Okay so a little background so you're not completely lost...
I have a 10 year old son (he'll be 11 in November) and for the last six years his father has had him up in Colorado. I live in New Mexico and have spent much of the last six years arguing and fighting with his father just to get my court ordered rights to call our son and have visitation. We were never married.
My ex is a big bully and likes to push me around and make me cry. Until four years ago I let him push me so far as I actually stopped calling because I could not handle the anxiety I would get when I'd go to talk to our son because of the remarks and comments the ex would make before putting our son on the line. I couldn't even get him to agree to any dates for visitation. As he put it, he didn't have any days to "sacrifice" to me going up to Colorado and meeting them someplace. I let it all slide because I had no knowledge of the law and I believed the ex's threats.
Four years ago I met my now fiancee and when he learned my story he encouraged me to grow a spine and helped me stand up to the bully ex and even intimidated him into picking a date for visitation and stick to it. Still with all of the intimidation and crying (on ex's part for once) I have seen our son a total of three times. And that's not because I've backed off, but because the ex likes to make it difficult for me to visit. Because he insists on being there for each and every visit despite the fact the current parenting plan states that after the second visitation I can have unsupervised visitation. We had to fight to get that third visitation to be unsupervised. So on that, I asked if I could have our son to take him to Sea World--a request that last summer the ex agreed to, of course that was right before our son broke his elbow playing on the trampoline--but of course this year the answer is not just no but basically a hell no, ex doesn't want me to even take our son out of Colorado. But I can have our son for a week.
For me to stay in Colorado for a week would cost more than I pay in child support for an entire year. And there is absolutely no reason for him to demand that I stay in state. However as our current parenting plan stands, he can decide whatever and I have to abide by it. So we (that is my fiancee and I) decided it was high time to update the parenting plan and make some fair changes to it. And just so you know, the current parent plan is totally in his favor. It states that I get to call our son once a week at a chosen time. I get the child tax credit once every five years. Like I said it was very his sided.
Near the end of May (the 27th to be exact) I sent a purposed parenting plan to update our seriously outdated parenting plan that wasn't a permanent one to begin with. All I asked for was summers at my house in New Mexico and every other year in taxes and holidays. I also asked that the ex pay half of the expenses on travel for me to get and bring our son back to Colorado.
He refused to accept the purposed parenting plan. Even when he KNEW it meant we'd go to court to have it settled. He rather spend the money I send to him a month in child support on court and attorney costs because he is still bitter about something that happened over 11 years ago.
What is seriously sad is the fact that my fiancee and I KNEW he was going to do this! So we have back-up plans. And yes, we are going to file the purposed parenting plan that was drawn up, but with some major changes that benefit me. If he wants to go to court that is more than fine with us. We've got quite a bit saved up for this exact thing. Why? Cause like I said, we knew the ex wouldn't agree to anything that didn't benefit him more than me.
So now we know what we are going to be doing this summer. And you know what? I AM ECSTATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry I don't update this poor thing more often. I try. :)