bicoastal parents without a custody agreementt

[lcg524]

Hi!

My boyfriend is seperated from his wife and they have a 2 year old daughter. They are in the process of starting a divorce but in the meantime he is having quite a bit of trouble seeing his daughter. Here is the story:

They were married in Hawaii where they were both stationed. When they had serious problems, he moved back home to the east coast for several reasons. When she got out, she moved home to the west coast. They have now been seperated for a year. Mom had daughter from Jan (when he left) until June when she came here. Dad had daughter through August when she went back with mom who had since moved to the west coast. Mom is now saying dad can have daughter for a total of about 2 months in the next year. Dad is trying to start divorce proceedings but his lawyer has been in the hospital for over a month and things have stalled.  That is, of course, the extremely short version.

Two questions:

1. What can Dad do to see his daughter so Mom does not get all the say?

2. What does dad need to do to insure he is not just a vacation dad now that they live on opposite coasts?

[Sherry1]

nm

[CustodyIQ]

Absent any court orders, married parents have equal rights to have access to the child.  

So, dad is within his rights to go grab daughter and bring her to his place.  Obviously, that's only a short-term solution and probably would hurt him in the long run.

He'll have to file for custody rights, likely in the county where the child has been residing for 10 of 12 months in 2005.  

If his attorney is laid up in the hospital, he really needs a new attorney.

Given what you've outlined, he has very little chance of getting primary custody (since he hasn't done most of the parenting in the past year), and no court is going to force a child to fly across the country on a monthly basis.

In answer to the question about "what does dad need to do to ensure he is not just a vacation dad"... he should move to the city where the mother resides and go for joint custody.

If he doesn't do that, his priorities are clearly to live on the east coast and continue to date you.  That is his choice, and if it's right for him, so be it.  But the consequence, of course, is that he WILL be the vacation dad!

If you really love the guy and envision a future with him, how about saying, "Let's move to be close to your daughter, so you can be an involved father."