Courts try really hard to make sure the child has contact with both parents, if possible. It's more likely that the visitation orders will be enforced (or the mother's contact somewhat reduced). However, if the ex can prove that the new boyfriend endangers the child (if the weapons are unsecured, for example) he has a much better chance, though again it's more likely that there'll be supervised or shared visits rather than total loss of contact. The boyfriend being a teacher means that he will have full clearance to work with children, so that limits the avenues of attack somewhat. But the ex will be very interested in getting all of this to court and attacking the arrangement even if he doesn't win right now - legal harassment by the richer party is a really common strategy in family court, and he'll want to have evidence of her breaking their agreement to be recorded to give him more leverage in the future.
thanks for this information, i did read that it's really hard to take away visitation rights, so i suppose i am just looking for an obstacle for my MC and her relationship at this point
about proving the weapons are unsecured...could the court actually have someone come in and look?
There are two ways the ex could go, legally speaking:
(1) File a motion for contempt of court--stating that the mom is intentionally flouting the court's order. Consequences of this tend to be fines and/or jail time (the latter only for very egregious violations where the violator is obviously intentional in their behavior).
(2) File for modification based on endangerment. The motion for modification may very well ask for no contact with mom but I doubt the court would grant it. This would more likely lead to supervised visits rather than actual reduction of time, and there's usually some sort of mechanism written in whereby if the parent meets certain criteria over the course of an extended period of time they can regain unsupervised visitation. Courts almost NEVER completely take away visitation rights, even when there's been serious stuff going on.
And yes, legal harassment is very common--one very common strategy is to file motions over and over and then offer a settlement as an "out"...
"No overnight guests" agreements are not technically legally enforceable in most states. And courts will do everything they can to make sure children are in contact with both parents. The boyfriend would have to have been accused of child molestation (accused is often enough), or they would have to be doing drugs near the children, or driving drunk (and as a friend who was fighting an ex on custody where said ex had three DUIs, even that is sometimes not enough). Granted, mother's are WAY more heavily scrutinized by a lot of officials, because of the way society views women.
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about proving the weapons are unsecured...could the court actually have someone come in and look?
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(1) File a motion for contempt of court--stating that the mom is intentionally flouting the court's order. Consequences of this tend to be fines and/or jail time (the latter only for very egregious violations where the violator is obviously intentional in their behavior).
(2) File for modification based on endangerment. The motion for modification may very well ask for no contact with mom but I doubt the court would grant it. This would more likely lead to supervised visits rather than actual reduction of time, and there's usually some sort of mechanism written in whereby if the parent meets certain criteria over the course of an extended period of time they can regain unsupervised visitation. Courts almost NEVER completely take away visitation rights, even when there's been serious stuff going on.
And yes, legal harassment is very common--one very common strategy is to file motions over and over and then offer a settlement as an "out"...
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also, what could she do to fight any of it?
thanks for your help
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