advise for my brother

[emoran76]

Hello, I am new to this forum.  I am hoping it will give a ray of hope to my younger brother.  He and his wife live in Tampa with their 1.5 year old son.  They are both stationed at Mcdill Air Force Base.  My brother was in Pensacola for two weeks for flight training.  When he returned home, his wife immediately told him that she didnt love him anymore.  She loved him like a brother, but didnt want to stay married to him.  There has been no abuse of any kind, and from what my brother is telling me, this came out of nowhere.  He is extremely heartbroken and shocked.  They have gone to counseling where she told the therapist that they didnt need to be there because she just simply didnt want to stay married.  She has stated that she will never find a man as good to her as my brother has been.  She is 21 years old, my brother is 27.  Since there child was born, he has done 90 percent of the caretaking except for when he was deployed.  he works full time, goes to school, and comes home to cook dinner, clean, and bathe the baby, put him to sleep, etc.  while the wife takes her afternoon nap after work on a daily basis.  Basically, she is spoiled rotten, and is under the illusion that she can have more fun single.  (she had a boob job three weeks ago.)  she told my brother all of this last week.  I am on this forum to ask if anyone has any idea how he might obtain custody of their son in the event that this ends in divorce, which i am sure it will.  he is clearly the better parent, but he is deployed often for about 4 months at a time.  there is a way for him to leave the air force even though he just signed up for four more years because his wife pressured him to.  Although he never would have if he knew this was going to happen.  what are his chances of gaining custody ?

[dontunderstand]

If he is both mom and dad right now and she is 21 and wants to be single, do you really think that she is going to want to be a single mom~24-7? Being a mom is hard enough, let alone a single mom!  I am not sure what the laws are in FL. Would she fight him for custody?

[CustodyIQ]

Hi,

All of the following should happen in a stealth operation (i.e., do NOT inform the mother).

While your brother may have some heartache going on right now, he's in an excellent position to set the stage to be a very involved parent after the separation.

He needs to start documenting all of the parenting time that each parent does.  He can keep a personal journal and briefly write in it each night, summarizing the time each parent spent with the child that day.

Also, he should consult with a family law attorney.  He should interview more than one, unless he gets a very good recommendation on a family law attorney from someone he trusts.

If getting custody of the child is the most important thing in his life, he should be looking to leave the military, or else get reassigned to a position that would never require deployment.  It is impossible to be a primary parent if one is gone for 4 months at a time.

Finally, I'd strongly recommend that he get the book "Win Your Child Custody War" by Hardwick.  It's a 600 page must-have for anyone entering what your brother is about to.

[emoran76]

thank you guys for responding.  I am wondering myself if she will even fight for custody.  She told him he didnt have to fight for custody because she planned on the child spending a lot of time with him.  We are all trying to figure out what that means.  As far as the air force, he is going to attempt to get out, but his job is one that is highly specialized and not many people are available to replace him.  That is the only problem I see him having with it.  Great advise, I will definitely pass it on.  Thanks!!

[dontunderstand]

Many people in the military are single parents, it can be done with a good support system!  It is hard and yes time is spent seperated at times, but you CAN have a military career as a single parent!

[stressedstepmom]

No matter what the reason, your brother signed up for 4 more years in the Air Force. You can't just get released because you are getting a divorce and need to raise your child. Or because you say that your wife made you do it.

 He needs to go to Family Support on his base and talk to one of the counselors there, see what they can do to possibly help him and what support groups they may have that he can join. He needs to go talk to his First Shirt and explain the situation and see if he can help at all by maybe restricting his travel while he is going through this.

There are a lot of single parents in the military. I know a lot myself. They survive just fine even if they have to go TDY.  He needs a good support system like someone else said.

I don't think he will like the results if he starts acting like he deserves to be let out of his reenlistment.