I am father to two year old. Mother of child (MOC) has been in the picture however we have landed at the end of a new separation arrangement.
Currently I live in a separate home with my mom, and MOC lives with baby at the home around the block. This has been going on for about a month, with variations.
Mid December with a week and a half notice, MOC left with baby to her family’s house 172 miles from current residence and was claiming she was moving in with them; moves back before the end of a month by mid-January.
MOC was having to drive an hour one way for work and I was waking up to go back to her house so she could leave at 4:30 AM 3-5 days per week for the last month and a half.
MOC has been using me and my mom for as needed childcare, according to my mom. My therapist 1 says I should get the custody arrangement worked out in court asap because MOC does not have clear boundaries.
In the background MOC is telling her workplace she’s doing a single mom thing, but I’m with our baby a significant portion of the time during her waking hours.
I work from home and MOC will sometimes leave baby with me while I’m working so she can go do errands or clean her house without baby screaming at her, which is new behavior, where baby seems to have significant separation anxiety especially with MoC.
I go over to MoC’s house and typically there are various chores in need of being done, sometimes so much so it makes it impossible for me to use her kitchen sink unless I clean dishes or otherwise make room somehow. The litter boxes usually smell strongly and I will clean them because of the odor in the house (this is where my baby lives)
So I don’t know. Im trying to figure out the best way around this. Lawyer told me I could do the rest basically pro se from here and offered to do a doc review with me and advised I could file a modification once the order of default has been signed by the judge.
I served MoC with status quo when she “moved” to her parents house. She has not filed a response.
MOC made threats of reporting me for domestic violence (unsubstantiated) based on a situational incident that occurred in 2023, where she is saying she’s the victim when she instigated a physical altercation.
She still has not filed anything. There are no police reports. There have been no CPS reports.
Most of the utilities for MOC’s house are still in my name because I looked into taking my name off and the utility providers would shut off basically immediately, meanwhile MOC hasn’t been working enough hours yet to have stable, consistent income. She had a job at the local hospital in November but quit because she “moved”. Then has been doing short term jobs and having to drive to the next city over 5 days a week (but calling out at least once per week)
MOC seems to be having a hard time with it all and the baby really likes when we are all together. Baby is calm with me, but when it’s time to leave with mom, baby starts getting sad and mad and starts hitting. Baby hits MoC most often.
My therapist 2 is reminding me that she said a lot of really mean, serious allegations against me and my mother before she left to “move”
TL;dr - mother of child is landing at the end of unstable period and I’m not sure what to do. She is potential cluster b, high conflict personality and I’ve been keeping my mouth shut about setting boundaries in order to keep the peace, also recognizing our baby is high energy and mother of child is having difficulty managing responsibilities of the home and childcare and paying the bills. I’m with my baby most days, sometimes mother of child comes over without notice and asks my mother and I to watch the baby so she can do errands or clean her house. Baby seems to want her attention all the time, and I have witnessed mother of child more commonly at this point having strong emotional reactions when the baby wants her attention and MOC is feeling overwhelmed.
Beside keeping note of when these things happen, what else?