How do I get joint custody if I never married the ex?

[lmdavi0]

Ever since my ex and I broke up eight years ago, regular visitations have been anything but regular. We have never gone through the courts but I do pay child support. My ex is a horrible person: she allows her personal vendetta to overrule anything to do with what is important here: our daughter; she has had them taken away because of drug charges and I wasn't even notified!; she calls and harrasses me and my new wife whenever she needs a "thrill". She agreed to give me joint custody if I showed her I was a "consistent father," which is BS because the only times I'm not in my daughter's life is when I can't deal with her mother. She won't put my daughter on the phone, claiming she is busy playing outside. So instead she tells me what a horrible father I am and that I don't love my daughter. What is wrong with this woman and how can I get my rights? I have called the family courts here in KY and I have some idea: filling out a petition and hiring a lawyer...
Can I get a restraining order against her so she can't call and harrass us whenever she wants? She's even threatened my wife.
Can I have protective services inspect her house?
And finally, if I am paying child support but have a past balance, can she have me arrested?
I would appreciate any help in resolving this! I just want to see my baby.

[4honor]

'What is wrong with this woman and how can I get my rights?'

You already know. She is vindictive and will never willingly give you what you really want -- to have a peaceful relationship with your child.

The only way to get tyour rights is to have them established in court, cause if she was going to play nice, she would have done so by now.

'Can I get a restraining order against her so she can't call and harrass us whenever she wants?'

In some jurisdictions it is called an anti-harrassment order or a restraining order and it would be best if your current wife filed for it -- although it will make getting ANY information about your child impossible, cause then the ex can't call you about the child and reversely, you cannot call her from your home phone. (that is OK with me. DH has a cell phone that BM calls -- and it is SS who has a no-contact order with my other sons -- so it can be done.)

On what grounds would you send protective services to investigate? if you haven't got something good, you are just pi$$ing people off. That is not the agency to mess with.

'if I am paying child support but have a past balance, can she have me arrested?'

Depends on the amount of the balance and on the laws in your state. If you are sufficiently behind on your child support order, it could be a felony -- in which case you could be arrested and jailed, but then you could lose your job and the possibility of the ex getting ANYTHING is pretty small -- don't you think? IF you have an arrangement with child support enforcement, then MOST LIKELY (and this can be a crap shoot) they will let you continue to make your payments according to the arrangements so long as you are making progress on paying down the arrears.  IF you don't meet the felony threshhold ($5000 to $10,000 in  most states) then there is likely to be no jail time. They can do tax intercepts, wage withholding and etc.

If your order is unreasonable based on your circumstances, then you need a new order.

If you have no child support order at all (nothing signed by a judge or commissioner) then you have no support obligation LEGALLY and you can start from scratch. Do CS and visitation at the same time.

Read all you can on this site. It will help you prepare for what you are facing. Do what you can to pay off the arrearages (if they are court ordered, cause they are at 18% in most cases, or 1.5% per month.. that's alot of dough overall.

[topnotchdad]

We're in KY, too, and in similar situation where parents were never married.

According to our lawyer, if paternity was established voluntarily (i.e. you signed the birth cert. and/or you had DNA test privately not by court order) then "custody" is assumed 50/50 unless otherwise determined by a court order.  Therefore, she "should" be giving you 50/50.  Likewise, you don't owe her squat in CS unless there was a CS order signed by a judge.  Ours used to threaten us with "making us pay arrears" until we learned that there were no arrears b/c there was never an order to begin with!

However, in KY they don't care if you have the child 50% of the time, if you make more money than the other parent, you may still have to pay some CS.  I think it's up to the judge's decretion.

You could go to mediation and try to work things out, and put in the mediation agreement that she won't call your house for any reason other than to speak to your child; that you will call child at x:00 every day and she needs to be there for your call (or that child will call YOU every day, etc).  You can set up an e-mail acct and say that any messages, scheduling conflicts, etc must be e-mailed to you, not discussed on the phone.  Get caller ID, and give the phone to your child when you see it's BM, don't even talk to her.

If you really truly believe that the child is in danger when at mom's then you can call CPS.  I don't think they take too well to false accusations.  A custody evaluator makes housecalls, I think, but they are expensive and we've been told we should try to avoid evaluation if we can get custody otherwise, b/c it's gonna cost a lot more.

If I were you, I'd argue something like:  children need consistency, and I just want a consistent, set visitation schedule so that DD knows when she will be with me vs. when she'll be with BM, and we don't have to argue about whose day it is.  I recognize that a relationship with BM is important, and I'm not trying to cut her out, but I can provide a safer, healthier, more consistent environment.  Then list reasons why that's true.

I've heard that the best judge for fathers is in Woodford Co (judge is a divorced father) so if you're near there,  you stand a much better chance.

Good luck!

Good luck.  

