Feeling worried about having to share....

[cycle]

Hi Mamas,

Sorry in advance - this will be long. My ds is almost 7 months old, and while we live with dp I have been the sole caregiver for ds since he was born. DP & I were only dating a few months when I got pregnant and we decided to move in together and try to be a family as we did have what seemed to be a good start of a relationship. DP is in grad school and I am a professional with a great income and a lot of money in savings that has allowed me to stay home with ds. I have supported myself and dp for over a year and of course ds since he was born. I am the one who took care of everything in preparation for ds. DP only came to one OB appointment, and has only come to one PED appointment (at which he spent the whole time outside on the phone). When he is around ds he "plays" with him, he talks to his mom and sister and friends about him, as if ds is a trophy. He has not made the mental switch to being a father, meaning he was very self-absorbed before ds came along and still is. His needs come first still. "On paper" he tried to do and say the right things, he asked me to marry him, he talks about us as a family, he brags about ds to his family, telling them about things I have told him he has done that he himself hasn't experienced. He is not a bad guy, he is just a guy who is not ready to be a dad and doesn't even realize it.

Anyway, on top of all of that, there are more reasons why it just doesn't look like it is going to work out with us, and I am fine with that, actually a bit relieved. Now all of the sudden when he is feeling that I am really done and want to end the relationship he has started talking about "a court will give me 50% custody", "I am his father, you can't take away my paternal rights"(which I don't want to do), etc....I am worried that if it did go to court that a judege just might say joint custody which would devestate me. He is so self-absorbed that I will not leave ds with him at all now, especially now that ds is moving around. He (dp) is just clueless as to ds's capabilities and his needs. In addition, I feed ds on demand, co-sleep and am very attached. Although ds is eating solids now he still nurses several times a day. I am so worried that a judge will not take the breastfeeding into consideration. DS would be devestated if he had to spend a night without me, he would never sleep and just cry all night. I lay down every night and nurse him to sleep. DP has implied that I "chose to AP" and that I am choosing to let ds self wean to exclude him. This is not at all true, I am doing what feels right and natural but I am SO afraid that a good lawyer could convince a judge of that same thing.

I do not want to exclude him from ds's life, but I know he does not want and could not handle even partial custody of ds, he couldn't handle a day with him. He wants to move back where he is from when he finishes grad school which is literally on the other side of the country. He told me that he would go even if we were not together, and I asked him how he could leave ds and he said it would be hard but he would. I am afraid though that if this does become a court battle that he will start to do and say what people expect not what he really feels which has been what he has been doing all along.

Is there a chance that a judge would give joint custody for a baby this young (7 months) who is stil breastfeeding and will be as long as he wants, and who has been raised and cared for by me, even though we have lived in the same house.

I should also say that I do not want or need child support from dp so that is not an issue. I also want to say that dp is not a bad guy, he is just not ready to be a dad.

I am sorry for being so inarticulant but I am tired and emotional. I do not want anyone putting my baby to bed at night, even his biological father.....

Does anyone have any experience with custody cases with young babies? Does the court take all or any of the things I talked about into consideration?

Thanks!

[pranamama]

Cycle
Well I was looking at the schedule in my state and there are no overnights until age 3. I think your breastfeeding will be taken into consideration. I hope everything goes ok for you!!!

[StephandOwen]

Is there a chance that a judge would give joint custody for a baby this young (7 months) who is stil breastfeeding and will be as long as he wants, and who has been raised and cared for by me, even though we have lived in the same house

I hate to say it but anytime you go to court and bring other people into it then all bets are off and anything can happen.

I do think you would have a good chance of holding off overnight visits for a little while if you were to go to court suggesting a schedule that would build up to overnights (that's what I did and I *won*). Our Judge did take into consideration DS's nursing (he was 8 months old when we went to court), but he also took into consideration whether I had left DS with anyone else up to that point. I hadn't, but if I had been leaving him with a babysitter while I went to work or whatever the Judge would have taken the amount of time DS had been away from me at that point (say, 8 hours while I went to work) and given ex that amount of time for visitation. His reasoning was that if the baby could stay that long away from me with a babysitter there was no reason he couldn't do it with his dad.

I would strongly suggest you two try and work this out yourselves. If that is not possible and you need to go to court then I would suggest going in not only defending why you think he shouldn't have your ds overnight, but also a proposed schedule on how he can get to those overnights. Because every court is going to say he can get overnights evenutually. There's no way around that (since you, yourself, said he is not a bad person).

Good luck!

[L.J.]

I agree that working it out yourselves or with a mediator holds a lot more promise than getting in front of a judge.

If your ex is not that involved with his son and is willing to move away from him for school, it is really unlikely that he will fight to have shared access. My ex talks a tough talk, but when it comes down to it, he really doesn't want the responsibility of being a dad. It's too much work for him and until the kids are old enough to do practically everything on their own, it's unlikely my ex will have them overnight (despite the fact that he repeatedly says that's what he wants). Truth is, if the babe was crying for even an hour, your ex would be bringing him home so fast.

