Has anyone had expierence with a child requesting change of custody?

[cowboy crazy]

My oldest step daughter will be 12 May 14th, in the state of Texas that is the age that they can petition to the courts their choice of custodian.  We know that it is not a done deal at that time, that the court will make the final decision.  My step daughter is VERY adament about living with us and has been for the last 1 1/2 years.  Her mother is aware of her wishes and my husband has tried to talk to her and see if we could do this without going thru a contested, nasty, costly battle but she said NO NO NO and heck NO!  So she will sign the Minors Choice Form in May and our lawyer will file it all.  We live in Indiana the children and the ex live in Texas - and that is where the proceedings will take place.
Does anyone have any experience with all goes on when the child petitions the court for the change?
We have been thru a custody situation before and it was really ugly, the ex has TONS of money (well her daddy does) and they wanted a home study, depositions, GAL, and everything under the sun!  We are hoping that this time will be a little different since it is the child's wishes and she is putting it in writing.  We do have a ton of docmention and taped conversations with the ex and her inability to co parent or even support a working relationship!!  Her last episode was about 3 weeks ago when she had the oldest hystericaly crying because she got mad at her and told her she hated her!!  Meaning mom told the child she hated her!!  It was awful!!

[ivehadit]

From what I've heard about/seen/read - just because a child asks for the change in custody - doesn't make your case any easier.  

There still has to be substantial reasons for the change and it has to be other than the child just isn't getting along with mom very well right now - and that is all it sounds like. Kids & parents argue. She is hitting preteen years, testing her mom, hormones, etc.

Also, you said "children" - so I assume there is more than the one who is asking to live with you. A judge rarely breaks up siblings.

[cowboy crazy]

No it is not just mom and daughter not getting along very well.  I did not want to go into all the details because it would take all day.  The last custody issue we were in with her was with CPS because she was physically abusing the children, the children were removed from her home for 2 months but due to the fact that she has an unlimited supply of money she flat out spent us.  Our lawyer said at that point the best thing for us to do was sign an agreement regarding what she had to follow for the abuse and then wait until the child was 12 and file then.
We have tons of documents proving PAS not to mention the child herself telling things that mom has said to them.  The child's counselor has even said that this child desperatly wants to live with her father and she thinks she should.
We know it will be similiar to what we went through before we were just hoping that we could eliminate some of the costs that we had before.

[Kboeds]

I read your post last night and couldn't bring myself to reply. After reading again tonight I decided I would go ahead and tell you what I know.

I also live in Texas and have heard about the age 12 rule for kids to decide where they want to live. My ex told my daughter her whole life that when she turned 13 she could make the decision to live with him. There has been a lot of PAS on their part for many years, but I had custody.

At age 14 with a little extra attention, parties when she was grounded at home, a new cell phone and the promise from bf and sm of a car and drivers license for her 16th birthday, dd decided she didn't like me anymore and wanted to go live with bf and sm.

I did not fight but if I had, I was told by two different attorneys that it would be a big waste of money. I was told by both attorneys that unless I could prove that BF was unfit to be her parent, the judge would give dd what she wanted.

So I can't tell you that the ex with unlimited cash won't do everything she can think of to fight you and dh, I can tell you that from what I have been told, unless the move is not in the best interest of the child the judge will give her what she wants.

KB

[FLMom]

My experience is with a teenager also. Hope the following helps somehow.

My oldest DD, at the age of 14, said she wanted to come and live with us. I am the NC mom, and my just married at the time husband was and has always been supportive. This meant her two younger siblings would also be living with us the majority of the time.

If the custody case had gone to trial that week, it would have been a done deal. Her father had recently married a woman that didn't want me in the kid's lives and lived according to the words that my ex said about me. He played the martyr to the hilt---ohhh, she left me---ohhh, she abandoned our kids.

Yeah right. I'd been there and then some, he just chose to tell his new wife different. I'd stupidly made him the primary--I did it pro se and didn't know the ramifications. Now here we were, and all of the sudden the new wife decided the kids only needed to see me every two weeks and for about four hours every Wednesday.

Oldest DD was miserable. She'd been yanked out of her school and put into another district, she was put in charge of babysitting constantly, and now had a new step sister that was AHDD to the hilt. She missed us and had been through the wringer when she asked to come live with us.

I invested every penny I had into going for custody. I played by the rules and didn't discuss any court proceedings with her. I did for her and her younger siblings what I had done all along---make sure they were taken care of while their dad enjoyed all of his extra hobbies and time away with his new wife.

Once the papers were filed, however, it got (silly, stupid, crazy???) complicated. Ex took every moment possible to tell her what a lousy mother I was and new wife gleefully joined in. It took a year from filing the papers to finally getting before a judge. In the meantime she had become acclimated to what she had to deal with at her father's house. Add to that, she knew that if she told a judge that she wanted to live with me that her father would never speak to her again---if she said she wanted to live with her father that I would still love her. That, by the way, is a quote.

So she said in court that she wanted to live with BOTH of us.

SOOOOOO, it took a lot of hammering out, but we reached agreements with the judge looking on. The kids are here W-F one week and TH-SUN the next, with every other week during the summer.

I would advise that you spend every available cell of your being trying to come to some kind of agreement with the ex. It will save you LOADS of money in the long run. So what if you don't have it hammered out ahead of time. So you work out a modified schedule and pay outlandish child support for a year. After a year you file a motion to deviate from CS guidelines because you have had her with you for the majority of the time. DOCUMENT all of this!

One thing I've learned from all of this----it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Good luck, and boy do I feel for you. Teenagers play both sides of the fence, and don't think, "MY child would never do that!!!"---cause it could be that your daughter is telling your ex, "I don't know WHY daddy is doing this! Can I have that pony now??!".

FLMom

[cowboy crazy]

I am sorry, I did not mean to bring back any bad memories!  Honestly, we would not be doing this if we thought it would not be best for the girls. OSD is just not happy with mom and she gets a lot of mental/physical abuse because she is known as "daddy's girl" The ex hates me and my husband and will do anything she can to try and turn the girls against us.  Thank goodness so far it has not worked though.  We told OSD back in March that all we want is for her to be happy and relaxed and we do not care where she lives as long as she is safe.  We told her that if she wants to keep things the way they are for now we are ok with that as long as mom is doing what she is suppose to do. She told us NO, I do not want to stay here I want to live with you.  She has told her mom this and her counselor and all of her friends down there!

There is really not an option for us to go into mediation to ask for more time - we are long distance and live 1100 miles away from the kids. We get the maxium amount of time for long distance now and adding more really is not an option as we pay for 100% of the travel costs.  Not to mention that she (the ex) has already told us that she will not give into this and will only let the girls live with us if the Judge rules that way.  We know that with the money that she has available to her and how dirty her lawyer can play that this could very possible be really really ugly - it was during the abuse case!  We just hope that it does not get that way again this time!  Hopefully the Judge will put a stop to the non sense that went on last time!