I stopped and wrote my attorney the following email on the way home, summarizing the events.
Figured I’d take a break from driving and write this email.
Just for reference this was supposed to be my weekend with the kid.
I told Rita I was going to take them on a trip because they didn’t have school Thursday and Friday. (Does she need to know where I’m taking them? She asked until I finally told her I was taking them to DC.)
Obviously Amanda wasn’t going to go so I was going to come back Sunday morning so I could spend time with her.Rita then takes Amanda to MI because her dad isn’t doing well.
Early yesterday morning I get a text message from her saying her dad has passed away. We agree that I should bring Caleb and Amelia to MI from DC and that I’ll bring them back to State College this afternoon. She was going to take Amanda back this afternoon also.
I arrived in MI around 6:15 and she (and Mike) come to pick them up from my aunt and uncle’s place. This morning I get:
“This is the plan I going to leave no later than 2 I think. The kids should be with me because my dad has passed. They need to be with my family too. For the sake of not fighting with you over what should be a given you can drive Caleb and Mae home. Just note in our custody and what judge has said in person too. Family events such as reunions, graduations, weddings, and deaths. Children should be allowed to go to those events. I will be there at 9:30 to get there clothes”
I know with this last statement she has no intention of doing what she says. I respond:
“And I am allowing them to be at those events. Driving them home is no such event. You can have them as long as you want today while you’re in MI. If you would like to have them more then next weekend can be a makeup weekend. Regardless next weekend should be a makeup weekend with Amanda since I will not see her this entire weekend. Note that the agreement says they should be allowed to attend. It does not say that that time does not need to be made up. Their clothes are on the front steps.”
At around 2:15 she shows up with Mike and the kids. Amelia is adamant that she drive back with her mom (not sure why but she’s usually just as adamant that she spend Saturday night with me). I try to talk her into coming with me and when I look to Rita for help (I always help talk her into leaving on Saturday’s) she says, “I’m too tired for this.The kids should be with me anyway.” I say, “If you want to keep them we need to figure out when I’ll get makeup time.” She says she doesn’t want to talk about it. I probably shouldn’t have pressed it but she’s already telling me I’m not owed the weekend I didn’t have them because their cousins were in MI. Anyway, I say, “Are you going to be home next weekend?” She blows up (misunderstanding that State College is ‘home’) and says, “My dad just died!! Of course I’m going to be home!!” Amanda jumps out of the truck and takes off running down the street. Caleb starts yelling at me, “See what you do!!” As I start making my way around the truck to track down Amanda, Mike gets out. I tell him to get back in the truck and to stay out of it. He then gets in my face, makes some idle threats (I can’t remember what he said. It’s all a blur now.), and pushes me while I keep telling him to get back in the truck. My aunt finally intervenes and he gets away from me and back in his truck. I start walking down the street to get Amanda and he takes off in his truck, picks her up, and drives off.
I’m so fed up with this. I cannot take it anymore. She’s alienating the kids against me and stealing my time with them. I will not let her take them to Michigan next weekend (for the 3rd straight weekend). She’s not stealing more time from me just so she can see her asshole boyfriend. The kids come back from there more and more alienated from me. This farce needs to end and the judge needs to get her head out and into the sun and see what’s going on. (WTF is she ‘whining’ about with our case? She’s made this mess and I’m not going to forget it. She needs to be removed before she screws up more people’s lives. I’ll figure out how to get that done once I’m out from under her thumb.)
Sorry, I’m just extremely upset at the moment. Rita said I’d be sorry if I didn’t let her move to Michigan. And now I am.
Thus, I asked in the contempt petition, which I filed many months later, to have the court stop Mike from coming to custody exchanges and included my aunt’s statement detailing the incident.
Judge Ruest denied the petition, didn’t even address the issue of missed custody time, and told Mike to stay in his car. Again, I was highly disappointed in Judge Ruest because I was getting custody time that she ordered taken away. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d taken custodial time from Rita.
I also believe after this incident is when I texted Mike–I found an odd “Michelle Hanson” entry in my contacts with a southeastern Michigan phone number–telling him that I had videos of him masturbating. There’s a funny story concerning these videos that I will discuss with the stalking case.
It turned out that Rita was not lying about her father, and, again, in hindsight, I’m not sure why I thought she was, besides the fact that she’d been lying about so many other things. After Rita’s father passed away, my prediction of her using that to make more trips to Michigan was confirmed. Over the following month, Rita went to Michigan three times for different “memorials” for her father. I was supposed to have custody of the kids for the weekend on two occasions. She claimed to the court that these were funerals, and she was allowed to violate the court order. Judge Ruest seemed to agree, and she never gave me the make-up time I requested. Until my kids moved there, I never went to Michigan after Rita’s father died. Although Rita later accused me of following her to Michigan when she claimed she was too sick to bring the kids back, and I suggested I could get them.