Navigating the Complexities of Custody

In this episode, I share the raw and emotional journey of navigating a complex custody battle and the process of moving out of the home I shared with my ex-husband and daughter. I dive into the challenges of maintaining my relationship with my daughter amidst constant interference, control battles, and the heartbreak of watching her caught in the middle. This story touches on the relentless harassment, the custody hurdles, and the process of learning to set boundaries in an extremely high-conflict co-parenting situation.

Episode Highlights:
[00:01] - Kicking off with a look at how custody unfolded during the divorce.
[03:45] - Temporary custody battles: scheduling and struggles over 50/50 time.
[07:10] - Setting boundaries: learning to hold my ground in challenging situations.
[11:25] - The chaotic moving day: dealing with harassment and unexpected emotions.
[17:30] - Saying goodbye to my daughter: a gut-wrenching farewell in our kitchen.
[22:15] - Realizing that I’m now in a place of indifference and healing.

Links & Resources:
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Transcript

Caryn Portnoy: 0:01

Karen, hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. I ask you, did custody go as you expected in your divorce, if not? Why? While we were still living together and things were extremely chaotic and toxic and disorganized and just unraveled, we ended up having a court ordered temporary custody schedule, something that I had been fighting for since the beginning, for the remainder of however long we were living together, we would have a custody schedule, a temporary custody schedule for the weekend only. So I would have her I would pick her up from school on Friday, and I would have her until Saturday. I believe his parenting time started at 6pm on Saturday, and he would have her until 6pm Sunday, and he used to always complain and give me a hard time about why did I get three extra hours on Friday? Why wasn't it equal? Originally it was equal, but his attorney said that because he sometimes works on a Saturday, it didn't make sense, and therefore I got three extra hours to account for him having to work on a Saturday. Didn't matter that he monopolized her completely during the week, but he was going to fight me over three hours. So we had a verbal agreement in place for a year for 5050 custody, which, from what I understand, New York State is in favor of 5050 custody. It's the most fair and the most beneficial to the child. So between me and my attorney, him and his attorney, and my daughter had an attorney appointed to her by him and the judge. We were all in agreement that my daughter wanted 5050 custody, and that's what it was. But we hadn't been able to work out a written agreement. We kept going back forth on the terms so it was a verbal agreement for a year. Right before she went to sleep away camp last year, she alerted her attorney that she wanted to live with her father primarily. Now I know how this goes. I know who my customer is. It was screaming to me that he convinced her to say this. He wanted the house. He wanted her. He didn't want me to have her for whatever reasons, and this was it. So I questioned her attorney one time, asking, you know, why is this allowed. She's 14 years old, or at the time she was 13. And why is this okay? And why isn't anyone stepping in to say that 5050, was what we agreed on. Her attorney just simply said to me, your attorney, advocates for you. I have to advocate for my client. I'm not allowed to say what my opinion is, even if I disagree with it, so the injustice of that just blew me away, and I could not believe that the judge would be empowering my daughter to make that decision for herself, assuming it was for herself. I mean, how does she know what's best for her? Her brain's not even fully formed yet, like I just could not get my head around this, that the court was allowing this to happen. So my attorney said to me, since I was getting ready to go to sleep away camp with my daughter, to you know, because I worked there, she said to me, Karen, you have seven weeks to turn this around and fix your relationship with her and get her back to 5050 I had an army of support. Everybody understood the situation. They all did whatever they could to help. And by the end of the summer, my daughter texted her attorney that she wanted to go back to 5050 with 10 days to spare before the end of the summer. So we got home from camp, and he got his hooks right back into her, and the day before we had to go back to court, she texted her attorney again that she wanted to live with her dad primarily. And so that's what happened it. There was nothing I could do about it. Her attorney was useless. But that was her job, was to advocate for her client. And if that's what her client is saying she wants, that's what she has to fight for. You know, it's interesting about her attorney, because early on. I first learned who the attorney was going to be, I looked her up and read all the Yelp reviews and saw that she was notorious for siding with the dads. And lo and behold, on