The custody fight of Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook reared its ugly head again.
Last year the case settled after several days of lurid testimony about Peter Cook’s affair with a teenage store clerk and revelations that he spent thousands of dollars downloading pornography.
Sophia Chang and John Valenti report in Newsday that the in the current dispute:
Cook wanted Brinkley found in contempt of court for allegedly failing to deliver their son’s passport to his house in November, which, Cook said, caused Jack to miss a school trip to Egypt. In return, Brinkley’s attorneys filed a countermotion to hold Cook in contempt for discussing the marriage on talk shows in violation of a confidentiality agreement.
Though, the parties were apparently able to resolve their dispute, they learned that even after a divorce cases are “settled,” agreements involving custody and visitation of children are not final.
To often, parties are so antagonistic towards each other that they rigidly adhere to custody and visitation schedules that are not workable. Rather than being flexible and mature, some parents use a visitation schedule like a sword-in effect, to deprive the other parent ( and the children) of quality bonding time.
Parenting time schedules cannot be written in stone. School vacations, extra-curricular activities and special occasions may not coincide with the provisions of a settlement agreement written weeks or months, never mind years earlier.
Divorced parents do not have to love or even like each other. But as Peter Cook, sincere or not, summed up to the Associated Press what is required is to “remove conflict so that we can go on about our lives. I respect my children’s time with their mom, and all I ask is that she respect their time with me.”