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After nine months I would say that the grandparents need to make a sworn statement that they have been caring for this child full time and you need to go after custody. No way in HECK should BM be getting child support for the kids when she is not actually exercising custody of them. I could see if she was giving the child support to the grandparents, since they have the kids, but even then I would say go after custody because the grandparents should not have them if the father is willing to take them and is fit!

I agree with a poster who said get a court order stating that SD will attend school in YOUR school district based off of YOUR address, regardless of where BM lives, so that SD can maintain stability in her school enrollments. Dpending on your work schedule, if you are willing, you could also ask the courts to order that YOU will "babysit" SD in the afternoons after school so as to save BM (and also, your DH) the cost of child care, or even that BM will pay YOU a fee for babysitting (I have heard of that happening, BM pays SM to babysit just like she would pay a daycare, judges HAVE ordered it!). This would give you and possibly DH some additional time with SD while BM is at work.

Another thing I have heard of some NCP doing, sometimes works... ask the court to COURT ORDER BM that she is NOT allowed to move anywhere that causes SD to have to transfer schools again, otherwise the courts should look at considering changing custody to the NCP if they can provide a more stable home enviorment. It will all depend on the judge. Some will go for it because they understand that constant moving and school changing is not good for a child, some will shoot it down because they only care that the CP can move wherever they want, who cares if the kid is being jerked around and failing school because of it.

Prior service Army human resource specialist, as well as a DEERS Verifying Officail (the person that does the computer stuff to get people military IDs and medical coverage), but a lot of the issues here overlap branches. I didn't read all the replies, so I might be repeating.

#1... all he has to do is have a paternity test done (because you were not married when the child was born... to many women claim military personnel are the fathers to get free benefits when the guy is NOT the father), turn that into DEERS (covers ALL branches) along with the birth certificate and Social Security card, and the child is enrolled into DEERS and is authorized a military ID card. He should also be court ordered to provide health insurance and dental, with DEERS enrollment and the court order, he will automatically have TriCare health and he will be required to pay the whooping like $9 a month premium for United Concordia (TriCare dental). Technically, TriCare only provides medical/dental if the service member provides 50% of the child's support (most VOs don't bother with that part of the process, but the sticklers will mark "provides less than 50% support"), and you have to fill out paperwork to get that declaration, but a court order basically overrides that.

#2... there is NOTHING that stops single parents from being service members. It is ILLEGAL to so much as SUGGEST that they can't have custody. Most services don't want CURRENT single parents JOINING, because the lifestyle is not really condusive, but some of them have exceptions for reserve or active duty or national guard, but if you are already in, they can't do a DARN thing about it other than require a family care plan (a plan that explains how the child is going to be taken care of during duty, at NO time can a service member say they can't perform ANY duty due to having a child... this is why I am no longer a Soldier, be a mom or be a Soldier, I couldn't find anyone to take care of my kids evenings and weekends and during field exercises when I moved to a civilian community on active duty.

#3... as long as he has dependents, he does not neccassarily need custody. Finance regulations (all services) state that a service member court ordered to pay equal or more than BAH TYPE TWO W/ Dependents will receive Type 2 BAH. My husband was authorized BAH TYPE ONE W/ Dependents based on his court order since he had to pay type 2 in child support but also gets visitation and needs a place for SD to stay during those visits. It is a moot point now, he is authorized it all based on me, anyhow, but before we got married, it helped. Some pays he may not get depending on if finance regs allow for branch specific deviations. But all he would get without being deployed would be housing allowance type 2 while in barracks, or type one to live off base and seperate rats instead of eating in the chow hall.

Once you have a court order requiring him to pay child support, you send that into DFAS... don't mess with his chain of command, DFAS has to process the child support order to be deducted out of his paycheck automatically. If he is not complying with any OTHER part of a court order - DEERS enrollment, paying any non-covered expenses he is court ordered to pay, etc - THAT you go to his chain of command and show them the court order. If they fail to order him to comply with the court order, you go to JAG. I don't know USMC regs, but Army regs state that a single Soldier can NOT have custody at the time of enlistment, they must give COURT ORDERED FULL custody to someone else and can NOT get custody back during their first term unless extenuating circumstances arise (I was considering giving my ex custody when we first split and did a LOT of research on this issue. I couldn't do it and used a different loophole and program to get on active status) such as the legal custodian becomes unfit. Army reseves may now enlist as single parents with a family care plan, but that just changed during my active duty tour from 06-08. Before then, even a reservist couldn't enlist as a single parent!

The Soldier Sailor act will only prevent him from dealing with court issues DURING DEPLOYMENT (and probably while in training). However, FILE NOW!! Anything you file now will be put on hold, however,  it can be BACKDATED to the day you filed. The act is there to protect the service member from being screwed due to inability to appear in court, NOT as something for him to use to protect himself from having to face court proceedings and what would have happened during the deployment (hence the reason my ex's child support for his second wife is backdated TWO YEARS!! She filed shortly before he deployed for 15 months and tried to get the hearings done while he was GONE so he couldn't fight for his parental rights.)

Can you afford a lawyer? Take your documentation about the doctors and her getting the donations to pay for travel and all that, take it to court and ask the judge to ORDER her to take your son to the specialist. If you have any way of proving that she is defrauding the government or any of the other stuff she is suspected of doing, turn her in and get custody of your son if you can... all that money you are paying in child support for her to live on herself would be better spent on a nanny while you are at work and medical expenses. I shudder to think of what kind of pain and suffering your son is going through so that she can get the money to do whatever SHE wants to do!

