Fernandina Beach, FL asked in Family Law and Child Custody for Florida

Q: My ex-wife now has supervised visitation of our 3 children. Would she still be allowed to pick them up by herself?

The court awarded my request for supervised visitation and my ex-wife's visitation time (every other weekend) is supposed to be spent at her mother's house and under her mother's supervision. My ex-wife is arguing that she is still allowed to pick up/transport the children on her own or without her mother and wants to pick them up (either alone or with her new boyfriend) under the pretense that she is going to take them to her mother's house for her visitation time. Doesn't supervised visitation mean supervision at all times, not excluding transporting them? She's also responsible for transportation per a previous court order, so she's made things quite difficult for herself. She's been forfeiting weekends and since March 12th (when she got kicked out of her mother's house), she's only seen them for about 30 minutes (when her parents brought them to her) and about 4 hours on July 4th. Would this be sufficient to argue for abandonment against her? She barely even calls or writes them.

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1 Lawyer Answer

A: You have included several issues in your question. The short answer is that she must follow the court orders, as written. If the two of you do not agree on what the court orders mean then you must return to court for clarification. Since timesharing is modifiable until the children emancipate, rather than thinking about "abandonment," you can return to court to modify the timesharing schedule so that you have the majority, if not all, of the time. Speak with a local family lawyer for more specific advice.

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