big slumber party, then I will pick her up at 1pm on Sat, and we will finish our weekend and have father's day together. ... Sounds good right? I get birthday morning, Mom gets birthday afternoon, and night, all their plans are intact, and me and my daughter get father's day together. My daughter and I beamed with pride at our awesome compromise. Till we tell mom..... it hits the fan, She yells at my daughter, crys at her, makes her feel guilty "it is always all about your dad, and not me!? What about our special birthday morning's!?" then "Fine stay with your dad, let him work it out, just cancel the whole thing!!!"... A classic manipulation of my daughter. Eventually I put a stop to it when I find my daughter hiding in the closet in tears on the phone to her mother.. who is still going at her. Poor thing...

Well..... few days after my daughter goes back over to her mom's i get a call, she tells me she will not be coming over for her birthday at all, and that I can come pick her up at sat. morning. I reluctantly agree... It is against our visitation agreement, and wrong, and unfair, but i will not mess up my daughter's birthday.

This starts the final string of my visitations leading from mid-june to July 4th weekend. Over the previous 9 months (December 2010- June 2011), I had got, on average 1 out of every 10 visitation days with my daughter. Up until this point, I have been trying to keep it out of the courts, trying to work it out, be civil, be the bigger person, make it easier on my kids. My Son had stopped talking to me completely at this point. He had become convinced that I was an angry evil man who would stop at nothing to hurt his mother as much as possible, as that is what she, and grandmother, wanted him to think. It was at this point that I became aware of a very real thing, called Parental Alienation Syndrome. Now my daughter had started telling me that she didn't WANT to come see me. It was all my ex's plan, the lies, the manipulation, the emotional manipulation was just too much for the kids to handle. but it was all she needed. Once she got my daughter to say that, she instantly empowered her as a full adult, told her she was old enough to make her own decisions, and she didn't have to see me.

July 4th weekend (2011) was the last time I had a visitation with my daughter. She was supposed to be coming over for her first 3 week long summer vacation visit. I went to pick her up, and she was slow to come out, but did come out. She had nothing. No clothes, no bags, nothing, just her phone and her laptop. So I took her shopping, got her everything from toothbrushes to PJ's, and summer clothes to wear. We had a great weekend, then on the Monday.. (I took time off work to be with her) My daughter comes in and jumps on me in bed, waking me up. We have breakfast, we cuddle on the couch, then my daughter says "Mom made me an appointment, and I need to be at her house at 12:30".... ok...... so I take her over... 2:30, 3:30... nothing from the daughter, phone calls are not returned, no texts, ... Worried at 4pm I go over to ex's apartment where I find my daughter, who tells me she is not coming back over. The normal drama erupts... I call my attorney enough is enough... we need to get the courts involved... I need help.

Now keep in mind... Up until this point we had been in and out of court no less than 4 times (all due to my ex filing motions claiming I owed her money for something, which i didn't), each time I have complained that I am not seeing my kids, each time, the judge had done nothing, and simply said that things will calm down once the divorce was final..... but now it was completely out of control. My Ex-wife had violated our initial court order from December of 2010, the judges orders from Feb of 2011, March of 2011, and our mediated settlement agreement from May of 2011. Blatantly violated them... done whatever she wanted. She had gone off the deep end, assaulted me, broke into my home, threatened suicide, cut the kids off from not only their dad, but their whole family... Sure the courts would step in and enforce the court orders right? Wrong.... the only thing the courts cared about up until this point is that my money is flowing into the ex-wife's bank account. So far, the only right I have as a life long dedicated father is the right to pay child support.

Part 5: The death of Father's rights

http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/13w7ii/my_story_of_mens_rights_part_5_the_failure_of/