This is going to be long but I have to write it out. Writing is like therapy. It is about Chuck's ex and her idea for their son. That ho really does make me angry - the nerve of her! 
My husbands ex-wife wanted to meet with him or us (not sure which but I went) regarding their son's (he is 14) schedule. He tried to get her to tell him what she wanted via email so we would not have to meet with her, but she insisted on a meeting. I already knew this wasn't going to be good, although I always hope for the best. I wasn't really sure I wanted to be there (his ex is just icky – she has issues that my sensitive soul picks up on, but more about that later) but since I drive Chuck (and we had just gotten out of work and school) and I also drive our son, I thought I might as well be there, at the very least, to support Chuck.
Chuck's ex has physical custody. Chuck has parenting time every other week-end, one evening a week, two weeks in the summer and the alternate holidays and child's birthday. He had to fight to get that extra weeknight evening and extra week in the summer. A lot of non-custodial parents have much more time than what he has. He is a good father too. It is not like he is a deadbeat or anything, like I know she tries to make him out to be. One time she tried to tell me he was abusive towards her; I laughed in her face. If anyone is abusive it is her, at least mentally/verbally abusive. But that will have to be a blog for another day. Chuck could never hurt anyone. Hell, I can't even argue with him (on the rare occasions I am being a bitch, haha - or we have a disagreement) because he just doesn't argue. I think that is why she ultimately had affairs and left Chuck – he didn't provide enough drama for her. I think she wants someone to argue with. But again, I digress.
Overall I think she has issues with control and jealousy. She wants to control our relationship with our son, or wanted Chuck to just disappear from his son's life. She certainly never wanted another mother figure in her son's life. She is jealous of Chuck and my relationship with our son.
OK, so this is what she wants. You all tell me (if anybody ever reads my blogs) if you think this is reasonable. She wants Chuck to give up, to take out of the parenting time order, his every other week-end and give up one week in the summer. I am not sure about the one evening a week but I am sure she wants that out to. She wants their son to be able to decide when he sees his father. So basically Chuck would not have any set parenting time. According to her, their son has too many activities in the summer for us to be able to have him for two weeks. Also, she does not want their son to miss out on 'anything' and she is afraid he will miss out on a lot of stuff if he has to go see his Dad. Basically, she wants Chuck to give up his parenting time for their son's social life.
We know that his son has band camp in August so we were hoping to get a week in June and a week in July. Chuck was supposed to have his son for the 4th of July holiday this year but a trip may or may not be in the works for his son to go down to FL and spend time with ex's family at a NASCAR race. We were not consulted about this and are still not sure of any details or if it is going to happen at all. It is something that Chuck's son really wants to do so we did not raise a fuss about it. BUT Chuck should have been consulted since A. it is his holiday this year and B. what parent would not expect (and should be) consulted about their child leaving the state for a week. Oh yeah, the ex is willing to give up one of her weeks of vacation time. WOW, what a sacrifice. They never go anywhere!! I think last summer they went on a 'vacation'. It was a week-end trip to Michigan Adventure. Family vacations are important to us – see blog below – and we always go somewhere every summer. We know that we will not be able to do that with our son much longer but we were hoping to do it this year. Chuck should still get his two weeks in the summer even if we sit at home one week because of our son's schedule. She told us at the meeting to plan a vacation for another time other than summer! What and take him out of school? We would not want to do that but like that would ever happen. She just gets pissed off because we take our son places. It all goes back to the jealousy thing. She does not want her son to have a good time with us.
Chuck's ex also stated that she is sure their son will be at our house quite a bit because he loves coming over. I know he likes coming over but we are already competing with his social life now. I can't imagine what it would be like if we did not have a set parenting time. It has already been difficult dealing with her over issues regarding parenting time, why would now be any different? If our son wanted to come over but she felt that it was more important that he stay at her house, who do you think would win out? She has a lot of influence over her son (as mothers do) and she has no problem lying and manipulating people, including her son, to get what she wants. Did I say it has been difficult dealing with her over parenting time issues? It has been very, very difficult to downright impossible dealing with her. All the instances of her flying off the handle, calling my husband and yelling at him, coming up to his work and yelling at him, lying, and her under-handed tricks could fill many blogs. We cannot trust her now. We cannot trust her to not influence their son against visiting his father. In my opinion, she has made a consistent effort to try to push my husband out of their son's life and this is just one of her little tricks disguised in concern for her son's social life and school activities. No, no, we cannot trust her and it would be cruel to put all that responsibility on our son about when he should visit and not visit. I told Chuck's ex at this meeting Wed (and before) that we do not trust her. I should have articulated more of what I meant because she took it to mean that I was just trying to hurt her. She went on and on about how what I think about her does not matter to her. That is not the issue - I don't really care; I don't care what she thinks about me either but trust is at issue here. If she really feels that Chuck giving up his parenting time is what is best for her son then we need to trust her to make sure that their son is given room to make his decisions without her manipulating him or influencing his decisions. We cannot trust her not to do that. Even in the best of circumstances (which these are not, believe me) it would be hard for any parent not to influence their child to stay with them, etc. She has never shown herself to be a positive influence in regard to fostering a good relationship with the other parent. Every parent, whether there is divorce or not, is obligated to promote a good relationship with the other parent, unless of course the other parent is totally crazy or unsafe. She is not interested in doing this.
