Sent out for another report

I just got screwed in court again. My ex-wife showed up with no lawyer, as she had just fired Jennifer Gray. The judge still did not have a copy of Dr. Inkblot's report, so he asked for my copy, and read it during a break. He said that he had read the other paperwork in the file.

Judge Joseph said that the report says that we cannot co-parent, so he sent us out for co-parenting counseling. He will review the custody situation when he gets another report.

This is now our sixth expert referral from the family court, and it will be our sixth written report. The process is extremely frustrating. I am tempted to post all six reports so everyone can see how ridiculous this is. I remember being shocked about a year ago when I heard about a case with three written reports.

I don't know why, but nearly all of the judge's comments and questions were directed at me. I did most of the talking, and my ex-wife didn't say much.

After another break, my ex-wife wanted to bring up some other issues. She complained that this month I paid her on Oct. 2 instead of Oct. 1. She complained that sometimes I drop off the kids 10 minutes late. One time, I dropped off the kids to her babysitter about 20 minutes. She implied that this was somehow inconvenient to her babysitter, although I didn't get why.

My ex-wife threw a little tantrum in the court about refusing to co-endorse a $56 tax refund check. She claimed that she was creating a liability for herself by signing it. The judge tried to explain to her that she wasn't, but she didn't get it. Ultimately, the judge said that he didn't want to waste court time over it, told her to give the check to me, and asked me to write her a check for $56.

She also had a theory about how the existing support order made a mistake about how it apportioned the monthly support amounts into child support and spousal support. The judge asked me if I agreed, and I said that this was the first that I heard of it, and that I could not make any sense of what she said. The judge didn't understand it either.

She also complained that I had not given her all the documents that she demanded. I told the judge that I had given her everything. The judge asked her what was missing, and she said that she didn't know. He told her to figure out what she wants, if she wants something.

She also about having a hard time paying the rent, and she wanted more money. As it is, my monthly payment is about three times her rent and she doesn't even live there. She lives with her boyfriend.

The crazy thing about my support payments is that it has never been based on my actual income, and the court has kept making orders based on fault figures with the excuse that the orders are "retroactively modifiable". This has been going on for 15 months now. So the judge ordered a hearing on financial issues for Oct. 27.

Judge Joseph acted like he has an opportunity to teach us to co-parent. If we only attend some counseling sessions and learn to co-parent now, he said, then several years from now we might come to agreement on what age to let the kids start watching PG-rated movies. I was startled that a family court judge would say something so silly.

I called our previous co-parenting counselor and left a message. Last time, he said that he doesn't do reports, so I guess that we'll have to find someone else. My guess is that my ex-wife will be uncooperative, as usual.