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Afternoon everyone.

To make a long story short I have a 5 yr old daughter with my daughters mom, and we were never married.  At the time our daughter was born she was automatically awarded sole custody of our daughter because that's how the courts work.  I didn't fight it because we were dating and we lived together for years and raised our daughter together.  I'm a stay at home Dad working from my home office, so, I had a huge hand in raising our daughter with her Mom.  One year ago I caught Mom with another man, she ran off, married him one month later and enforced the 2002 court order granting her sole custody....which of course had never been enforced before because we were together.  That court order states I only get to see our daughter every other weekend and basically have no legal rights.  So, for the next 10 months I fought for joint physical custody at a minimum.

We entered into mediation back in September '06 and after 6 hours of mediation Mom agreed to joint physical custody.  We all signed off on the agreement including her lawyer, my lawyer, the mediator, Mom and me.  The last 5 months have been phenomenal and I have my daughter every other week and responsiblilities for education/religion, while Mom had responsiblilities for extracurricular/health.

Two day ago I received notification that Mom has fired her attorney that represented her during mediation, hired a new one and filed a 12 pg motion against the mediation settlement she agreed to.  Her claim is that she really didn't know what she was signing, that she was intimidated into doing so, etc.  The really frustrating thing about this whole ordeal is that the settlement agreement was never finalized by the judge in the case because the judicial system here is so terribly slow!  It's been 5 months now and the judge never signed off on the agreement because of backlog and because he never signed off on it then it's not binding.  Her attorney sent me a letter stating that since the mediation was not binding and has not been finalized then we are to follow the previous court order from 2002 which was signed and finalized.

At that point I was forced to hand my little girl back over to her mother or face legal consequences!!!  We have asked for a court date to present our case to judge and finally get him to hopefully sign off on it, but that may be months from now because of the slow process here.  At that point the judge might say that there's no sense in moving our daughter back to the settlement agreement and he may not uphold it...

I'm so miserable and depressed I do not know what to do.

Advice/suggestions on how to enforce this and make the judge sign it???

Does anyone know where I can find statistics on states that have shared parenting laws in effect?  I believe 35 states, including District of Columbia, have shared parenting laws in effect.

I'm hoping to put statistics together on those states that do have laws implemented and how the laws have effected the state.  For instance, I cannot confirm, but have been told that when TX implemented shared parenting laws the divorce rate dropped dramatically, and crime committed by children under 14 dropped significantly.

Can someone point me to a place that has statistics on anything such as this?

Thank you!

You absolutely have a great chance at gaining custody of your daughter.

First, make certain you do absolutely nothing to make yourself look bad.  I mean you must be as perfect as you can be at all times.  Do not give your ex, or her attny, any reason to make you look to be an UNFIT parent in court.

Second, just as importantly as the first point, document everything, I mean every conversation, every single thing you can think of.  Every scrap of paper, every person that has seen your ex act like a psycho, get it all together.  Go by Radio Shack and buy a tape recorder that you can hook up to your phone so you can record every conversation you have with her.  In many states you can record a conversation between yourself and another party.  You need to find out if you can do that in your state.  If you can, then go get a recorder - they're invaluable.

Third, get a very good, aggressive attny that practices child custody/family law IN THE COUNTY that you will be filing for.  It's important that you get a good attny that practices family law in the county you plan to file for because you'll want an attny that knows the courts, the judges and what it will take for you to win in that county.

Lastly, never give up.  I think you've got a most excellent chance of gaining custody of your child if what you say is true!

I'd do anything to have the stuff on my ex that you have on yours!  If I did I'd have my daughter...