Hello! Most of my posts have been related to child support, but something happened over the weekend that I need to vent about / get advice about.
I've been divorced for 6 years, and our court order states that I have primary custody, with my ex having every other weekend, a few hours on Saturday and a few hours on Sunday. No overnights at all. He agreed to this arrangement and signed it. The kids have not spend an overnight with him in years. He lived 4 hours away, and would drive in to pick up the kids and take them to lunch, hang out with them doing activities, then bring them home. The kids loved this arrangement, as he has always lived with his mother in a cramped house and they don't want overnights there. She is also a mouthy person who aggressively quizzes the kids about why they don't call their dad often enough, and likes to go and on and with degrading things to tell them about me. If they can get out of having to see her, they do.
About a year ago, my ex decided to quit his job to get out of his child support garnishment. He was already far in arrears, but now he is over $30K in arrears. He works odd cash jobs here and there, as far as I know. His license has been suspended by the state now for 8 months. He left his mom's and moved in with a buddy of his. I will not allow him to pick up the kids without a valid license, so now he gets his mom to drive them around on his days. She has had screaming matches with the kids, dropped them off at home randomly when she gets mad at them, accused them of not "honoring" their father because they don't seem interested to talk to him, and constantly bad-mouths me. They are beyond sick of it. They've had to deal with her for 8 months now, and their dad just idly allows her to do this. My kids are not super young kids, one of them is a teen already. They have increasingly decided not to go with him on his weekends. I always encourage them to, per the court order, but they simply refuse. He has generally said "Ok, you don't have to" and let it go, but these last few weekends he has basically begged them to come. They still have said no.
This past weekend, my youngest decided to go. My oldest said no. I arrived to our meeting spot on time, and his mother was already there. He was not (he is very often late). Instead of waiting in her car for him, as I was doing, she got out and approached my car. She started knocking on my daughter's passenger side window. I told her to go ahead and roll it down and just say hi to her, that it was OK. She tried to convince my daughter to come too, my daughter said no. She talked my son into getting into her car to wait. I told him it was OK, that his dad would be there soon and we would wait as well, and he could talk to his sister through the windows while we waited. I was trying to be civil.
Once she got him in the car, she drove away. She yelled out the window "We're not doing this!" I guess meaning staying near me and chatting with his sister. She parked across the parking lot. I called my ex, to see how much longer he was going to be, and told him she had just driven away with our son. He said "She just likes to park on the other side of the lot. It's fine to just drive over there next to her and wait for me. You can still talk to him, it's fine." So I drove over and parked next to her again. She started yelling at me to go away, that I had no business talking to my son while she was there. She drove away again with, my son still in the backseat. I did not follow again. I was stunned. I did not want to put him in that position so I just stayed put and waited. My son told me later that he was scared and that she had been talking to him about how his dad has no license and no job and it's "all your mom's fault."
I have an appointment with an attorney to discuss next week. But until then, am I in contempt of court if my kids decide not to go back? They love their dad, but they have no respect for him and his lifestyle choices. They cannot stand being around their grandmother, and she is definitely going to be there for transportation. How should I handle a situation like this, if it happens again?