I Almost Gave In

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-17-2004
I Almost Gave In
4
Mon, 02-21-2005 - 2:23pm

Mediation ... What a Nightmare ... What an exercise in futility. We were there for five hours and accomplished nothing. His lawyer is as big a bully as he is and I was almost so intimidated at one point that I just said fine, give him whatever he wants and get me out of this. Luckily my sense of anger kicked in and I got so fed up that I finally just said forget it. Get me out of here.

I can deal with the financial issues but I don't know what to do about our 18-month-old daughter. We have a visitation schedule set up but he wants more overnight visitation. I want to do what's best for her. It's so hard to know what that is. On the one hand he hasn't abused her ... yet. On the other hand he was physically and verbally abusive to my 13-year-old daughter.

What's appropriate for an 18-month-old child? He currently picks her up for 2 and a half hours on Wednesday evenings and every other weekend from Friday until Sunday.

The mediator made it sound like in Florida judges don't take the age of the child into account and that even though he was abusive, they might send him to anger management but otherwise the abuse won't even be considered in the issue of our daughter. It's so confusing.

I'll be so glad when this is all over and things feel more settled. Does anyone else have small children that they've had to figure this out with? I wish there was a guidebook or something to help me know what to do. Lawyers really aren't any help. Everyone seems to say something different and I really hate the idea of leaving our daughter's future up to a judge who doesn't know anything about her.




Edited 2/21/2005 2:41 pm ET ET by kpastula2004
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-08-2005
Mon, 02-21-2005 - 2:51pm

Have you looked at www.womenslaw.org

5yrssm 
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-26-2004
Mon, 02-21-2005 - 6:35pm
I live here in Fl. You will be ok. The visitation schedule you have set up now is guideline visitation in Fl. The only thing I can see happening if he gets any extra time it may be another two hours on his Weds evenings. That is guideline visitation. You will be ok! Just do not agree to any extra overnights whatsoever, because once this is final, it will be very difficult if you ever need to go back and get it changed.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2005
Mon, 02-21-2005 - 6:51pm

This is what *really* annoys me. He's an abusive ex, and a child abuser <> , yet he's deemed an 'okay' parent when it comes to a 18 month old baby! :(

Anger management- what's that gonna teach him... how to control the pattern of abuse he uses. Anger manangment is proven to be ineffective in cases of domestic abuse. Is it still routinely used over there?

Sorry I'm no help with this one... Hope it works out for YOU & your children :)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-17-2004
Tue, 02-22-2005 - 9:04am

You are all so wonderful. It is so frustrating and hard to know what to do. I thought that the visitation schedule that we currently had was pretty standard, but it seemed like the mediator would just sort of say whatever he had to say to "scare" me into agreeing to something. Maybe that was just my perception, but some of the things that he said seemed to so far out there to me that I just couldn't figure it out.

I also struggle with the idea that my daughter is so small and can't tell me what's happening when she's with her dad. The thing is, it's not little children that he "picks on", it's when we gals get big enough to speak up and have opinions for ourselves that he really starts becoming abusive. I don't know, there are so many things to consider.

I'll be so glad when this is overwith and I can begin to really feel like we can start healing from all of the things that have happened over the past eight years.