the day that you know, custody was agreed upon and we signed our agreement, that was the last day that this attorney was on the case, and as she was leaving, she turned to me and she said, I believe that she'll come around a lot faster than you think. My attorney included language in the agreement that basically said, if and when my daughter decides to spend more time with me. I don't have to officially take him back to court. We can just have a conference and figure out the language and all of that. Now I have a theory about why he convinced her so strongly to live with him, and I believe it's because he didn't want to pay me child support. So again, in the in the language, in the agreement, my attorney wrote that, you know, if and when she decides to spend more time with me, we'll change the language to include, you know, whatever the new custody arrangement is, I would assume it would be 5050, and in which case we would have to Work Out child support. Then too. That's basically how the custody agreement was left and we signed it, and that's it. There was a schedule with holidays and vacations and school breaks and parenting time and all of that. It was very clear cut. It was very you know, mother gets it this year, father gets it next year, and vice versa, and odd years, even years, whatever. So we put the custody agreement to bed. My attorney was holding it in escrow until we finished the rest of our divorce agreement. But at least custody was done, and we knew that that's where it was going to be. It turned out that my time with my daughter came out to like, 10 days out of the month, which blew me away. Basically, I pick her up after school on a Thursday, and she's with me until I drop her off that Monday morning at school. From what I understand, my daughter requested this part. I was supposed to have every Tuesday with her. I would pick her up from school, I would be with her, take her to dinner and drop her off after dinner, and that's supposed to be once a week. It never happened, though. There was an incident that happened in the house. This was before her attorney was off the case. I was in the kitchen washing my hands, or my hands were in water somehow. And I remember turning around and seeing that the toaster oven was still on after he had made himself some food. And so I called up to him and told him that he left the toaster oven on. And instead of saying thank you, he said, Can't you shut it off? And I said, my hands are wet. And he literally said, You're such a piece of shit in a very nasty tone, and my daughter was standing right there. I turned to my daughter, and in an inappropriate comment to her, I said, How come you never tell your attorney about that? And once the words came out of my mouth, I knew that I should not have said that, and I apologized to her, I ended up emailing her attorney the next day to just acknowledge that I said something inappropriate, that I had a human moment, that I have the two of them coming at me constantly, and I was aware and I take responsibility for The fact that I said something inappropriate to her. The craziest thing, she ran into my attorney in court one day, and she said to my attorney, I can't believe what he's putting Karen through. I feel so bad for her. And that blew me away, because here's an attorney that's known for siding with the dads, and she says this to my attorney, I was, I was really I felt kind of vindicated. And ever since then, his entire game has been about winning. Everything he says is about how he got the house and he got the kid, and he's got the money and he's gonna be on top and all this stuff and how I'm a loser parent, and I just ignore it all. I just don't engage anymore at all. Sometimes I wonder if he even hears the things that come out of his mouth. He contradicts himself constantly. He gaslights me constantly. I went to pick her up for my parenting time recently, and I had two of my wheels in his driveway, and he comes barreling out, threatening to call 911, because he kept yelling at me to get off his property and I wouldn't move. Move. I had two wheels in the driveway. It was no big deal. I was waiting for her to come out, and I wasn't doing anything wrong. If he was a sane person, he wouldn't have said anything. But instead, he went inside, got his car keys, came outside and decided to back up his car in the driveway so that I move out of the driveway, and if I didn't move, he was he was ready to hit me, because if he was backing up to me, he'd be able to sue me, or go through my insurance or or pretend that I hit him, or whatever it is. So he holds his phone up to my windshield to show me that he punched in 911 and I just said to him, call 911 I don't care. I mean, honestly, by the time they come I would have been long gone. So do what you got to do. So that was when he came up to my window, and of course, I locked the doors immediately, and he started spewing how I'm a loser parent. Those are the kinds of things that I deal with when I'm picking her up, dropping her off, anything like that. It's It's such nonsense, and he's so petty. The funniest part of the