Taking away visitation

Dear NCMomof3:

Greetings. What a terrible situation for all of you. Not only does he not provide financially for the children, but now he is imposing his extremely bad decision making onto the lives of your children.

My first response is that you cannot exclude him from your children’s lives, nor would you honestly want to. I hope that someday he will be able to father properly, but until then, you may want to demand supervised or limited visitaitons. If you have a court order or separation agreement detailing visitation, it is my advice that you immediately file a Motion to Modify Custody to seek supervised visitation until he goes through treatment AND that you be able to request breathalyzer tests with the children.

Finally, my question to you is why does he not pay child support? Contact an attorney or the child support enforcement agency and get this started. You can at least put these funds into an account for the children for college or some other good future need. Best of luck.

Janet L. Fritts
Attorney at Law
4101 Lake Boone Trail, Suite 200
Raleigh, North Carolina 27607
NCDivorce.com
919-787-6668

The response posted above is based upon the limited factual information made available and is not intended as a full and complete response to the question. The only reliable manner to obtain complete and adequate legal advice is to consult with an attorney, fully explain your situation, and allow the attorney sufficient opportunity to research the applicable law and facts required to render an accurate opinion. The basic information provided above is intended as a public service but a full discussion with an attorney should be undertaken before taking any action.

I was under the impression, that by law, I cannot refuse my spouse visitation with his kids. Even though he is a functional alcoholic, he seems to have been fine with the kids on his past visits. Weekends and once during the week. The kids say he doesnt drink and they actually do things.

However, last weekend, he took them to the beach, along with my mother and proceeded to drink. He also drank while driving home, a 3.5 hr drive. Since my mother was witness to this, can I ask the court for either no visitation unless he goes through recovery again, or stays sober or, insist on supervised visits? What can I do? I dont know if I really want to keep the kids from thier dad, but THE reason we are seperated is because of the drinking. I do not want them exposed to him and his drinking anymore.

Our son also got sick with a stomach virus while there. My husband called me Sunday morning to let me know. I called back at 12:30 before I went to work to see how he was. He was sleeping but had been vomiting. At 8PM that night I get a call from my drunk husband saying my son had been sick all day and I had not even called. Not true. I knew my son was ok with my mom there and had there been an emergency, I would have been contacted. Before I could finish that sentence, he hung up on me. When I finally got through, 3 attempts later, my mother asked my son if he wanted to talk to me and I heard my husband say “No”. He was hovering over him and refusing to let him speak to me. I WILL NOT HAVE THAT. He is not a productive father. He has not offered any financial support, even though he said he would. He doesnt call for weeks at a time. He doesnt get the kids on designated days. This is why I feel I would be better off just to cut him off completely…at least until he got help. Can I do that??

Sorry to ramble, but it just drives me nuts.
Thanks