Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts
Visitations
If a child is not getting any alone time with his father due to the persitency of the girlfriend not allowing this where she leaves her own children to be in the middle of that manly bonding time, can a modification be made so that the father spends some quality time with his sons ages 17 and 13 alone? Children have addressed this numerous of times to their father and at times begging to spend some alone time with him but girlfriend will not allow it. The children are now becoming more distant with their father. How do you help save and build that bond before it is too late? Oldest child who is 19 has distant herself already because of this and he is repeating the mistake again and again. Just want him to spend a little time with them alone just a little time :-( Like take them fishing, throw a football, go to a baseball game.......anything.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Visitations
I answered a similar uestion for a parent more than a month ago; the bottom line is that one parent cannot tell the other how to spend their visitation time with the children and the courts will not dictate this. The only way to increase the bond between children and parents is to increase the amount of time they spend together, but the realities of divorce and non-shared parneting generally preclude this. I have had successful divorces (it sounds like an oxymoron since no one is a winner in a divorce and children are generally the losers) where parents have lived in houses on the same street and the children have ben free to stay at either home on any gioven night... those divorces are rare.
Unless they see someone regularly, it is difficult for children to feel close to them. On the bright side, young boys ages 13-19 don't really know much about male bonding but they will develop stronger relationships with their father as they continue to mature into men.
Re: Visitations
As has been repeatedly stated in response to similr questions involving apparently similarly situated children of similar ages, , the custodial parent is not allowed to dictate the activities in which the non-custodial parent and the child or children participate. The custodial parent's idea of good "bonding" and the non-custodial parent's ideas may well differ; if you shared enough ideas and values with this man or woman, you would still be married to him or her.
You should read the many similar answers to very similar questions that have been posted on this subject over the last year.
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