visitation/custody

[MarcR]

dont really know where to begin...

my x-wife and i were not even married for a year. we are originally from south florida. we moved up to georgia for a little while to get away from all the drama down here and to get a new start with our marriage. we went to a doctor up there and once she found out she was pregnant she wanted to leave me and run back down to florida to her mom.  i had no choice but to let her go. a couple of weeks after she left, i met another woman in georgia. i know it seemed sudden but the fact is, you cant help your heart. my x started calling me and begging me to move back down to florida so me and her could get back together. i told her no because i didnt think it was going to work out with us at all. i didnt want to break her heart and let her know i found another woman but i had to. i couldnt keep it a secret any longer.  i let her know i didnt want her back because of my wife now. 1 week after i told her that i got served with a restraining order with her stating i threatened her life. she filed for it in florida and i got served with it in georgia... k that was the beginning.. my daughter is 12 years old now. i have maybe spent a total of 5 percent of her life with her because i have been deprived of everything she could possibly deprive me of. she has violated every court order there is in our case. my x was fighting for my daughter to carry her maiden name and i fought for her to have my last name. the judge court ordered for her to have her last name with mine.. so still by rights anytime she wrote her name down for anything it was supposed to have my last name with it...well she never done that. my daughter has her moms maiden name.   she has never given me phone numbers to where she was or addresses. all we had was my x's moms number which also never done us any good. her mom wouldnt tell us anything....   through out the 12 years of my daughters life her mom popped up every now and then to let me see my daughter. where she made the rule for supervised viso. it lasted a whole 3 visits and she dissappeared again..    this is how it has always been..    my x has done nothing besides bad mouth me to my daughter all her life. i think the word for it is parental alienation syndrome.. after reading the definition to that it fits to a T of how it has been..... over the past 2 years now, my daughter has been in my life. my x's new husband doesnt like my daughter so he pushed my x into letting her come stay with me my wife and her other 2 sisters and one brother. the thing with that is, if my daughter comes here for the weekend and she goes back to her moms her mom hounds her about her telling us personal info about her relationship with her husband.. not only that she will deny her coming the next viso because she (my x) is so jealous about the fact my daughter has a good time over here....
   recently,(last week) i called DCF on my x and her husband because of the mental abuse and neglect towards my daughter.  my x's husband is a alcoholic, he drives drunk with all my x's 5 children in the car. he has no drivers license. he is very violent. im not sure because my daughter is so afraid of him and her mom to tell me if he has ever layed a hand on my daughter or beat her mom... he has destroyed almost everything in thier house in his violent episodes. i know he verbally abuses my daughter. i have heard the way he talks to her while i am on the phone with her.
  as far as my x goes, she lets him talk to her like that.  my x is very sick and needs counseling very badly... she wont get help though because she is the type that thinks there is nothing wrong with her...she has gone so far as to deprive my daughter from counseling because they wont let her in the office with my daughter. one psychiatrist perscribed my daughter zoloft because she suffers from accute depression because of her living situation and her mom took her off the meds with out consulting a doctor..
the thing that really gets me is when they lived on the west coast of florida my x and her husband filed charges against some man over there for molesting my daughter. they dropped the charges against him because my  x-wifes husband was bieng accused of peeking at the same mans daughter and friends while they were changing..  

 there is so much more that i can still go on about but i am having a real hard time putting it into words.. i hope by what i have told you already that you get the idea of a fraction of whats been going on..
simple fact is, now that i called DCF on her, she has denied me of visitation again and she is using my daughter against me again saying that she said she never wants to see me again....
my daughter is bieng neglected and abused... DCF called me friday evening and said that they couldnt tell me anything but they are and will remain investigating the situation..    my biggest thing in all this is not to take my daughter away from her mom but to get her the help she needs for so many years of emotional abuse and neglect... and to also get my rights i have always been denied of.....    if anyone can help me out and enlighten me on this situation i would be gratefull

[CustodyIQ]

Hello,

Sorry for all that you're going through, and for all your daughter is enduring.

If you're willing to invest much effort into your situation, I can offer some guidance to you.

If you're looking for an easy answer that will fix everything, unfortunately that won't be an option to you.

Before I write more, can you advise if you think you have the time and resources to really help the situation?

[MarcR]

>Hello,
>
>Sorry for all that you're going through, and for all your
>daughter is enduring.
>
>If you're willing to invest much effort into your situation, I
>can offer some guidance to you.
>
>If you're looking for an easy answer that will fix everything,
>unfortunately that won't be an option to you.
>
>Before I write more, can you advise if you think you have the
>time and resources to really help the situation?



I have sat back for 12 years thinking my hands were tied behind my back feeling there was nothing i could do.. now i know there is.  as far as time and resources go, that is my daughter. i will find the time.. as far as resources go i am the only income coming into a family of 5.  money could be a problem.. i have to find a way though!! i cant sit around and let my daughter suffer anymore.. what ever i got to do i got to do plain and simple... i love my daughter.  trust me after 12 years of this i know there is no easy answer.... i am more than willing to hear what you have to say..

[CustodyIQ]

Okay, Marc...

You've got a potentially years-long situation in front of you to try to resolve what's going on.  Or a potential slam-dunk if you know what you're doing, you gather the right kind of evidence, and you get it before a judge in a proper manner.

If you have very little cash to throw at this, your only hope is your personal education about how the family law system works.  To that end, I recommend that you get a book called Win Your Child Custody War, by Hardwick.  You can buy it through Amazon (for convenience, there's a link to it via my website listed below).

Going into this largely ignorant of how family law works will be your biggest obstacle, since it appears you don't have the cash to hire an attorney.  So, you have many late nights ahead of you just reading about how the process works... start with that.

That is your first step because it's imperative that you understand WHAT issues are relevant in this process and HOW to present those issues.

Next, you need to build some admissable evidence based upon all the allegations you outlined.

You can spend relatively little money and get the criminal background of your ex's husband in FL.  That information is of public record.

You can take your daughter to a reputable psychologist to have that person later testify as to concerns about daughter's welfare.

Your major problem at this point is that you haven't really been around in your daughter's life.  As such, you have little credibility to stand in court and say, "After 12 years, daughter should be with me."

I appreciate how you may have felt all this time, but the FACT (not judgment) remains that you really haven't been around your daughter all that much... so a judge may raise eyebrows and think, "Who does this guy think he is all of a sudden???"

So, my greatest advice at this point, rather than shooting from the hip with no long-term strategic plan, is to read some books about how to influence child custody decisions and thereafter develop some good approaches on helping your daughter (i.e., in a way that has best chance of influencing a court).

At that point, also, come back to these discussion boards (and others) to ask long-timers how to best utilize facts XYZ or situation ABC in your overall plan.

Your daughter is 12.  She may be 13 or 14 before you can see results for what you start today.  But if what you say about her mom's living arrangement is true, that would still give her a solid 4 years in your home before graduating high school.

Patience and persistence will be your allies in this.  Unless you can show with clear and convincing evidence that your daughter is in imminent danger, this is going to be a long haul for you.

Best wishes on this.