I haven't been around much, life took a bad turn about 5 years ago, divorce, child custody battles, lies in court, etc. some of you may remember so here is an update.
After discovering my wife trouser-snake hunting with a dude from her HS days I told her it was the last straw and I was out. I stayed in the house for 3-4 months due to the 3 kids (2 biologically mine and her son whom I adopted) but I finally moved out when it got to be too much.
During the next 2 years i met a wonderful woman who became a wonderful friend and even though we really dug each other we knew I was in no position to date anyone and we both were just friends. We eventually started dating after 8 mo or so and then started dating (we are married now)
I paid my ex child support for 3 years on my own (out of the courts) until I felt I needed some legal decision making rights. She then accused me of being an abusive drug addict and I lost all legal rights to the kids and put on supervised visitation on her word alone.
All this was going on in the same time frame as my 2nd marriage. It got to the point to where I had to have the visitation supervisor scheduled to be at my wedding to insure my kids ability to be at their dad's wedding
pretty stressful to say the least.
So here I am on the other side and this is where i stand......
1. I have joint custody and visitation, every other weekend fri-sun and every tuesday overnight. It would have been more (i requested 50/50) but because they were so young the Mediator thought 50/50 would be too stressful for the kids.
2. I pay $1000 a month in support with no arrears. The judge cut me a break on this because I work full time and neither my ex or her new husband have jobs. He said that since they have nothing keeping them from working he will put their income as full time at min wage. He didn't have to do that and he volunteered in before I could even ask, pretty cool IMO.
3. The abuse issue was never even investigated. CPS dropped it at the intake stage, it seems that they are pretty good at seeing through the BS.
4. The whole drug addict charge was from the fact that I have a Medical Marijuana card in CA. The judge was again pretty cool about it. He said "you know just about anyone can get one of these" to which i agreed, He asked me for more info and a local doctor recommendation for MJ as a valid treatment. It seems that this county has never had to deal with this in a Family Court setting and they had no idea what to do with it. I got a local Neurologist to back me up on the legitimacy of the treatment and I printed up a bunch of research, showed them the lockbox I have for the MJ and got a statement from the visitation supervisor stating that she never saw or smelt any trace of Marijuana during their visits and the judge accepted it
5. I am now in a terrific marriage with a woman who understands and supports me. I now realize just how damaged and unhealthy my first marriage was.
I have talked to a few of you on Facebook lately and it makes me realize how much I have missed the warm rumbling embrace of other bassists
So I am back, lock up your pets and leave me a plate of carrots on the porch........
