First-timer needs some guidance here...

[macbaby]

Hello all, I am currently separated (married 11 years) My wife left a little over a year ago and moved across town. I had to file a restraning order to get her to finally move. We went through conciliation court and agreed on a joint custody/visitation splitting the week in half switching on Sundays and Wednesdays. She is mentally unstable and is going through a great deal of depression and emotional instability i.e. extremely angry, emotional outbursts over relatively minute circumstances, etc. During our marriage she has undergone some counseling and about 3 or 4 years into our marriage she attempted suicide.

Right now she has expressed on several different occasions her desire to just leave me with the kids and move/go away. I have no problem with this as I want my children with me safe and sound. Over the past year the custody situation has become lop-sided with me taking on the children virtually full time as she always puts work or other before them. So I pick them up and drop them off for school and keep them part of the evenings or many times over night on the days that she is supposed to have them. Underneath all of the BS she can be a good woman and mother but she will not admit to her condition and get properly treated, she has been violent towards me in the past and has expressed a violent temper in the presence of our children.

I fear that over time it will get worse with her making irrational choices that can and will have detrimental affects on our kids. What can/should I do? I admit, I am ignorant of the family legal system and fear that I will come out of this with the short end of th stick no matter what.

Any info is much appreciated.

[CustodyIQ]

Hi,

As long as your documenting all the time you're spending with the kids, and as long as you're building plenty of witnesses along the way (e.g., teachers, doctors) that you're always the parent that picks-up and drops-off, you're pretty safe... if ever needed, you can prove that you've been the parent 90% of the time for quite a while.

You'll have to wait for something significant to happen before trying to go back to court to change to sole custody.

So... your speculation about her future bad choices isn't enough.  She needs to do something bad enough that a reasonable person would be concerned about keeping the current custodial schedule (i.e., on paper).

Until that happens, you're being the responsible parent, and you're raising the kids well.   Why throw a rock at a hornet's nest and change that if you don't have to?

:)