Does your son go to school/daycare? Check with your lawyer to make sure you can do this, and walk into the school/daycare about a half hour before the end of the school day and tell them that you want your son brought directly to the front office at the end of the day because you are taking your son in accordance with the court's ex-parte order, and that they are not to allow BM to take your son from the school, again. Then, when it goes back to court, ask that since she hid your son from you, that a "restraining order" be put in place saying that she is not allowed to be at the school except for school events and that she is not allowed to take your son from the premises.

The fact that she went against a court order should work in your favor for full custody and very likely for her to have supervised visitation as well. Crossing your fingers for you!

There is a reason I like the way NC determines child support... both mom and dad's income are computed, and if either is VOLUNTARILY UNDER or UNemployed, they compute based on average PRIOR income, taking into consideration job history, etc (like for me, I was voluntarily underemployed, because my ex and I agreed to me getting off active duty and being a reservist and agreed that my high school education would not land me a civilian job that would pay more than daycare expenses, and other than military, I have no real job history, so my income would have been kept at zero... whereas, my husband's ex has high school education, however, she has had multiple decent paying jobs working for the billing depts of hospitals, as well as in the food industry/coffee shops). But mom is expected to pay her fair share of expenses for the kids, not just live on welfare and child support.

I consider a false abuse allegation a threat to my children. That allegation could potentially deny him access to my children during a drawn out investigation, denying my children access to thier father while she takes her fun because she has all this power over him, and can manipulate the government to control me, as well, in order to continue to control him. That allegation could also deny my children ANY support of any kind what so ever. My ex has always paid me what he could afford before the court order for her was in place, but these allegations could potentially cost him his security clearance, and therefore, his military career. She would have no problem surviving on ZERO child support, seeing as she has always worked multiple jobs at a time since before she met my ex, and relocated herself to be closer to her family so she was set when she filed for divorce, however, I have two children, no family outside of my husband and ex in the area, no work history other than military service, and can't find someone to hire me at minimum wage, let alone pay me enough to pay daycare for TWO children... while her daughter is routinely watched for free by friends and family. The consequences of her actions have potentially severe detrimental effects on MY children.

She knows all this, she has always known all this, because when they first admitted to me that the baby was theres, my ex and I had agreed on a child support amount previously, they begged me to take a lower child support amount so that he could afford to feed HER daughter. My dumb butt agreed to it, instead of telling them no. Being the bigger person has bitten me in the backside.

Ok, here's a doozy for ya... my ex and I split because he decided the grass was greener on the other side and left me for another woman - who he then got pregnant and had the baby before he had even filed for divorce (he had just given me the paperwork so I could waive the 30 days the week before he drove down to FL to be with her for the delivery, so I didn't give him the paperwork back until after they got back!). Within a year, she had filed for divorce, and asked for sole custody based on "abuse and refusal to bond with his daughter." Her justification for it... he would come home from work (he is active duty), be exhausted because at that time he was going in at 0530 because he was stuck in the orderly room, and not getting home until after 7 pm, and not really be in the mood to go out to the mall with her, or want to run around the house "playing" with the BABY, or anything like that - he wanted to sit down, rest, and be in bed shortly after that. On the weekends he did plenty - I have pictures of him playing with his daughter, I have pictures of him out bowling with her and friends, all that jazz.

Well, he had been reassigned to another post, with military schooling enroute. She choose to remain at the old duty station, then move back home to FL instead of going with him to school, or going to the new duty station to get a home set up that was close to his military school and that was at his new assignment. It was shortly after he got there and got housing that she informed him that she wanted a divorce, and a few months after that that he deployed on another deployment. She never brought their daughter to visit him, refused to meet him halfway, etc. When he got back, he made two seperate visits to FL to see his daughter, at his own expense, on top of trips down there for court, but the judge ordered her sole custody and SUPERVISED visits (to be supervised by HER, schedule to be determined by "agreement" between her and him) based on "lack of contact between father and daughter due to miltary duty". According to her, she didn't request supervised visits, the judge did it all on his own, and the judge refused to put a schedule on the visits because "He is in the military, who knows when he can see his daughter." She has made two trips up here so her daughter could see her father, and during both those trips, she not only stayed at his house, she slept in his bed with him. She told me that she only wanted a supervised schedule for short term until her daughter got used to her father again, since he had been gone so long, but now she is wanting him to meet her halfway becauase she is comfortable with him now.

Now, less than a month after her second visit, she all of the sudden changed her phone number and refuses to give him the new number so he can talk to his daughter (thereby denying him access to his daughter). He informed her (via email I believe) that since she is denying him access to his daughter, he is going to file for full custody of his daughter - I know, chance in hell, especially since FL is anti-father/soldier, but he is willing to make the fight. All of a sudden, he has been informed that he is being charged with abuse or assualt, one of them, because he is harassing her by threatening to file for full custody. Now he needs me to write a statement saying that he has NEVER abused me or my children in our five years of marraige. My oldest just turned 9 years old last month, youngest is 6 1/2. We are doing joint custody whenever we live close enough to each other... like when we both live on the same military post, like RIGHT NOW! I have no court order for custody OR child support, he can barely afford the $100 a month he DOES give me for the TWO of them, because she is getting around $600 for ONE child... BACKDATED TWO YEARS even though a judge had denied her child support during an earlier hearing during his deployment. Her actions are threatening MY children's well-being and I just don't know what to do. I want to go down to FL to teach her what a ********************** she is, and I want my ex to actually be able to be a father to my children, even my husband wants to kick some butt, but I just don't know what to do!!

Good news!!

From what I have heard other SMs say regarding their husband's modifying child support and whatnot, the judges will only backdate to when the modification was originally filed for. If you wait to file for child support, the judges usually say tough, you snooze, you lose.