whole thing, truthfully, is that he is never late paying me my maintenance. I mean, every month so far, it's like, it's hilarious to me. I got paid. Today is October 1. I got paid at 3am this morning. I've not had to ask him or remind him, or threaten him or anything. I think that's hilarious, but okay, the way that the custody schedule is now, now that we have officially signed our divorce agreement, I'm supposed to have the time I'm supposed to have. She's very angry right now. I'm not exactly sure why, other than the fact that I divorced her father, he has empowered her so much to make decisions on her own, to blow off parenting time, to decide I'm not coming, to decide I don't want to have dinner with you during the week, like I mean, all of these things. You know, she's got tutors now during the week. She has other things going on and and she can't squeeze in any time to see me during the week. So she had said to me over the summer, the Tuesdays aren't going to work for her, and we'll have to find another day during the week. So I tried to do that with her, and there's always an excuse. There's always a reason or an excuse. I can only imagine what he tells her about me or about her time with me, and the most hilarious thing recently was that he sent me a text complaining how I have every weekend free, and he has all the responsibility like, I'm sorry. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? This is what you wanted, and he's realizing now that she's hindering him. So I explained to him, we have a very expensive divorce agreement that has a schedule of parenting time. If you're not going to enforce when she sees me, then you're going to be bombarded by having all the responsibility. So if you want time to yourself, I suggest you start influencing her when parenting time is with me and with you, it's kind of basic. I mean, when I was younger, I didn't have a choice. My mother came to pick me up and I went with her. There was no saying I'm not going. There was no saying I don't want to go. I have a friend whose father used to drop her off at the mother's house and leave her standing on the lawn like there was no option, and yet he just enables her and empowers her, and she gets to call the shots, and she gets to rule the roost, and it's the worst thing he can do for her. I know she's almost 15, but I mean, she's not 19, she's not 22 and he just doesn't understand the concept of what it's like to be a parent. He wants to be her buddy. He's a Disney dad. He buys her loyalty. He buys her everything that she wants, whatever it is she's under his spell, and he doesn't know how to say no to her. I do, and that makes me the bad guy. He has always been in this for the short game. I have always been in this for the long game. I always told her that I would walk through a fire. For her, and I'm not giving that up. I'm not walking away from her. I'm not abandoning her. I told him I am ready, willing and able to be with her whenever she's got whenever she's on my parenting time, and that's it. I don't know why it's so hard. So when I say that I'm in it for the long game, I do believe that at some point in the future she will see the truth of who he is versus who I am. I think she will see the truth about what his intentions were and what mine are. I text her every day for over three weeks now, sometimes multiple times a day, whether it's just hope you have a great day. Hope you slept well last night. Have a great day at school. I'm thinking about you. I love you. Any of those things, I don't try to bombard her. I don't try to rope her into conversations about the divorce, nothing, but I want her to know that I'm always here for her, as much as I tell her that she needs to see I'm not giving up on her. But at the same time, my life needs to move forward too, so I have time marked for when I'm with her. If she doesn't want to be with me during those times, that's fine. I'm not going to force her, but I have to make my own plans, and I have to meet new people, and I need to move forward with my life too. So I'm in a space now of setting boundaries with her. You know, if you're not going to be with me on X weekend, then I need to know by Wednesday at 6pm otherwise, I'm going to make my own plans. She's going to have to learn, he's going to have to learn, and we're all going to have to adjust to a new schedule. So the day that I moved out of the house was very chaotic. Let me back up and say that the day before I moved out of the house, it was a very difficult day. He was very unhinged. I was starting to pack my boxes. I had written out a list of the items that I wanted to take from the house. We both agreed to it. It was kind of cut and dry. There really wasn't anything to argue about, but he saw one box packed, and he freaked out, and he started threatening me and harassing me, coming at me from every direction, about how he has to go through all of my boxes before I leave, and nowhere in the agreement said that he had to go through my boxes. We agreed on what I was taking. That was it. Anything else was mine to take. I was leaving way more than I was