When you are determining whether or not to contest custody, you must carefully weigh the costs. There are your legal fees, your children’s legal fees, and fees for the court-ordered evaluator.  Sometimes these costs can be greater than what you’d expect to pay for your child’s college education. However, the costs of a contested custody matter reach far beyond the literal dollar cost of your case. You and your children will feel stressed beyond human endurance during the process. Contested custody trials, and matters which are headed toward contested custody trials but which ultimately settle, can be extremely time consuming, emotionally exhausting, and damaging to a family unit.  Do not underestimate the trauma that this will cause your family if you and your spouse are unable to reach an agreement concerning your children’s upbringing.  If you are holding out on the schedule in order to win some other concession, financial or otherwise, think again. Ask yourself, “What makes it worth it? Are the costs to my ongoing relationship with my spouse and to my children worth holding out for? Will the schedule my spouse wants me to agree to inconvenience me, sadden me, or actually harm the children or me?

Courts are set up to assist you in reaching your own agreement about your children. However, when parents are unable to resolve their differences,  the court will step in to assist. The “assistance” requires that your lives and past decisions get examined in minute detail, by you, your spouse, the evaluator, and the judge. You may have to testify about your spouse’s faults and shortcomings in the same detail. You will also have to listen while your spouse testifies about every perceived misdeed and defeated expectation, and every criticism he or she has of you, your parenting, and your relationship with your children. After that, you also have to listen while the court-appointed evaluator testifies about your strengths and weaknesses as a parent, and about how your behavior has affected the children during the divorce process. Click here  for 5 tips on custody battles.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

Once the court is aware of the situation (which it will be, because of the restraining order) the judge can set the matter for a hearing so that you can present all of your evidence against visitation, and the court can modify the existing orders so that your children will be safe.

In other less exigent circumstances, your choices and plan of action are less clear. Sometimes problems happen during visitation, but it’s impossible for you to tell if the situation warrants filing a Motion for Modification of Visitation in court. You can file such a motion at any time; the problem is deciding when it would be appropriate to do so. Don’t file a motion which you cannot back up with proof. If you want visitation changed and can’t work it out between yourselves, you need to have solid reasons and evidence for asking for the change. Lots of children have a tough time adjusting to transitions, especially early in their parents’ divorce and separation. But how will you know when it’s appropriate to file for a modification of the court’s orders? For an article on modification of visitation, click here.

If you think, but you don’t know, that the visits are harming the children, then you need the assistance of a third party in order to determine how best to proceed. Have your children speak with a therapist or a school counselor if you think that something inappropriate may be going on, but are not in a position to prove it. Once they’ve spoken to a therapist or counselor, that person can let you know whether or not you need to intervene to change the way that the  place, without violating your child’s confidentiality.  If the reasons are less serious, and the harm to your child is questionable or less serious, use a third party to determine what is a phase, what can be corrected with minimal adjustments to schedule or types of visits, and what needs to be borne out over time. Examine your own behavior and make sure you are not giving your child messages that you need him or her to stay with you, for company, support, or to punish the other parent. This is an unfair burden to place on your child.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.