Was my advice bad to this dad?

He pays his ex 800.00 a month (200 a week) and keeps insurance on his children. She allows him to see his kids every other sunday for 8 hours. No overnights No holidays nothing....(they have no support order) In the state that he is from a new law goes into effect in July that will help him as far as child support rates go BUT that isn't the issue the issue is that he wants more time with his kids and is afraid that she will move out of state with them to be with her family if he takes any action. She is money motivated, so I thought if he told her that he would stop the support inless she gave him more time with his children then that would motivate her to either take action and get paperwork/visitation drawn up OR let him see his kids more so she will keep getting the money. He honestly has no problem with supporting his children but if he wants more time he need to try and somewhat force her hand in this issue. What do you guys think? Any advice will helpWas my advice bad to this dad?
He should check with a lawyer about joint custody. The support would probably be 50/50 and the custdy would be 50/50. I think she could move either way. I think she might be pre-preparing for supporr court. More time = more money? Either way she'll get the money (arears) and the chidren will suffer in the meantime. If the get along well they could work it out (legally) in the form of a contract. He could use the threat of court as leverage, but I would chek with a lawyer.Was my advice bad to this dad?
1. The kids will suffer if he stops support. Threatening to do so may help, but actually doing so is wrong.


2. That mom should consider herself lucky. Many divorced moms never get one penny...and he is paying that much with out an order! Lucky her.


3. If there is no reason she is restricting the visitation (like a reason you may not know about) I would advise him to talk to a lawyer. All kids deserve a good dad. Sorry he's going through this.


Good luck.
Yes, your advice was pretty bad.





If he threatens to stop support, she will have one of two choices: 1) move closer to her family to get help with the children which hurts him; or 2) sue him for child support which puts him in about the same situation he's in now. So there's really a 50/50 chance that a bad result occurs from your advice and a 50/50 chance of no change. That's not really good.





The better course of action is fo him to sue her for visitation. Then, she's stuck in the jurisdiction because of the suit. Also, he'll have get a visitation order that she'll have to comply with. In fact, even while the suit is ongoing, the court should give him a temporary visitation order that's STILL better than what he has now.





Your friend should see a lawyer or contact the court immediately. Such visitation petitions are usually pretty easy and the court may have resources to help him do it himself.





He should almost never tie support to visitation. It's almost always a bad idea.
he really needs to ask the courts for more time with them. my ex had custody of his kids and their mother had to take him to court to see her children. of course she lost BIG TIME on that one because the kids told the judge that she's crazy and told him ALL the bad things and no good things about her and told him point blank 'we don't love that woman. she gave birth to us and we thank her, but she's not a mother'. BAM! the kids were ours and she had to pay the court child support. (courts made her pay BACK child support because there was a verbal agreement between them that there would be no child support. OUCH!)
The amount he sees the kids sounds reasonable. He should be able to get her to let him see the kids more without resorting to other kinds of tactics which will most likely push the mother away. You'll get more bees with honey than you would vinegar. I think it's true. If he can't see the kids, it's probably because the mother doesn't see him as a positive role model all the time. Otherwise she should want her kids to have a good male role model - their biological father. It might be unfair for me to side with the woman here, because I don't know the situation. If the dad is an exemplary person around her, treats her right all the time and she still has some kind of beef with him, and doesn't respond to rationality or kindness - simply refuses to let him see his children more, then and only then could it be permissible to resort to more difficult action like reducing her pay. However, the reduction of pay in itself doesn't make too much sense because the children are the ones who suffer most, and they have no say in the matter. So through my understanding, the advice you gave was not that great... but I know you had good intentions, and in a way you were feeding off the psychological mindset of the dad you were talking to. Perhaps he was already in a confrontational mood, and that subconsciously gave you the idea for him to confront the mother in this way - what he sort of wanted to do, without realising? Well, just some of my thoughts on the subject,... I know they will work it out anyway.
You cannot use support to leverage visitations. He needs to go back to court and get a specific order for visits. If she moves out of state just to prevent him from visiting, she may find herself in contempt, and paying his legal fees as well as possibly losing the children's custody (you don't say how old they are).





If she is money-motivated, he can offer to pay her to let him have longer visits, paying her only after the visits.
You obviously are well-intentioned and want to help ';this dad';. I would proffer, however, that if this is a person to whom you have a significant connection, you should discuss this with someone(s) whom you trust. Much more information than provided here is necessary if one is to even attempt to advise you effectively. I presume that this is not a forum in which to ';lay bare the facts';. However, on the surface, this appears to be a situation where legal advice would be judicious.
He should get a private eye to prove her an unfit mother, and sue for custody.