change of custody

threesmom said:

What is the name of your state? Texas

My husband had custody of his daughter for the first 12 years of her life because his ex-wife has a drug problem. When she turned 12, the judge ignored the past drug problems and awarded custody to her mother based on the fact that the child "had a strong desire to know her mother". Now, three years later and lots of headaches trying to have contact with her, we have found out that her mother has been in and out of rehab and abandoned her, leaving her with her step-father. The step father called during her last summer visit to tell us about the drug relapses and to keep her because her mother was missing again. She has been home for almost ten months now. The original custody order was in Virginia where we lived at the time. We just spent a couple of thousand traveling and filing for custody just to find out that Virginia no longer has jurisdiction since we live in Texas and she lived in Florida. Child support comes directly out of my husband's paycheck and we have been told we can not stop it without a change of custody. Is there no way to at least hold the payments until we get it straightened out? Right now we are sending money to a crack addict.

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Phnx02 said:

Unfortunately no. You cannot legally withhold cs payments without being in contempt, until a modification has been filed and approved. Are you sure jurisdiction has been changed? Generally, unless the ex had the case transferred to her new state of residence, VA still has jurisdiction since this is where the original order was established. Double check this. Both me and my ex have since moved to different states from where the original order was established, but since I (the CP) didn't transfer the case to my new state of residence (which is perfectly legal), the state where the order was established still has jurisdiction.

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