She also stated that she does not get to spend time with her son because he is never home. I hardly think that is true. He is at her house 75% of the time. It is up to her to make spending time with her son a priority. She says he is always at friend's houses. For one thing, she gets to see him most every morning and most every evening. Another thing, ah, he is home watching TV the majority of the time Chuck calls him. If he was always at friend's houses, Chuck would never get a hold of him.
Other issues at hand here are transportation, family being a priority, and just plain old teenager stuff. She tried to put on like she was so concerned with Chuck (Chuck does not drive due to eyesight problems) and I having to drive their son to anything he wants to do. We have been doing it so far, what is to stop us now? Sure it is difficult sometimes. Our son needs to do a better job a communicating the details of his activities (she has never been any help in this regard either) and what he wants to do. Chuck and I do what we can to keep abreast of what is going on with our son – we check the school website and have the newsletter delivered to us, but the rest falls to our son. If he wants to do something, he needs to let us know. After the meeting, Chuck and I were like "If she is so concerned about her son missing activities and times with his friends why doesn't she step up and provide more of the transportation?"
She also said sometimes he keeps himself from doing things with his friends because it is on his Dad's time and he is afraid to ask and hurt our feelings. This may or may not be true. He does not have much of a problem with that when he is at our house. I think he sometimes may be torn about which set of friends he wants to spend time with – the set at his Mom's or at his Dad's. We have always tried to have an open relationship with our son. He can talk to us about anything but I don't think he realizes it even though we have told him over and over. I blame this on his mother too. She has told him in the past not to talk to us about certain things because he will get her in trouble. So now I think he is afraid to say much of anything. Chuck and I have told our son to keep us informed of activities, let us know anytime he wants to do anything, he is more than welcome to call his friends (no matter where they are from) and have them over – we have even offered to have a sleepover or party for his friends; it is on our son's shoulders whether he follows through on his end. We do not want him to miss out on anything either and have been accommodating to changes in schedule, etc. Chuck has always been flexible with his parenting time. I cannot say the same for his ex. There will be spurts where she is fairly flexible about things but only if she is happy with her life at the time. There are times (most often) you can tell she is not happy with what is going on in her life because she takes it out on those around her. Now I know there are times when plans cannot be changed or activities/family functions/ whatever cannot be planned around whose week-end (this happens on our end too, but again Chuck has always been easy to deal with) it is but there have been many times we have caught her in lies. She will say NO to us just to say no because she just does not want us to have time with her son. For one thing, I get the feeling that either she does not think that Chuck, his son and I are a family or have the right to consider ourselves a family or she thinks that her family (and things that she may be doing) is more important than our family or anything we might want to do. I also think that she has let her son know this, if not in words then certainly in actions. It is sad, to always have to battle that. Add to that the teenager stuff; rebellion, friends being a priority over family, tons of activities to do … Well it is just hard to have any time with our son.
Some of the other frightening things about her idea of Chuck not having any set parenting time and letting their son decide are:
What if we are disciplining (will we even be able to with an arrangement like that?) him about something and of course he does not like it and gets mad. He just says "I am mad at Dad so I am not going over to his house!"
We will have less communication with our son and will be even less informed than we are now about what is going on in his life.
What if he decides he wants to come to our house? He calls and we are not home, we have made other plans, or Chuck is home but no one is available to pick up our son? Are just supposed to hang around waiting for the phone to ring?
The ex gets mad and says "well we will just revert back to what the court order says!" She has done this many times. Well there will not be much to the order anymore, will there?
Not having a set parenting time puts more of a burden on our son. He would be put in a postion of having to choose between the parents at certain points. He has already said he does not want to have to choose between the two. Having the parenting time makes it easier on him because there are set times with each parent.
I think the idea is crazy. Too much competition for our son's time! Too many chances for her to manipulate situations!
The bottom line is this: Our family and spending time with our son is important to us. At the same time we want him to do whatever his little heart desires (within reason of course, you know, not talking 'bout letting him blow things up for example). We need to find a balance between the two. Family should take precedence over everything but that should not be so heavy handed that it does not allow for other things.
WOW!! This is soooo long. Heehe. It really helped to write it all out though. Tell me what you think - if anybody reads all this. 
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