{"id":3385,"date":"2012-02-27T10:11:52","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T17:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=3385"},"modified":"2025-11-02T17:37:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T00:37:41","slug":"is-silence-a-yes-or-a-no-oh-its-an-i-get-to-choose-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=3385","title":{"rendered":"Is silence a yes or a no? Oh, its an “I get to choose” answer!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My Ex doesn’t communicate very well.\u00a0 He’ll be the first to tell you that forming what to say, for him, is a concentrated effort.\u00a0 He had real difficulty as a child.\u00a0 I excel, sometimes, at reading people so I was pretty good at figuring out what he wanted when we were married.<\/p>\n

Now that we are divorced our communication is a hit and miss situation.\u00a0 Classic example is the custody of our middle son.\u00a0 He is twelve now and if we were to go to court a judge would take his desires into consideration in awarding custody.\u00a0 When my Ex refused to take custody of our 14 year old for his weekends I got a lot of questions from my twelve year old as to why Luke “gets to stay with you and I don’t?”<\/p>\n

My reaction was a compromise between his desires and the Divorce Agreement Custody Arrangements.\u00a0 Take him one extra weekend a month (so the 2nd when its my weekend AND the 4th weekend).\u00a0 With the Ex’s agreement, of course.\u00a0\u00a0 During the Christmas custody fiasco, Evan told his father he wanted to stay with me.\u00a0 His father agreed.\u00a0\u00a0 So a week before the 4th weekend in January I sent his father a Change of Custody Agreement for him to sign.\u00a0\u00a0 You know, to confirm this change.<\/p>\n

Just to recap a bit, his father has refused custody of his 14 year old since December, so I the Agreement was also to get it in writing that he’s refusing to take custody.\u00a0 I have emails and proof that he’s not picking up the boy, so I didn’t think he’d care that I’m just asking for a paper trail of HIS choices.\u00a0 But, not surprisingly, I heard no word.<\/p>\n

Turns out though, there was no school on the Friday of the 4th weekend in January so their father came to my house to pick them up. \u00a0 Evan asked me if he was staying with me.\u00a0 I told him I’d not heard and to ask his father.\u00a0 He went to the car, had a conversation I did not hear since I’m in the house, and then returned saying he was staying.\u00a0 I did not receive any emails from his father to the contrary! lol<\/p>\n

So the 4th weekend in February rolls around… this last weekend… and this issue comes up again on Friday.\u00a0 Now, Luke is STILL persona-non-grata at his father’s residence.\u00a0 And we’ve never heard back from the email I sent to the Ex asking for an official change in custody.\u00a0 Evan asks me if he’s staying with me.\u00a0 I tell him I don’t know but to pack as if he’s not.<\/p>\n

“If your father doesn’t pick you up, send me a text and I’ll come get you,” I told him.<\/p>\n

Guess who got a text. lol.\u00a0 That’s right.\u00a0 His father didn’t pick him up so he began walking home.\u00a0 The boy got out at 1:50, his father usually picks him up by 2pm and I got a text from him at 2:12pm to come pick him up.\u00a0 Which I did.<\/p>\n

Now, did I get an email or a phone call or an angry text demanding his 12 year old son?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I DID send him an email that Friday stating that we had the 10 year old’s Nintendo with us cuz we didn’t know if he’d be picking up Evan & Evan usually transports the electronic devices to and from locations.\u00a0 And that since we heard no word to the contrary, we can “assume” he’s agreeing to the custody change since he didn’t pick him up from school.\u00a0 And did he want to come by and pick up the 10 year old’s Nintendo?<\/p>\n

I sent the email Friday night.\u00a0 I checked my email all day Saturday and was home all day Saturday, in case he wanted to pick up the Nintendo. \u00a0 I did not hear back until Sunday at 10am.\u00a0 And the email was ludicrous.\u00a0 It stated…<\/p>\n

“Your refusal to send the children for their court mandated visitations does not in any way constitute my agreement.\u00a0 You are in violation of the marital settlement agreement and the child custody order.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m laughing my ass off.\u00a0 I can’t “refuse” anything you don’t ask or even demand!\u00a0 And HE was the one refusing to take custody of his 14 year old. \u00a0 Not once has he informed me he had or has changed his mind and will now take the 14 year old on his weekends. \u00a0 It was the twelve year old’s desire to have the 4th weekend and not ONCE did he say NO to this suggestion.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not via email or text or even in person.\u00a0 And he said nothing about the poor 10 year old’s electronic device!<\/p>\n

Since he feels I should interpret his “silences” then he can’t bitch about how I’ll interpret them!\u00a0 I’m not going to nag him to force his compliance.\u00a0 And I’m not going to nag him about communicating every little thing.<\/p>\n

Because in the past he’s proven that a fruitless endeavor.\u00a0 He’ll often ignore my emails and texts.\u00a0 He’ll pass on schedule information through the children (which isn’t fair to them NOR as trustworthy as he thinks it is!) or send THEM texts instead of sending ME texts.\u00a0 Which is REALLY amusing since I bought them cheap Trak phones which get MUCH less reception when we are home that MY iPhone does.\u00a0 So THAT isn’t very reliable.<\/p>\n

There isn’t a judge on the planet who will think I’m denying him custodial rights when he refuses to take custody of the 14 year old AND then doesn’t pick up the 12 year old.<\/p>\n

And I told him all this in my reply.\u00a0 And told him that custody is a fluid thing.\u00a0 That it doesn’t HAVE to be strictly enforced.\u00a0 That if both parties agree that it can be changed.\u00a0 He’s changed it in December without my agreement, not I.<\/p>\n

And why is he making a fuss?\u00a0 He’s not demanding his weekends with the kids or he’d have sent me an email telling me he’s picking up Evan.\u00a0 (and Luke)\u00a0 No, he’s making a fuss cuz he doesn’t want me to sue him for child support.\u00a0 Because right now, people, he’s not paying me a dime.\u00a0 And I have 100% custody of the 14 year old, 65% custody of the 10 year old and if the weekend switch stays the same probably 75% custody of the 12 year old.<\/p>\n

Tell me a judge isn’t going to order some child support if I sue for it.\u00a0 Especially when I tell him the 14 year old is eating the equivalent of 6 full meals a day!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Ex doesn’t communicate very well.\u00a0 He’ll be the first to tell you that forming what to say, for him, is a concentrated effort.\u00a0 He had real difficulty as a child.\u00a0 I excel, sometimes, at reading people so I was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twirling-my-skirt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3385"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3391,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions\/3391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}