# the middle of the cesspool



## 845dad (May 28, 2014)

Feel free to look up my profile name, 845dad, to understand the insanity and idiocy that I'm dealing with. Well we have court again this week and to be honest I'm at wits end. Everytime we go its vover schedule...she agrees to one thing then 2 days later backs out. All I want is my kids on my days off ..which is half the year. But she keeps playing little games...say for instance I get off my last midnight shift at 730AM on a Tuesday....she would rather pay babysitter $16 an hour than allow me to have them...not Tuesday..but afterschool Wednesday...At this point I think even the kids lawyer is starting to be in my corner. How do I play this...keep in mind she is crazy...holds a grudge till the end of time ..and is a woman in New York state..any advise would be great..not sure if I am going to be keeping my lawyer at this time...it appears he's playing the long game but i'd like to see more offense.


----------



## gouge_away (Apr 7, 2015)

Driving up your legal fees until you cave?

"Giggity Giggity!"


----------



## 845dad (May 28, 2014)

WAY WAY back in the first days of court she was caught illegally closing a 401k and pleading poverty all the while jumping her hours from 10 to 40 a week...the judge was kind enough to say she pay her own lawyer fees...but it may be possible...but either way i'm over this nonsense


----------



## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

845dad said:


> Feel free to look up my profile name, 845dad, to understand the insanity and idiocy that I'm dealing with. Well we have court again this week and to be honest I'm at wits end. Everytime we go its vover schedule...she agrees to one thing then 2 days later backs out. All I want is my kids on my days off ..which is half the year. But she keeps playing little games...say for instance I get off my last midnight shift at 730AM on a Tuesday....she would rather pay babysitter $16 an hour than allow me to have them...not Tuesday..but afterschool Wednesday...At this point I think even the kids lawyer is starting to be in my corner. How do I play this...keep in mind she is crazy...holds a grudge till the end of time ..and is a woman in New York state..any advise would be great..not sure if I am going to be keeping my lawyer at this time...it appears he's playing the long game but i'd like to see more offense.


Having been stuck in the divorce odyssey that never ends I can understand your interest in switching lawyers, we all want more agressive to get the fiasco over with. Lawyers can only be as aggressive as a judge wants them to be. More times than not it's the judge who won't act or enforce there own rulings. You face a double problem in that child custody/support and divorce are two separate issues and even when a divorce is final the custody battles can rage on.

The court will humor the crazy unfortunately, they become paranoid of appeal or a procedure error since the crazy rarely just go away so it drags everything out frankly hoping one party will cave in so they don't have to rule. 

I suspect even if you gave 100% of everything she would still find something to fight about, it's what they do. It's not great advice but just keep holding your ground and endure. Since you have a third lawyer involved representing the kids interests I'd think sooner or later they will have to speak up about her nuttiness.


----------



## *Deidre* (Feb 7, 2016)

How sad that she doesn't see the damage this will do to her kids, using the kids to 'get back' at you.


----------



## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

845dad said:


> WAY WAY back in the first days of court she was caught illegally closing a 401k and pleading poverty all the while jumping her hours from 10 to 40 a week...the judge was kind enough to say she pay her own lawyer fees...but it may be possible...but either way i'm over this nonsense


My crazy ex racked up more than 80k in legal fees chasing her imaginary world and constant need to fight. She makes 12 bucks an hour. She will still be paying off her lawyer when she us collecting social security. 

You hope she runs out of cash but some of these lawyers will let them run up huge debts. Lawyers always get money in the end.


----------



## 845dad (May 28, 2014)

that's the thing...we've been in the system for a year and a half and neither of us has been face to face with a judge


----------



## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

845dad said:


> that's the thing...we've been in the system for a year and a half and neither of us has been face to face with a judge


It took about that long before I had my first real live court appearance. The lawyers had several pretrial conferences before that. Judges don't want to deal with divorce in general and will delay or set court dates months and months out in the future hoping the parties will settle.


----------



## gouge_away (Apr 7, 2015)

Every issue she thinks up, her lawyer has to send a letter to your lawyer, who reads the letter, then types up an explanation and forwards the ex and letter to you, you read the 2 letters and respond back to your attny, who then types up a response and sends it to her attny.

Every single letter my ex sends to my attny cost me $175. So she's spamming my attny with irrelevant issues, hoping my legal fees scare me into settling for zero.

I would suggest digging up every piece of dirt you can on your stbx, subpoena records on everything, collect, copy, and sort all communications (trivial/irrelevant vs. relevant) so you can show where she was on track and where she was wasting your attny's time and your money.

If you find some incriminating information, present that right before presenting all the lollygagging letters, then request that she be awarded your attorney fees proportionate to the amount of time and money she has wasted.

"Giggity Giggity!"


----------



## ReturntoZero (Aug 31, 2015)

845dad said:


> that's the thing...we've been in the system for a year and a half and neither of us has been face to face with a judge


I lived in New York.

I got the hell out of there.


----------



## Corpuswife (Apr 24, 2009)

Wow! In my county in Texas, they push mediation. I haven't heard of anything so drawn out. I am sorry for you and your children having to endure this unknown "limbo land."


----------

