What is the name of your state? PA
I have two boys, age 4 and 2. Their mother and I lived together for about 5 years. She has an older son (6 years old) from a previous relationship. She has primary physical custody of him. About a year ago she began a double life of "extra curricular activities", about 7 months ago I discovered these "activities" and after a month or so of denial by her and uncovering by me she moved out of our house. We were never married and the two boys have spent a majority of the time with me since she left.
I have spent the last several months trying to reach some sort of agreement and avoid the court system. My patience has run out and I have filed a custody complaint, there will be a mediation conference the first part of next month, the exact date has not been set.
At the start of our relationship her oldest son spent a majority of his time with us, but over the course of several years he began to spend more and more time with his father. The oldest son also started having more and more tantrums when he would visit. Personally I think it was caused by being shuttled between the two households and his mother seemingly giving up on her son. I did what I could, but I had no say in the oldest son's schuedule and had two other children to raise. For almost a year now the oldest son has been with his father almost exclusively and seems happy and well adjusted.
By the way,just some insight into the mother's current status. After leavng our house she pursued a number of online relationships and met somebody in Kentucky and got married 2 weeks ago. He's in the military and ships out to Iraq next month, my bet is that if she isn't pregnet by him yet she'll be trying to be before he ships out.
My question is how much weight, if any, would her current relationship with her oldest child have on our future legal actions? I'm not trying to monopolize my time with our children it's just that I've been a first hand witness to the wreckage of her relationship with her oldest son and would like to try to minimize that as much as possible with the younger two boys. As an unwed father I feel that I'm at the bottom rung of the legal totem pole and that I face an unnatural bias in the court system. I just want to do the best I can for those two boys in what has been at times a nightmarish situation. Sorry about the long post, alot has happened in a very short time.
I have two boys, age 4 and 2. Their mother and I lived together for about 5 years. She has an older son (6 years old) from a previous relationship. She has primary physical custody of him. About a year ago she began a double life of "extra curricular activities", about 7 months ago I discovered these "activities" and after a month or so of denial by her and uncovering by me she moved out of our house. We were never married and the two boys have spent a majority of the time with me since she left.
I have spent the last several months trying to reach some sort of agreement and avoid the court system. My patience has run out and I have filed a custody complaint, there will be a mediation conference the first part of next month, the exact date has not been set.
At the start of our relationship her oldest son spent a majority of his time with us, but over the course of several years he began to spend more and more time with his father. The oldest son also started having more and more tantrums when he would visit. Personally I think it was caused by being shuttled between the two households and his mother seemingly giving up on her son. I did what I could, but I had no say in the oldest son's schuedule and had two other children to raise. For almost a year now the oldest son has been with his father almost exclusively and seems happy and well adjusted.
By the way,just some insight into the mother's current status. After leavng our house she pursued a number of online relationships and met somebody in Kentucky and got married 2 weeks ago. He's in the military and ships out to Iraq next month, my bet is that if she isn't pregnet by him yet she'll be trying to be before he ships out.
My question is how much weight, if any, would her current relationship with her oldest child have on our future legal actions? I'm not trying to monopolize my time with our children it's just that I've been a first hand witness to the wreckage of her relationship with her oldest son and would like to try to minimize that as much as possible with the younger two boys. As an unwed father I feel that I'm at the bottom rung of the legal totem pole and that I face an unnatural bias in the court system. I just want to do the best I can for those two boys in what has been at times a nightmarish situation. Sorry about the long post, alot has happened in a very short time.