Mother asks for Custody & $ after 4 years away .... Give to her or NOT? You tell me..

[GY Leong]

1st of all, thanks for writing and giving your valuable comment.
No, we did not sign any legal paper on me having custody.
No visitation order at this time.  
She has/had not been active in my daughter's life and affair.
The characters you mentioned were almost of my wife.  She was even jealous of her own daughter in fact, to tell the truth.

And your 8 points were certainly helpful for me and hopefully my lawyer will use them if he has not thought all of them.

I am so glad that you wrote to support me and especially my daughter. Thanks so much.  Are you in the legal profession? Or any other advise you can share with me, that what should I do from now  to strenghten my case as it drags?? GY Leong

[YahYah]

I'm a stepmom of a wonderful 12 year old boy, and ... he, his father and I have all been through some tremendous ordeals over the past.  Having the experiences I've had, and through the help of many people - a lot on SPARC - have helped put things into perspective for me.


First off, you need to file for temporary custody ASAP.  Get that done NOW, because your ex could come and take your daughter for visitation and not return her to you, and then SHE can file custody of her and it would all be more than legal.

Do NOT allow visitation again until you have a custody order, especially not after she has let you know she's filing for custody.

Next, it's important that you know that her lack of involvement in your child's life is a SIGNIFICANT reason she should NOT be given custody, and in fact, her visitation should be closely guarded and eased into VERY slowly. If it's been a long enough time between visits (meaningful visits) and the child's relationship with her mother is significantly strained or estranged, you can ask the court to order "reunification" counseling between mother/child.  This process should take a while, if the mother has been out of the child's life for 5 years.  We're talking a very slow easing process, closely guarded by a counselor at the start, for the first couple of months, and then moving into a gradual lessening of "supervision" until she finally gets overnights.  A QUICK process would end at about the 6 month mark.  So I'd expect this to last quite a while, for the sake of your daughter.



As for the "jealous of her own daughter" thing... been there in about a hundred different ways.