Georgia Father Denied Labor Day Visitation - Child Taken Out of Town - Isn't that Kidnapping?

Well here we are, another weekend of denied visitation.  This one is a bit different then the regular weekends because it is Labor Day weekend.  You know, one of those extra day weekends that would allow for some extended time and more opportunity to do fun things and of course, bond a little since it has been 3 full months of no visitation.

Another thing different about this weekend, and one I consider to be a much larger issue, is my X has taken my daughter out of town.  About a week ago I received an email stating that Labor Day was her holiday this weekend and I would not get to see my daughter based on what she has determined the decree to say about the 3 day weekends.  In her email there was no indication of out of town travels,  only that she gets the Labor Day weekend this year.

I have no idea where they are at this point in time. I did not find out about them being out of town until a half hour before I was going to the X house to attempt to pick up my daughter for the weekend.

Not only is this the first weekend of the month which makes it my weekend as layed out in the decree but the Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend get split between us.  The decree is vague about exactly what is suppose to happen,  I believe it reads that I should get both but years ago I just didn't want to keep debating it and said I was fine with splitting these holidays up.  I had sent a Google calendar to my X in February outlining all of the visitation periods so there would be no confusion this year.

The 2010 summer's visitation was denied based on the idea that I did not request the summer weeks in time.   We were scheduled for a court appearance on April 15, 2010.  I was hopeful there would be a resolve to the case at that point and a new decree drawn up.  The case was fairly new at that point and I assumed we would come to some agreement or a judgement before the summer.  I thought I would be given my weeks of visitation based on the new agreement.

Since there was no judgement and a roadblock on any new agreement abruptly on April 16, 2010, I received an email from the X indicating that I had missed my April 1 deadline.  Therefore, she had already scheduled so many things for the summer there was only a limited amount of time to see my daughter.  These of course were greatly minimized to what I should have received based on the decree and at times I could not schedule time off from work.  So I got none.  This year I wanted to have no issues so I scheduled the entire year with the Google calendar and sent it to her in February 2011.

Since Memorial Day falls at the end of the month, which is an X weekend and Labor Day is at the beginning of the month, which is my weekend, I indicated those holidays would be in that order.   Then we would not have to move around any weekends.

Memorial Day came and went with no mention of the idea that Labor Day was suppose to be hers this year.  About a week ago I got an email saying we were suppose to trade the holidays and blah blah blah.  The fact is she got Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day should be mine and on top of it all I have not seen my daughter in 3 months.  I counseled with my lawyer on what I should do and he said to send her a letter asking to please reconsider on Labor Day weekend.  So, I sent the letter on Thursday night.  

The normal routine that precedes the denial of visitation is to receive an email from the X about 3:30 pm which is conveniently about an hour or so before the pick up.  This tactic is designed to not allow me the opportunity to jump through the hoops she presents in the email in time for pick up.  There is usually a few text messages sent back and forth and about 5 minutes before the actual pick up time the X will state that she is not going to be at the house to avoid confrontation.  In fact she states that she has been advised to not be at the house. 

Well this time was different.  I checked my email throughout the day and as the time got closer and there was no response to the email I sent the night before I wondered what was going on.  So I sent a text.  By some miracle just as I sent the text she sent the email.  I will include it for your viewing pleasure.

This is the email I sent to her on Thursday night at 10:22pm
 

X,

I would ask that you please reconsider this weekend.  You had our daughter for the Memorial Day weekend this year and never mentioned anything about this change in schedule at that point in time.   I have not seen our daughter for over 3 months and only talked to her briefly a handful of times.  I can feel the relationship between her and I dissolving and would urge you to not let this continue. 

I have offered you the opportunity to visit my apartment, the complex and meet the managing leasing agent anytime that would be convenient for you but you have not done this.  Once again I am offering to be here anytime you would like to come and look at the living conditions. 

I will be at your house tomorrow to pick our daughter up for the weekend at 5:00pm.    I am asking you to please allow her to spend the weekend with me.

I sent the text message to her at -  4:26pm on Friday since I had not heard from her all day and pick up was at 5:00pm.

My text message said:

I sent u an email last night asking u to reconsider this weekend since u got our daughter for memorial day and I have not seen her in 3 months.  Have not heard from u.  I am planning on being at ur house at 5pm.

Here email response follows shortly after at 4:32pm - notice that it says nothing about just receiving the text message so it sounds like she just sent it on her own motivation, which is a complete sham. 

Sorry to be getting this so late. I would be happy to accommodate in any way I can, but since it is Labor Day weekend we made plans to be out of town.  You are welcome to call our daughter anytime.  I have, and will continue to try to figure out a way in which you can spend some time with our daughter.

