Filing

Good to hear that. You seem like a great Dad, and more than deserving of that right.

So will that be full custody? Doesn't April want to see her daughter?

Sorry if I seem nosey or cuntish, it just strikes me as odd.

It will be a 50/50 legal and physical split. Abbey will be living with me, but instead of using day care, or a babysitter, April will watch her while I'm at work. This works out best for us all, I think.

Oh, definitely. That makes a lot more sense. Glad to hear things are working out well for you.

Of course now, in the past couple hours, she's started acting strange again. Goddamnit, I'm so sick of this.

And now she's being agreeable again. I know she's lying to me about why she was acting the way she was, but what good will it do to push the issue? As long as she isn't backing out, and she's decided to be reasonable, I suppose she can lie to me all she wants.

Wait, you still need to go to court even though you have an agreement? Isn't there some process just to sign on it, make it official, and not have to deal with judges?

Actually, yes. Yes, there is. There is a Michigan form that allows us to write down what we agree to, have Friend of the Court sign off on it (this is necessary so that the courts know that neither of the parties were coerced into signing the document). This document would then need to be filed with the County Clerk who would have a judge sign off on it without having an actual hearing.

Here's the thing. Macomb County refuses to accept that this form exists. I spent three days calling Friend of the Court, and the Clerk's office trying to get them to accept the form. Most of them just kept telling me that they didn't know what I was talking about. Finally, I printed the form off of the Michigan.gov website (here's a link to that form if anyone is interested. http://courts.michigan.gov/scao/cour...time/foc89.pdf Read the third bullet point of the first page), took it up to them, and they just flat out told me that they refuse to accept it, and we have to go to court. I told them that this is Michigan State law, and asked how they could not abide by that. I was told that every county is different. I was just flabbergasted by this. I told them that I seriously doubt that the Michigan legislature would willingly give individual counties the ability to throw out laws that they didn't like. The lady then asked me in a very condescending way if I went to law school. I just told her to give me the damn form I needed, and left.

Sounds like you guys love your bureaucracy over there.

Glad you and April have worked it all out. Let's hope it goes well.

Oh, yeah. Just fucking love it.

That sounds high calibre bullshit to me. State laws surely trump the laws of your county. Prehaps this is something to write letters about, when all this with the custody stuff is over, of course.

I think they mostly rely on us being too fed up with it to continue trying to make them do the right thing. And they are right, in this case.

here's hoping everything goes swimmingly, you deserve no less. good luck, my man.