[stk_agn]

I also live in KY and have 50/50 custody of my son. I do not pay child support to ex and he does not pay to me.

Before I got the 50/50 custody, I was paying child support on my son (his father never got it, his wife took it and hid it from him). In the county I live in they say that $1000 or more in arrears is a felony. My ex tried to have me put in jail for being $1200 behind..

>>However, in KY they don't care if you have the child 50% of the time, if you make more money than the other parent, you may still have to pay some CS. I think it's up to the judge's decretion.<<

We don't pay child support to each other because we made it part of our agreed order. And the reason we did that is because my ex knew that if he asked for child support we would turn down the agreement and fight for full custody and he knew he would lose (evidence against him was HUGE and he could not win.)

Anyhow, you can go to the local courthouse and request to view your file (It's public record as long as you have your case number) and you can get copies of anything from your file (small fee will probably apply). I would check the file to make sure that you have copies of everything the court has and the next time your ex says that there is an "order stating. . ." You can say, " The courthouse doesn't have record of that. I checked so,,,,"

Good Luck

[lmdavi0]

Thanks so much for your help.
This is a wonderful site.

[lmdavi0]

Thanks for the advice. Can I ask what kind of "evidence" you collected on him? I would LOVE to have 50/50 custody and not pay child support (although I do make more than she does). So I just go to the courthouse in the county the child support is filed and fill out a motion to go to court? I have been keeping a log, since reading this site, but only have a few entries. Should I keep doing this then file later? I don't know what the judge will look for...

[topnotchdad]

In KY, you can legally tape phone conversations, as long as one party knows they're being taped.  SO, if ex is calling and harassing you, making threats, promising you stuff and taking it back, all you need to do is start taping her calls to you.  There is info on this site about how to tape/transcribe a call.  Don't tape her conversations with your child, though!  Make sure you stay calm when you're taping her; don't lose your temper, just let her dig her own grave.  We just put the tape recorder up to the earpiece and turn the phone volume up high, because ours is suspicious when we put her on speaker phone.  Also, you need to get evidence that she was arrested for drugs, etc. (and make sure YOU can pass a drug test if you are going to use "drug use" as an argument).   Do you take child to Dr/dentist/etc?  Get child's medical records---they will probably say "Child is here today with father" in the log for each time you took her.  Also receipts for when you took her.

I wouldn't file until you have a whole lot of evidence that you are the better parent.  Why risk it, when you can wait a few months and know for sure you will win.  Your daughter is worth it.  

[stk_agn]

The evidence that I had against my ex range from having 2 and 1/2 years (or more) of documentation proving I financially supported my son and he didn't, I had proof he physically abused my son, proof that he was leaving my son home alone (son was 9 at the time). Son was also locked out of the house in 20 degree weather when ex went to work. (I happened to show up 2 hours early to pick son up and he was standing outside in the cold.)

I also had 50/50 custody of my son WITHOUT a court order (my ex decided that my son was a burden to him and he just gave me 50-50) I was also babysitting son while ex was at work. I put 7000+ miles on my car driving son to and from school. I was the one that signed son up for baseball and went to all games. I was the one that went to parent/teacher conferences at son's school. I fed son every day where ex would send him to school with no money for lunch or breakfast. I had records from school proving that ex didn't pay for son's lunches at school for 5 months.

I also had son's journal where he stated that he was scared of his father, he also stated that his father "treated him like a slave" and "calls me (son) vulgar names."


It doesn't matter that you make more than she does because my ex has a job,,, I don't and I still had to pay child support to him when he had full custody. If child support is set and one parent does not work, their part of the income will be calculated on minimum wage. (that's what they did in my case because I wasn't working when they set it and they said they had to have something to put in the system.)

The only thing my ex is concerned about is having to pay me child support. We have a lot going on in court right now but before all of the current issues came up my ex just "gave" my son to me but refused to have court order changed because he didn't want to pay child support because he is already paying $1000 to his second ex for their kid.

As far as recording phone calls, it is legal in KY to record phone calls as long as one person (the one recording them) knows about it. You cannot, however, record a phone conversation that you are not a party of. You can buy a device that hooks up to your phone and will automatically start recording when the phone receiver is picked up. You can find these devices at Radio Shack for a few dollars. The conversations are clearer this way than it is to hold a tape recorder to the phone.

You don't want to go to court without any kind of evidence. You have to be able to prove all the allegations you make against your ex. The court will not want ot hear about anything that you cannot prove.

In my opinion I don't think that you should have no contact with your child just because you don't feel like dealing with your ex. That is just punishing your child for something that she didn't do. Go pick up your daughter and if your ex starts in on you let it go in one ear and out the other. That will show your ex that she doesn't control you and/or your actions when it comes to your child.

Just because you are not with you ex anymore doesn't mean that you have to stay away from your child BECAUSE OF your ex.