m76 I hope you're taking your son with you or at least offering him that option.
He's definitely old enough to make that decision.
Mmmm... maybe not? (said with respect and reference to my own mistakes!) How many years have you ( a grown man/adult) been fooled, manipulated, coerced, given in, to your wife? He was raised that way.
Do you think your W will take that same approach, about who he lives with? Who gets to influence him?
Sadly ,far too many parents ( women) use the children as a weapon against the man in a divorce.
I would advise you to start showing your son how capable you are NOW at giving him your side of the story, and furnishing him with more of your time and $$$.
Kids today ( in this terrible economy) are graduating college with masters degrees and are getting offered $16.00 an hr. jobs, so are still having to live with a parent.
Does he have a steady girlfriend? Polls and stats show that by the year 2030, 45% of people under the age of 30 yrs.old will be sexless and dateless, as more and more young women want the top 10% and consider the other 90% as stepping down or settling - when they think they have thousands of men at their finger tips with a single swipe left or right!
Here's what was going on with me and my teens back in 2018:
QuoteEditlikePost OptionsPost by greatcoastal on Feb 22, 2018 at 10:40am
I met with my attorney yesterday and we added the 30 day notice to an extra week for summer vacation.
I mentioned how little we really do for holidays now that the kids are teens. How they are busy with work, and school.
It's interesting how an attorney looks at things (knows things) versus what you and I would consider okay, or normal.
For instance mothers and fathers day. I'd be just as happy to celebrate it late. It's not needed. My attorney said " You should not eliminate that. That makes you look really bad and heartless before a judge." She then went on to say "Birthdays and mothers day, if the teens don't want to go she really can't force them to. If they have school, work, homework,etc... it's not going to happen, but you need to leave it in there".
I then asked, "what about my 17 yr. old, does he get to speak to the judge and have any say in who he want's to stay with?" my attorney said, " in reality if he wants to spend the night and not go to her house, there's not much she can do about it. Once the parenting plan is finally settled on, there isn't any reason for the teens to talk with the judge, that's the only reason they need to speak with the judge."
That's going to be interesting to see how all of that plays out in the future. I ask myself " why even have a 'parenting plan' if it has no teeth?"
One bright side is ,once the parenting plan is finally agreed upon that saves almost an entire day in court. 100% of the plan is what I ( and my attorney) proposed from the beginning. It's just CRAZY that it took my W. 4 attorneys, and 20 months later to come full circle!
All this, just to break free. Just more re-enforcement of all the manipulation, and all the control that I tolerated.
I'm looking forward to sending out a big THANK YOU on here come D-day!