Then I get a text message from her at 4:37 pm stating,

Did not get email until this afternoon and I just replied little while ago.  We r out of town, so can't help w/ur request, sorry.

*****  A little while ago would be 5 minutes ago  *****

I put all of this on here for some documentation purposes.  I really don't know anything else to do and once again this is why I am blogging about this.  The courts are doing nothing, the lawyers are at a stand still and I am losing precious time with my now 8 year old daughter.  This started when she was six (6).  For two years I have been trying to get the courts to help me and -  NOTHING has been done.

This weekend she has taken my daughter out of the state when it is my LEGAL visitation rights.  I say this with some contempt because legal or not, there is no element of the law upholding it.

There is a direct violation of a legal document that carries no weight.  She is seizing, confining and carrying away by fraud in the furthereance of her act of violating the decree and denying visitation as defined within the legal document of our divorce and child visitation agreement.

If I were to do that on a weekend or time she should have the child I would be hunted down and arrested. 

Kidnapping is defined as :  an act or instance or the crime of seizing, confining, inveigling, abducting, or carrying away a person by force or fraud often with a demand for ransom or in furtherance of another crime.

We hear the Amber Law being sent out about a father who has taken his child and is on some interstate on the run.  The alert goes out and everybody goes into alert mode.  The same thing has happened here and continues to happen in our country every day.  This needs to stop!!!
 
I am frustrated, confused, angry and just fed up.  If you are reading this I certainly do not mean to just dump all of this drama on cyberworld but want to try and do something to relieve the pain and maybe, just maybe with enough grass roots movement and stories we can start to expose this behavior for what it really is.

The common term that is cast about in our culture is dead beat dads.  Obama even made a speech about it on Father's Day, of all days.  Meanwhile I was denied my visitation with my daughter on Father's Day.  I am not a dead beat dad.  I pay my child support and want desperately to be in my kids lives.  Why doesn't Obama give a speech about that.

Watch Obama Video Here

Well I am coining this behavior Malicious Moms.  It needs to be stopped because it is as bad, if not worse then a dead beat dad.  A dead beat dad many times does not want to be involved with the kids.  As tough as that is, the kids get it, they know what is going on.  Just like they know what is going on in the Malicious Mom syndrome.

In my opinion a Malicious Mom is more detrimental to our society then a dead beat dad.  In this situation the kids know the father wants to see them, at some level, even if the mother tries to put up these smoke screens,  the kids know.  My daughter knows.  But the kids are denied the right to see their father.  It's torture.  We as a society are letting this situation occur and just standing by, not doing anything about it.

It's time to do something about it.

I would love to hear your feedback as always.  Please leave your comments below.  

Who Am I And Why Am I Blogging About This Topic

I am a Georgia father of 2 daughters and 2 step sons.  At present my kids ages range from 8 years old to 21 years old.  In fact tomorrow my daughter will turn 16 years old.  A true milestone and one that I am excited about spending with her. 

The reason for the blog is to talk about the struggles I am having with my eight year old's visitation rights.  The mother of the eight year old is a different women then the 16 year old.   I have never had any issues with the 16 year olds visitation rights.  In fact, her mother and I have never even drawn up any legal documents.  I have supported her and everything has been smooth throughout the past 16 years.  I am very grateful for that.

The eight year old's visitation has been a completely different story.  It has been  a struggle since day one.  Her mother and I have been separated almost her entire life and so visitation has been happening for the past 7 years.  We do have a legal divorce decree that accounts for visitation within the decree. 

At this point in time the visitation has ceased all together - I have not seen my 8 year old for 3 months and only been able to talk to her a few times on the phone over this time period.  I can feel the relationship dissolving between her and I and at this point I am left with not a whole lot of options. 

Because of the ongoing abuse of the visitation scheduling about 2 years ago I filed a contempt of decree charge against her mother based on denial of visitation over the Christmas holiday of 2009.  This is still in the court systems and one of the reasons I have decided to share my experience and insight to what is really going on with this epidemic in our state and our nation. 

It is my hope that one day the laws can be changed to provide more assistance to the father's that go through this tragedy and have no where to turn.  They are good father's, paying child support and wanting to have a loving relationship with their kids and being denied this fundamental right as a parent.  It is a tragedy and something needs to be done about it. 

This blog will be a diary of sorts about what I have done, what is going on and hopefully what a father can expect if he decides to take the same path as I chose and hopefully get better results.  My hope is that enough of us father's will stand up and be heard to bring about some changes so that the future generations of loving father's don't continue to have to be abused.  The mother's are taken care of by the court systems with the deadbeat dad child support courts.  Why aren't the father's that pay support and want to be in the child's life given the same consideration. 

I welcome your comments and assistance in helping to bring about this change.