on 12 December 2024, I had a court date to try and secure 50/50 custody of my children. I thought this would be a fairly easy based on what my lawyer and a few workers within the Jugenedamt had told me. They explained that the standard within Germany was 50/50 whenever both parents were willing and able to share custody in this format. The contingent that they explained is that it shouldn't cause any hardship on the kids. This means that if the additional time with me caused them to lose time with their friends or create stress with common routines like getting to or from school, then my request could be potentially denied. Since I only live about 50 meters from my ex and there are virtually no changes to their daily routines, I was confident that the court would support my request. In addition to their being no negative aspects of my request, I also knew that the kids had more friends when they were with me and did significantly more activities with me than they ever did with their mother. I really felt like I could request primary custody, and it would be approved if they were looking out for the best interest of the children. BTW, i'm retired military and have a full income without working, I'd be home for the kids (like a stay at home mom) while she was gone to work and needed to use her parents to help babysit the kids when her schedule wouldn't allow. I couldn't imagine a more perfect scenario for me.
so, the way this played out was that at the beginning of September I wrote to my ex as my lawyer and the Jugendamt told me I needed to do. I told her that i'm out of work and available full time so therefore we need to work out the details of a 50/50 arangement. She didn't respond so about 10 days later, I wrote a follow up email. again no response.
The next step was to schedule a meeting (mediation) with the Jugendamt. I was told that her not responding to my emails would play in my favor since it showed her inability to coparent and my efforts to resolve things at the lowest level. The next available jugendamt meeting was over a month away. My ex was clearly retaliating by restricting my contact with my kids but I thought that would all come back to haunt her since I was doing the right thing and she was the one creating conflict.
4 hours before the meeting, my ex sent an email and cancelled. She claimed that I had manipulated the jugendamt at our previous meeting there so she would not attend. I had done no such thing, in fact she had blindsided me by setting that jugendamt appointment based on a complaint that we couldn't communicate (wasn't true..... its only that I wouldn't meet her at her house again after her husband physically assaulted me) anyway, once we got there, there was no mention of failure to communicate, she was only trying to reduce my contact from 11 days a month down to every other weekend. This btw was retaliation for me calling the police after she broke into my house and stole from me. thats a story for another day but I tried to resolve between just her and I but she is so overconfident that she wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't return what she stole, and wouldn't even tell me what she took. I did go to the police but only for documentation and I told them not to pursue anything. Anyway, she cancelled the meeting and the Jugendamt told me this would drastically hurt her case since it solidified her inability to work with me in any way.
Now, my only option is to take things to family court. I'm told that it rarely makes it that far since one of the parents will back out once they realize the expense and case that is against them. based on all the factors leading up to this point, i felt very confident. my lawyer was able to get an expedited court date due to the evidence of her attempting to manipulate my kids. That date was only about 10 days after the jugendamt date. again, I felt good since the kids were coming off their time with me and going into that meeting in which they would be interviewed as well. I know they treasure their time with me so didn't have much to worrry about.
As that date was approaching, my kids were cut off from me more and more and even started to speak pretty rude to me, when they spoke to me at all. Clearly they were being manipulated and turned against me but I wasn't overly worried as I thought this would all come back to haunt my ex once it was finallized. unfortunately, she was able to get my court date delayed by about 3 weeks which now meant my kids had 3 straight weeks with her and of course, she cut them off from me almost 100% during that time. about a week before the court date the kids had thier first interview with their lawyer (someone that was suppose to be neutral and look out for their best interest) the only issues is that my ex was allowed to sit in on that interview. not surprisingly, the kids didn't say anything bad about her or their time with her but did speak poorly of me. Things that I never got a chance to defend of course.
now comes our court date. it starts with the Judge interviewing the kids without any parents present, but of course the lawyer that already interviewed them was there and part of that interview as well. I don't see how the kids can be open and honest with this scenario but again, I had hope. Unfortunately, it didn't go they way i needed it to.
It turns out that since my daughter is 13, her word were pretty much the only thing taken into consideration. she repeated what her mother wanted her to and that outweighed all of the other factors. It cancelled out the fact that my ex wouldn't speak with me, it cancelled out the fact she blew off the Jugendamt appointment, it cancelled out the fact that she lied and manipulated the kids. my daughters words were all that mattered.
This was an incredibly painful experience, not to mention an expensive one. The hardest part is to see what's happened since then. My daughter and I have spoken frequently and she regrets her choices. she claims she was only saying what her mother wanted because she is so scared of her. Now, my kids are locked into my exs house for 20 days a month and 11 with me. They are drastically neglected while there and there is no hope of that improving. Now that my ex has won, she has no need to put any effort into making her kids happy and ensuring that they actually want to be with her. She did the same with my stepkids and in my opion, she ruined a good part of their lives with her actions. again, a story for another day.
bottom line is, my daugher is not happy and did not realize what she was choosing. She was convinced that she would lose contact with her step brothers if I had 50/50 which is simply not true, that really wouldn't drastically affect the number of time they saw them. it did however prevent them from building relationships wither the friend they actually have in this town. Friends that won't go to my ex's house since she is such an evil woman. Friends that are spoken poorly of so the emphasis is turned to the stepsiblings. Its just sad but at least my daughter is seeing it now. She realizes how manipulative her mother is and is starting to document everything for herself. She has a private way to document her feeling and keep track of what has happened. She is free to speak about her concerns about me as well if she wants with no fear of me every seeing or hearing it.
so, what I learned is that being fair or putting trust in the system is not the way to go. The entire weight of the courts decision was based on my daughters word and did not care if there was evidence of manipulation or not. in the end, my ex won, she keeps her power over me and the kids and gets to maintain a verly large child support payment that she has no requirement to actually spend on the children. so very sad
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