My situation

[notnew]

That it doesn't matter if you don't want the divorce. It is happening and you cannot stop it now. If you allow her to file first and make YOU the defendant in the action, believe me, you ain't seen how bad you can get screwed yet.

YOU are not responsible for her legal fees. YOU need to file, YOU need to establish how and when you will see your child, YOU need to file to get custody established, YOU YOU YOU because if YOU wait for her to do things the right way or the way YOU think they should be, SHE will get EVERYTHING she asks for and then YOU will be screwed with NO WAY OUT OF IT!

I am sorry to say this but you seem a little hard headed about the situation. None of us can tell you how to fix the problems in your marraige or how to mend your broken relationships, but we CAN tell you what WILL happen if you don't come to your senses and realize that your A** is on the line if you just keep sitting around waiting for a magic fairy to come along and put your life back right.

Blaming your MIL is a lost cause. It doesn't matter WHO influenced your wife, she asked you to leave, you did and that is abandonment. YOUR actions from this point forward will determine the type of settlement you get and if you get to be a parent to your kid or not because believe me, you may be the legal father, but your rights will be taken in a second if she says and does the right things.

Please protect yourself now. Later is too late.

[reagantrooper]

You guys are thowing the "A" word around way to much.

In this day and age of the "no fault" devorce, him moving to a different AO out of MIL home is going to make about as much differece as his X acusing him of smokong pot or him acusing her a F***ing his best friend.


Now if he moved out and disapeared from the childs life for 1,2,3 10 years that would be abandenment. This is not the case acording to this poster.

[Kent]

Moving out IS seen as abandonment, no matter how long ago it happened.

Next to that, you will be hard-pressed to claim the mother is an unfit mother; you voluntarily moved out and left the kids in her care, so she can't be unfit. No parent would voluntarily leave their child with an unfit person.

And her accusing him of smoking pot is definately a serious accusation that needs to be rebutted instantly with a voluntary drug test.

However, him accusing her of smoking pot, or her doing his best friend indeed caries no weight; she IS the mother, after all.

Kent!

[notnew]

However, she can allege he abandoned them and possibly make it stick. When I separated from my ex, she filed stating I had abandoned them, was paying no bills, she had no idea where I was, and had listed the home she was living in as my last known address even though she had my new address, phone number etc. AFTER I went to the court to file for emergency visitation order so I could see my child and discovered she had filed for divorce, I was served at work the very next evening. Isn't that funny?

All states are not no-fault. Mine is a fault state where you are still the Plaintiff and/or Defendant and treated like a criminal matter.

What I am trying to say here very diplomatically and now even more emphatically, that she can file and make all kinds of accusations and since she files first, he has to defend whatever crazy stuff she comes up with. If you don't believe it, you are living on another planet, it happens every day.

He really needs to act NOW to preserve himself financially, and his relationship with his child. It is a critical time right now and if she sets the stage against him, he will be climbing a mountain and he may never reach the top. It doesn't matter if her allegations are true or not, the court gives too much credence to lies and allows them to become the truth no matter what.

JMHO - he can do what he wants, but I fear he will regret not taking actions to protect himself in advance.

[reagantrooper]

No arument here, RE him acting now!

[wysiwyg]

I agree with Kent, My DH's first attorney told him he had to file for divorce and temp custody first and get a kick out order on her becasue of her abuse to him and the child, he refused becasue he felt that was immoral, she did it to him the next day, needless to say it has been an uphill battle for the last 13 years and almost 100K in attorney's fee's to even get to see his child and exercise his court ordered times, because the admitted abuser got custody, and has violated the court order SEVERAL times resulting in 6 comtemts.  Does she learn - nope - do we get to see the child - nope.

Additionally, I worked with a gal that split with her DH, & due to the end of the school year, she agreed to move and leave the kids for the last month of school so as not to change them to another district, guess what?  Hubby filed for abandoment as soon as she left and he got all the  kids.  That WAS considered abandoment.  

Never give up willingly what you have, hang on tight.

[dad2476]

Thank you all for your advice and input. I do appreciate it. I may seem a little hard headed when I ask the questions I ask. I understand that the way a person says something, can determine how it is received from others. Please understand that when I ask questions like these, I am merely wanting to understand the issues at hand. I do have an appointment today with a Divorce Lawyer. Supposedly the best in town. I am banking on that fact. One question though, my ex MIL is the para-legal for my Ex wife's lawyer. Isn't that a conflict of interest? He was our lawyer when we filed for bankruptcy. I will find out later today from my lawyer most likely. Just wondering. I do understand that waiting for a fairy to come and fix my life is not going to happen. I know that we have started a ball rolling that will not change it's course. I just have a real hard time with the fact that some of you are saying that I abandoned my family. I could understand it if I had split and never stayed in contact with her. But, I do have contact with her. I see my Daughter on Wednesday nights after I get out of school, then when I get off of work on Saturdays, I go and pick up my Daughter and keep her until Monday morning when I take her to daycare. I have not just up and left my family. I was told, by my ex, that she was filing for divorce, would wait to file to give me some time to get on my feet and get a roomate. I think she expected me to stay there as long as I could and drag my feet in an attempt to keep our marriage alive. Beleive me, that was my first thought! After a couple of days of thinking real hard on it, I made the decision to go ahead and get an apartment because my boss' grandma would let me move in right then without paying her the rent and deposit upfront. I could stay and be resented by my ex and her mom for delaying, or I could start to take care of myself and look out for my best interest and not wait until she decided to kick me out with nothing, when the apartment would already be rented out. As I stated earlier in this message, we filed bankruptcy, so I don't have credit or the ability to get it at this time. I don't think that she is really going to try and completely keep my Daughter from me because of the damage it will do to my Daughter, I do however believ that she will do everything in her power to make sure that she has all of the control in this situation. And that is what scares me the most. I have seen what she does when I give her power. In the past it was, You willl do this or that or you have lost your family. Then when I did exactly what she wanted, she came up with more demands. Then when I would comply to those demands, she came up with more! She is one of those women are oppressed people that have to control people to make themselves feel good about themselves or that they are worth more than others because they have a position of power and control. That is scary! Sorry for the novel, but I just needed to get this out there. Thanks

