my husband has a daughter, Gabi. Gabi lives in Maine with her mom, mom's BF and half sister. they all live with the BF's mom & alcoholic father, his brother and the brother's child, in a three bedroom house. the BF's son is there for visitation on the weekends, so that adds one more to the mix. My husband Eric has not really had a relationship with Gabi up to this poin (Gabi is 6 now) because her mom Amber moved around a lot and was hard to keep track of and he was in the military and not able to just take leave and go get her or see her. Gabi was the result of a drunken night in the Marine Corps, and no protection. Putting all that aside though, he is trying to build a relationship with her now and I am trying to help. we are having a bit of a problem though. we visited with her in Maine over the summer, and went to where she lives. it was discusting. cat p**p all over, there was not a spot in child's room that you could see the floor, as it was covered with dirty laundry, cat poo, and toys. she shares a twin bed with her half sister, and the BF's son also sleeps in the room when he spends the night. Amber doesn't seem to have a problem with any of this. we have a lawyer and have sent him pictures of all this. we live in virginia, so it's hard to know exactly what is going on there all the time. we call all the time, but only get either a busy signal or no one answers. we are sending child support, WITHOUT a state order every month. this child still wets her pants at 6 years old, and is repeating kindergarten this year because they said she is not ready educationaly to go on to first grade. we have bought work books for her and her mom won't work with her, says she doesn't have time. there are so many other things, i could go on and on. well, this is my question. because my husband didn't pay child support for her until this past year, they are saying he owes 21 thousand dollars in back support. our lawyer says we have to "play Amber's game" until we get what we want (in 2010 when he can have unsupervised visitation with Gabi because that's how long they say it's gonna take for him to "build a relationship with her"...dumb) and that we CANNOT paint the picture of her being a neglegent parent or ask for custody. WHY NOT??? i mean, i guess he is saying that if we p**s her off, she will make us pay the whole 21 thousand. but in the mean time, Gabi is the one suffering!! she has to stay living like this until then? that seems like a load of c**p to me. why can't we say anything about it now? i think she would be better off here with us...hands down. but our lawyer seems to thing that we are on fragile ground and that all h**l will break loose if we say ANYTHING about her having a bad home life! what can we do about this? i really don't care if she thinks she is going to get 21 thousand dollars out of us, if we can help Gabi have a better life in the mean time, i will give her all the money i have, which isn't much. and that brings me to my other point, if she DOES get mad at us, she can't get money we don't have! why can't we pursue the neglect thing with all this? this child is falling by the wayside and no one seems to mind.
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