My Ex Is Not Following Our Agreement – Now What?
When your ex spouse or significant other and you enter into an agreement regarding custody and visitation, what do you do when your ex decides not to follow it?
Is it worth it to call your attorney? You may try to work it out between yourselves, or wonder if your attorney can contact your ex’s attorney. This approach may work if the violation of the agreement is more of a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of the agreement. For example: the agreement says visitation with mother the first weekend of the month from Friday after school to Monday morning. But in this month, March 1 was a Sunday. So does the first weekend of March count as February 27-March 2, or March 6-March 9? This type of misinterpretation can likely be worked out between counsel or between the parties.
However, if the breach of the agreement is more serious – such as refusing to allow visitation on a holiday, or not paying child support, then you may have to resort to filing something in court. First, your attorney will contact the other side and demand that the violations cease. With a child support issue, your attorney can ask that your ex cure the breach. If the violation is not cured, and/or keeps occurring, then you may be forced to go to court to get relief.
The Court has various options when one party is not following the agreement. The Judge may just decide to make the other party comply by coming back to court for status hearings. If the behavior is egregious enough, the Court may decide that jail time is a necessary punishment.
So if your ex is not following your agreement or the court order, you should explore all your options to make sure you are protected, as well as your family.