[wysiwyg]

You can believe that you did not abandon your family and I do not think anyone is accusing you of that, however it is what the court WILL PERCEIVE.  You voluntarily left, therefore this is what they see.  

The courts can do what they want and how they want, example, DH is NOT college educated, had good jobs and was laid off due to the amount of time he had to take off to go to court, he has not ever been able to get that kind of job back, Ex's attorney presented verbal argument in closing to the court that DH was college educated due to his high paying jobs, and we were never given the oppurtunity to refute that.  OUtcome = we now pay cs based upon a 75K a year job, when DH is a custodian for a school.  That is called imputed income.  

Second example, court took 3.5 years to rule on a cs obligation, when DH was laid off from work, court assigned us an arrearage payback, we paid failthfully in cash every week for 5 years.  Prosecutor came along froze all assets and accounts, and took 9500 from us leaving us destitute, told them we had not broken any court order they said "we dont care we can take it becasue we can", told them we had another child at home and that would leave her without a home, they said their responsibility is to the child of the first marriage and not the subsequent family and that if we wanted to reatin our custody of her and they would not come and take her we would find a way to keep a roof over our heads.  

So my point is that by leaving the court will perceive you as abandoning your family, when you felt the best outcome was to do as you did, unfortunately it will come back to bite you and the court can and perhaps will make some unfair and weird rulings.  Be prepared, you have a very long uphill and sometimes impossible road to travel.

[gipsy]

Here's my take , I have been through with it all long since . Certain people on this site give very wrong and innapropriate information :
    I' And they are not good atty's , And don't know the legal term for abandonment , As I remmeber it , It is willfully leaving not paying support or seeing the child for six weeks , Now If you go file for a temporay parenting plan , And attempt to see the child , Bring a witness  . If " She refuses Visits and you have a witness and she say's you abandoned , Then you have proof  that she Is lying to the court .
   Moving out does not constitiute abandonment , And the court has seen it all , My case I never saw my son for 1 year due to her Bull ,  And She tried to say Abonment " But My atty just said Mr XXX Is here now to get a parenting plan ,
   The basics In wash state are if this gets really messy you appoint a Guardian Ad Litem , And this is supposed to be a person that represents the child , And will report to the court in a doc . Called the report of the Guardian ,
    In short Mine looked like this
    Mrs XXX [Mom Say's Dads the BAD GUY " And  I GAL Have Not been given any police report etc , Witness , Or proff that dad is a bad guy ,
   And Mom cliams dad is Bad In Many way's ,
       Dad : Has a job and a house and a room with a Bed and toy's waiting for the minor child ,
   Conclusion and recomendation of the Guardian Ad Litem ::: Dad should see the child EWvery other weekend and thursday after school, . Every other holiday etc ,
    Now here's the fact , They make up these accusations , And most likely they aren't true and the court know's this and the court [Judge ] Doesn't go investigate , So they appoint A GAL And the GAl does the Investigation and report ,
  I think your report mayt look like :  
   GAL Reort to the court of Where ever :
   Dad moved out >
   Mom Claims abandonement , But dad say's they weren't getting along ,
   So I see that dad goes to college , And has a part time job , And a place to live ,
   Conclusion : Dad will see the child >
    Now the abandonemnt  won't stick at all , But
  My atty explained to me .
   " You left and Mom has the child " Now the judge will have to have a good reason to change this arrangement " And won't be likely to Because why would he change what you have already done ,
   SO  You really need to post on Socratreaser's board and not really just ask us , We are all just people that have been through it and should not even give you advice , But I support you in moving this forward in the form of a parenting plan ,
   AND You have to be Legally served by a person the LEAGALY serves Court papers and files a notice of service too the court , SO Post to Socrateaser
    So Try posting on Socrateasers board , He gives very straight forward info ,
   

[dad2476]

Thank you for your feedback. How do I post on Socrateasers board? When I dropped off my daughter yesterday, her mom asked me if I had signed the temporary orders she had given me. I told her that I had not and that I would not sign over complete custody and control of my daughter to her. She immediately got upset and defensive and said that they were only temporary. I said that even if they are "Temporary" which, nothing is really temporary, I would not even start to do that. I asked her if I was to want comlete control and custody, would she sign the papers? Obviously she said no so, I told her that it's not fair for her to ask me to do that when she would never do that. She got so upset that she said if I want to talk about this any further that I would need a lawyer. I asked her why she is being like this? I told her that if she would just cool out a little bit, we could make this work without running to the courts snitching on eachother and having a war with my Daughter in the middle. She finally calmed down and said that she wants me to have my girl every-other weekend instead of every weekend and that I could still have her on Wednesdays. I said that I would be okay with that. I said, "See, if we both just stop trying to screw eachother and work together in the interest of my daughter, everybody will get what they deserve and everyone will be happy. Most importantly, my Daughter will be happy because her parents aren't at eachother's throats all of the time.