CustodyBattle.. HELP PLEASE!!!

[confusedsinglemomma]

:confused: my children are 3 & 6 years of age. i seperated from their father when my son was not even a year old. in the past three years their father (we'll call him joe) has spent maybe a total of a month worth of time with them, which includes the whole 7 days he spent with them all of 2006. He has had nor wanted a say into anything in their lives. He didnt come to their birthday parties, didnt show at school events & he lived 10 minutes away. Through the last three years i have been working very hard to provide my children a stable, loving & safe home. When i first left joe, i enrolled my children in an in home daycare that was 3 star certified by the state. little did i know that their daycare provider was hitting my children, so i found them a new daycare & resorted to asking good friends & family to watch my children when i had to work weekends. because of the fear that i had about someone hurting my children, (which i know, by expirence, that preditors search out single parent homes), i went so far as to switching my working schedule 9am to 2pm, to be sure that i would be the one to pick my children up from school & daycare. joe has been in numerous relationships, and even remarried last August, which ended in seperation in mid january of this year. As of the first week of February, he has met a new girlfriend (we'll call her sara), and after dating for 2 months he has moved out of his home & in with sara. he also started taking a more active role in my childrens life, but with alterrior motives i believe, there has been talk of joint custody from him & he wants to start keeping them every other week. i do not think that is a stable inviroment for children, of any age. a week here, a week there, when they have a stable home & routine here. joe asked me last monday about changing my younger childs daycare & i told him that i do not want to do that. i explained to joe of the abuse from the first daycare & that my 3year old would probably be starting in pre-k this coming school year.
he said that the daycare was just to far for him to drive, and i told him that i didnt want to change the daycare again. so joe decided to tell me that either i can co-operate or he would see me in court. i chose not to speak to joe for a night & the next morning he called me again, once again bringing up the court issue. so i told joe that i did have a solution that would be helpful to all involved. i told joe that since i work 9am until 2pm & he works until 7pm & sara works until 5pm, and neither one of them would be capable of picking up my oldest child from school at 2:45pm anyway & i work just 10 minutes from the daycare that i dont mind at all to pick up my children & they can stay with me until joe and/or sara gets out of work. so joe decided to tell me that the only problem with that is that he didnt want to see me everyday, so i told him that i could take my children to his mothers house when it was time for them to be picked up. he also asked me that since he was gonna start keeping my children half of the time if he could have his child support back. i dont understand after all of this time he has wanted nothing to do with my children, & the week before last joe sent me a few text messages propositioning me for sex, why is he trying to come back into their lives & change everything to his liking. he hasnt wanted any part of the decision making process to this point, so why now? is it only for the child support money? so today a good friend of mine was looking at our local classifieds online site when she found an article... this woman is looking for a babysitter for her step children a 6yr old & a 3yr old, in our school district, every other week, with her husband working at the same place where joe does & with sara's cell phone number on it. :eek:
i need help please. if you have any advice for me or suggestions, please let me know. i love my children with all of my heart & i only want what is best for them.:confused:

[zellbs]

I am not in law. All I can do is speak from my own experience. In many ways, your ex and the person I used to be is a lot alike. My ex and I split up when my daughter was only about 18 months old. I went a little nuts and wanted to party and all that mess. I was 20 years old at that point. Youth is no excuse, but that is what I did. I went about 2 years or so. I wanted to see my daughter on a more regular basis, but it took going to court to get that. The judge's view was shame on me for taking so long to get involved in my daughter's life, but he was not going to hold me back from visitation because I was her father and the desire was there. I continued to pay child support through all of that. I went through a tough stretch and got behind on child support and my ex made it hard on me to see my daughter. Then I moved around alot and lost touch. I got things on track about 4 years ago and now I am trying to establish some kind of relationship with my daughter. I have agreed to pay for her last two 2 years in a private school so she will finish school. She is now 16 and doesn't hate me, so that's a start. I know each state has their own laws. This happened in Alabama. Having said all that, most judges will not disallow him visitation rights, but I believe it will be to your convenience rather than his. I have been on the wrong side of all this and it seems the burden was on me. I do not know you, but you seem to be a good mother looking for the best for your children. You do not need to take a stance of not letting your children see their father when he is willing (as long as he is not hurting them in any way) because you do not want your children resenting you for keeping them away from their father. On the same note, he probably cannot get anything changed through court on his own without your agreement as far as joint custody. I know Alabama basically requires that to be decided upon by both parties. Even when there is joint custody, there is still a primary custodian, which would be you, and the non-custodial parent still must pay child support unless you waive it. The laws tend to be set up to favor the custodial parent, which is in most cases, the mother as it is your case. Unless you are on crack or bring in undesirables constantly in front of your children, you probably do not have anything to worry about. Hopefully, the father's turn has nothing to do with money and when his motion is rejected, he will continue to be a father to your children. There is a lot of things in my life that I regret, but if there is one thing I could change, would be to regain the lost time with my daughter. I have another child with another ex, a son who is 7 and I haven't made the same mistakes with him. I probably go overboard with him. I drive 5 hours one way every other weekend to stay a part of his life. That is to say, people can change. Your ex may have had problems with committment in the past, but give him the opportunity to rectify those mistakes if he is willing, as long as it is not damaging your children. Sadly enough, it sounds to me like it may be a money or power thing with him to be fighting so hard to get his children, while he is also looking for a babysitter unless he is trying to take the burden off you a little. You would know that better than I. I hope this helps. I know I rambled a lot, but that is just me. I hope you can find something useful or comforting at least.

[zellbs]

I did not mean to post that message twice. I am new on this site.

[IslandGirl]

I am not a lawyer, but am a mother with every other week placement, and joint custody. Having your children with you every other week really sucks - for you. But your kids may very well be happy spending time equally with both parents. My ex sucks in many ways - he is dishonest, doesn't support the kids financially the way he should, and is a less than perfect Dad. But my girls still love him and he will always be their Dad. They spend every other week with him - mostly by their choice (they are now 18 & 15). I hate it - but I can't honestly say it hurt my girls - they do have a right to know their father!