discouraging chat with attorney; now what?
As I've posted previously, my STBXAH has successfully done Soberlink monitoring for almost a year, during the alternate weeks when he has our 3 kids (10, 14, 16). Recently he filed a motion to discontinue monitoring, saying the year of passed tests means he doesn't have a problem.
I was with him for 20 years, the last 5 of which were a miserable rollercoaster of alcoholic insanity, much of which directly or indirectly impacted our kids but none of which involved the police and only a few of which were observed by outside witnesses (his friends).
He doesn't even claim to be in recovery. He just says the passed tests demonstrate he doesn't have a problem (despite a doctor's diagnosis, wretched things he's done under the influence, and him getting mugged while massively drunk last year, after the SL testing began but on his non-custodial week). From evidence I've seen at the house, I know he's still drinking. But now that I'm not there, I don't know the extent of it.
I was all set to go to court to press for continued monitoring, arguing that Soberlink is the tool that is helping him be a safe and sane dad (if angry and irritable, from what I hear).
But my attorney doesn't think I have a case. She says since nothing awful has happened, and he has passed the tests, the judge is likely to side with him.
STBXAH has offered to do 2 more months of SL (which mean 1 month, since he does it on alternate weeks), to appease me and avoid court.
So, what do I do? Get a second opinion? Tell my attorney I want to go to court anyway? (Attorneys out there: is it wise for someone to use you to argue a case about which you're not persuaded yourself? ) Request random urine testing instead, which might be harder to 'game'?
What I feel like doing is holding on to my kids for dear life, and not letting him have shared custody, but I know that's not going to happen.
Help?
I do take some consolation in the fact that I got him to do the monitoring for a year, so our kids are a year older and wiser, given his absolute insistence that he would do nothing of the sort when we split.