The other thing is that if he does move, it's really unlikely that he would get shared access. There is no way a baby can travel alone and a in those first 2-3 years, it is crucial that they form a healthy attachment, therefore, you could easily get a child psychologist to demonstrate how being away would be VERY harmful to the child's healthy development.

Most men, including my ex, like to threaten these things because they know it will get to us the most. My ex knows that money doesn't mean anything......but the kids, well, they are everything, so that's what he uses for leverage.

The LLL website has a section on legal issues. They have some good articles about how to handle parental access with breastfeeding children. I believe the attachment parenting site had an article or two as well. Mothering magazine had an article in an issue this year (or late last year) that also covered the importance of this bond and forming healthy attachments.

If you present a well-documented, factually based argument, it will be difficult for anyone to argue that you are not doing the best for the child.

Good luck.

[meemee]

another point here. joint custody does not mean equal visitation rights. it means what u work out either by urself or with the help of mediators. so u might decide dp could visit or take ds twice a week for 2 hours and it would still be a joint custody.

in CA if parents cant decide about visitation then they have to go to mediation and set up an agreement before going to the judge.

but like steph said anytime a human becomes involved all bets are off. so i would start documenting everything from now on. keep receipts. pay by cheques, credit cards etc as much as possible so it leaves paper trails. u basically want to show u r a responsible mom and a responsible adult.

[Bad Mama Jama]

Hugs to you for even going through such a situation. I agree with the paper trails. Too often, as women, we are selfless and don't really cover our butts. Keeping everything shows how responsible you've been and the financial dedication.

Most men seem to holler about joint custody, but can't put on their own pants. Sometimes, it's just a threat, too. Hugs to you!!!

[katybear mama]

Document everything - I wish I had before I divorced. And you are not alone in not wanting to share. Before my divorce my XH knew nothing about his dd but talked the "my daughter, flesh and blood, I'm her father, blah blah blah" talk. This was mostly to make me angry and scared, because once I refused to put up with him anymore he became angry and scared. I did not want to share dd with him, fumed, steamed and cried when the weekend visits began. Even now 2 years later I still sometimes feel that way. Anyway, I guess I'm not really helping you that much but am sending hugs your way. I believe a judge would take into consideration BFing and your baby is too young for overnites. Good luck

[ecrocks23]

I was in a very similar situation with my ds' father, except we never lived together and he only had contact with ds for one month after his birth. He pressured me to terminate the pregnancy, "prayed to God" that I miscarry, and spent the rest of my pregnancy threatening that he would get custody of the baby b/c because he makes more money and the baby is 50% his. Some of the same things your dc's father has said. Well, to make an extremely long story short, he scared me sh-tless and even more so once ds was born. I had many reasons to believe that he didn't truly love ds and was more concerned about his image...plus he actually said "Well, if you're going to have this baby, I want to be involved b/c I don't want people thinking I'm some deadbeat dad." I also had reason to believe he was more concerned about his wallet than his baby.

So, when ds was about a month old, I called him up and told him that if he left us alone, I wouldn't pursue him for child support (at the suggestion of a lawyer). He said okay, but only if I took the baby and moved out of the state. I drafted up a little informal contract outlining this (in case in the future I need to prove to a judge what his intentions were), mailed it to him, and he mailed it back signed. At first I was freaking out about having to move out of the state (although in the contract I used the word "area," which he didn't catch), but then it clicked. He was just as scared as I was that I would force him to be financially and emotionally responsible or spread the word that he was a deadbeat dad.

Anyway, our situations are a bit different in that, although I dated ds' father for 3 years prior to becoming pregnant, we never lived together, his name is not on the birth certificate and he probably spent the equivalent of about 3 hours (supervised by me or my mom of course and under my terms) with his son during that first month.

My advice to you is do what you have to to protect your little one - within reason. If your gut is telling you this guy isn't serious about being a dad, it may be in your dc's best interest if he wait until he is before dragging a baby into an unloving/unstable relationship. And don't let him scare you. He's probably even more scared, especially if he's saying he's going to move across the country soon. You're the mama, you call the shots...make sure he knows that.

My best to you. PM me if you want to chat more.

Elyse

[ecrocks23]

When he is around ds he "plays" with him, he talks to his mom and sister and friends about him, as if ds is a trophy. He has not made the mental switch to being a father, meaning he was very self-absorbed before ds came along and still is. His needs come first still. "On paper" he tried to do and say the right things, he asked me to marry him, he talks about us as a family, he brags about ds to his family, telling them about things I have told him he has done that he himself hasn't experienced. He is not a bad guy, he is just a guy who is not ready to be a dad and doesn't even realize it.


I wanted to mention one more thing. This is the type of stuff ds' father would do. He talked a lot during the pregnancy about us being a family and him wanting to take care of us. Yet every day it seemed he would make sure he upset me to the point where I would cry the rest of the night. When I was pregnant, he told everyone (who I knew) how excited he was about having a son (I found out he told a much different story to folks who he didn't think talked to me). And when ds was born, he told everyone how happy he was to be a dad. To this day I'm still trying to make sense of everything. Maybe you're right. Maybe they don't realize they're not ready to be dads, and that's why the things they say and do are so contradictory.

Take comfort in knowing you're not alone.