Out of State

[CABDsDaDDY]

My ex wife lives in Indiana and denies me any contact with my daughter. At the time when the divorce and visitation was set, I could not afford a lawyer and lived out of her state, so I was granted no visitation. She told the lawyers and judge a bunch of nonsense. Anyway I got one year behind in my child support, but I've been payin g for a year or two and have been paying double to catch up. They still plan on garnishing tax returns. But money is not my issue. I don't care if I have to pay for my daughter, she is worth it. I have a new wife and three children and we want to include my daughter with our family on holidays or during the summer. My ex wife sends back everything I buy her and letters or cards I send from here in Texas. She says it is her right as custodial parent to deny her (our) daughter contact with me and my family. She won't even "allow" my mother to send her only granddaughter gifts.
My question is what can I do? I don't have much money, so it has to be an inexpensive route, if possible. They live in Newton County, Indiana and we live in Denton County, Texas.
Thank you.

[Imom]

You need to keep everything she sends back as proff, document what you do, calls, letter etc., you need to go to the other boards to learn how to go pro se (no attorney) this will be your best bet. You need to file for visitation, she will more then likly get supervised at first if its been a while since you have seen your child, if you want to get some where ask for supervised visits that led in to unsupervised in her area that leds to vistits in yours. The guidelines here for long distance are spring brake, 7 days of x-mas vacation, and seven weeks of the summer.   How old is the child? How long has it been since you have been able to visit?  This will be a long process but you must be willing to follow through and you will get visits per the guidelines.

[CABDsDaDDY]

My daughter is 5 years old. She will be 6 on July 27th. I have not seen her since she was 2.  We planned on filing for visits this summer. Do you recommend getting a lawyer(if we go that route) there in Indiana or here in Texas? We've had different suggestions considering that point of our situation.

[Imom]

I think you said the custody order is Indiana, if it is then you must have an lawyer that parctices law in Indiana. Your best bet is an lawyer near her area so you wont pay for anttorney fees for Travel.  The biggest thing I see is the mother will be granted supervised visits at first etc. like I stated in my first post then the visits will phase into regular visits because its been so long and your daughter will need to get to know you and your family. How offten can you go to where you child lives?  I don't want to damper your rights its just this will be hard at first but it will get better you have every right to see your child as your child has every right to see you and your family. Shop around for a lawyer that will fight for you also ask for joint legal rights and visitation. The sooner the better it will take a while to get a court hearing and I'm sure it will take more then one.  This site is helpful so look aruond the articles etc. The other boards on here hare helpful too.

[Davy]

Daddy... there was a case on these boards a year or so ago where an Indiana court ordered the involvement of a group known as CASA (Court Appointed ? ? ) to evaluate a Texas father involved in a custody dispute in IN.  TX-CASA furnished the IN court with a glowing report much to the dispise of the IN-CASA and GAL ... as I remember.

I don't want to provide you with false hopes or make particular recommendations.  Hopefully you can find a way to expedite this matter by going to the barn to get to the house (so to speak).  Do you know if IN or that particular jurisdiction has some sort of Children's Advocacy group ..network.. council ..etc.  I think there is some sort of group like that at the Fed level that may assist you ....

Unfortunately, jurisdiction will be in Indiana but there are provisions in the Uniformed Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act (UCCJEA/UCCJA) and a federal statue ..Parental Kidnapping Preventative Act (PKPA) which allow a court of one state to contact a court of another state for purpose of ironing out custody (visitation) disputes.  

I'm basing my jurisdictional verbage on your other posts ... from what I recall it is the BM that needs to be reprimanded and supervised .. not you and I would do my upmost to prevent supervised visits (1 hr ?)  in IN ... if at all possible.  BTW, I despise gov't involvement in our lives but this may be yet another situation where it may be necessary to protect the child from a possesive BM.

FYI...I'm in Collin county (23 yrs) from IL...sons raised here and youngest was at UNT of a very long time...I'm just a Dad.

Hope this helps !!!!