taking, but there was no way that I was going to line up my boxes open so that he can rummage through it all. I mean, no way. I was getting very upset over this whole thing and panicked. And I ended up going to the local police station, and I was very upset. I started crying. I was telling them that I don't feel safe in my house. He is completely unhinged. And I asked for a police presence when I moved out the next day, and they said that they would send people, you know, police, to make sure that everything was okay. So when I left the police station, I called my attorney and told her, and she wound up calling his attorney to say to her, get your client to back off of my client, because there'll be a police presence and a bodyguard, and what will the neighbors think? Because that's all my husband cared about. And don't you know, on moving day, he finally came home, and he saw that all of my stuff was packed up in the moving truck, and, you know, on its way, and he offered to help me, and he was asking if I needed anything. And it was just, like, very bizarre. And he was like, my best friend. I mean, it was, it was really a complete 180 but this is how erratic he was. And for three years, it was like this. It was, you know, my worst enemy and evil demon. And then all of a sudden he wants to co parent and and be my friend. And it's just so confusing, and so such a roller coaster. And then, of course, once I left, I was like, fully out of the house, not turning back. I get a text from him that says, let me know if you need anything, as if the hardest part was saying goodbye to my daughter. I was. Was scheduled to drive her to school the day that I was moving out, and I was in the kitchen in the morning, you know, getting her stuff ready like I always did, and just kind of keeping her on schedule and making sure that we left on on time. All of a sudden, she walks into the kitchen hysterically crying, and all she said was mommy, and I lost it. I just lost it. I just I first I was saying to her, what's wrong, what's wrong. I had no idea why she was crying. I thought something happened. Never in my wildest dreams did I think she would have this moment of sadness? I had not seen that in three years. So we stood in the kitchen, both of us hysterically crying and hugging and just gut wrenching, total gut wrenching. So I let her go to school. A little bit later, we got in the car, and I dropped her off, and, you know, hugged and cried again. As it turned out, there were some things that I needed to finish packing from my room that took longer than I expected. So by the time she came home, I was still there. And once again, she came upstairs, and we were hugging and crying again. And, you know, eventually I left, I think we were hugging and crying maybe four or five times that day, and I think by the next day, I mean, I texted her and spoke to her and all of that. But, you know, maybe a day or two passed, and she was totally fine after that. Then their honeymoon stage began, and she's been with him all this time. I hadn't seen her for a month now, but at the last minute, she wanted to switch some of my parenting time, so I saw her this past weekend instead of next weekend. And you know, it's gonna take time. We're gonna figure it out, but at the same time, it's very confusing for everyone and and, you know, we're working towards getting into a groove, and I believe we'll get there at some point, but it's, it's still very raw. I've been out of the house now for four months, and I still get harassing texts and phone calls from my ex. It's just relentless. It's really relentless. When I was moved out, I went from being panicked every time I would get a new text from him, not knowing what the issue is going to be now, and, you know, it just, it's draining. It's totally draining to listen to him, whether on text or on the phone or wherever. So I went from being panicked to then being annoyed. I've done so much healing in the last two years. So you know, now I'm at a state of, okay, I was annoyed. Now I've moved into indifference, so now I'm totally unbothered when he texts me and we're not friends. Don't pretend we are because we never were, and just hearing him demand things, it's like, I don't answer to you anymore. I don't have to answer your text the second you send it. Sometimes I read his text and I'm like, I don't have to answer this at all. Nowhere in our agreement does he does it say that I have to answer his text no matter what, especially if it doesn't pertain to our daughter. So I've gotten pretty good at ignoring his text and ignoring him and his nonsense and his pettiness and his demands and trying to control me and just know I've had enough. I want to move on with my life, and we'll get there one day. Please join me every Thursday for a new episode. I invite you to comment, like, share, subscribe. You can reach me at the music of life five, five@gmail.com with any questions or stories or experiences or anything that you want to share with me, I'd be happy to talk about it on another episode. You can check out my website@podpage.com slash the music of life. You.