Q&A

I am a separated dad living in New York and have been separated for almost one year with a legal written separation agreement in place since March of 2007. I currently have liberal visitation with joint custody right now for my two children of 8 & 6, which has been agreed upon in a written separation agreement. I have my children every other weekend at this time and see them regularly in the am each day before school. I would like to know since their mother has residential custody and I have always been the income provider for the family, she now works from a home-based business and contributes to no bills whatsoever with her income. Anyway, What are the procedures with regards to kids’ school breaks? Do I have to take the children, or split these school breaks with her? Am I also required to take the kids for two or more weeks per year for vacation time for her? What are the guidelines regarding these issues, if any? I, in agreeance with the separation agreement, am paying all the bills in the home, including all utilities, mortgage payments, insurance, etc….while she has no financial responsibilities at all. She lives expense-free till kids are of age. Do I also have to pay forher new car and all its expenses? I am currently also giving her maintenance monies for one year and child support as agreed. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

My fiancé and I have been together now for three years. He filed for divorce five years ago, and even after two lawyers, he has not been able to get anywhere in the case. His wife just refuses to settle, and keeps adding more and more claims for money, and still refuses to allow him visitation of their now 7-year-old daughter – unless it is by “her terms.” She also has been continuously delaying conferences and production of receipts, etc. for the last 18 months. Finally, last month the judge ordered that they had to come up with a settlement by the next conference (in 2 weeks), or it would go to trial in June. After all these years, we know that she will not agree to settle and so it will end up at trial in June. My question is two-fold. At the end of the trial, will the divorce be final (as we would like to get married asap)? And secondly, what is the chance that my fiance will have to bring a separate case to get proper visitation with his daughter since the ex won’t agree to anything, and the judge does not seem to want to even address the issue? Last year, after months of trying, the judge finally granted him one weekend every six weeks, 3 hours on Friday, 8 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday – no overnights, no taking her away from the city her mother lives in, and no visiting with anyone else. The poor girl has not seen her grandparents since she was a newborn, as the ex won’t allow it. There has been NO reason for any restrictions, except that the ex is controlling and wants to make all the rules. I have three children, and my fiance is a wonderful father and poses no risk to his daughter – I can’t understand why a judge would not grant him fair visitation, yet so far he has not. As it is, just to spend these weekends with his daughter, he has to travel from Missouri to Minnesota, as they have both moved since the divorce was filed back five years ago.

I looked at your very informative website and thought I could ask a brief question. “My wife (we are currently going through divorce proceedings) recently moved with my son out of New York State to Pennsylvania. Although I am living and working in England, my issue lies with the fact that she has not given me an address where they are living or who is living at the location?. Is this fair and reasonable for her to withhold the address and information?”

My daughter is married and has two children, ages 4 and 7. She and her husband are separated, they lived in NY, and when they separated, the father moved back to Maryland, where his family is. He left the marital residence. My daughter has been very flexible on visitation, letting him come up and stay in her apartment to visit the children, bringing them down to Maryland 1/2 way, so the father doesn’t have to do the whole ride. The thing is, in her separation agreement, does she have to agree to make the drive for visitation, or is this his responsibility to figure out how to visit his children? He has not been cooperative, and the more she does to facilitate visitation, the more he demands. He has stated that he does not care about the children’s weekend activities and does not want to participate in them (they have missed Soccer games and Church because he will not take them). I just want to ensure that she protects herself in the separation agreement.