Proserpina
Senior Member
No, my attorney is not telling me what I want to hear. He is very experienced and realistic. Everything he has said has been correct so far. Will I get custody of my son? No one knows, but there is a good chance I will. When I was going to court this year to get visitation restored, he told me I had a 70% of winning. Fortunately, my parents settled.
I started off with a bad attorney which is why the process has taken so long. Filed for custody initially in April 2012 whith a courdate in June, that got moved to October. In rural Arkansas the judge travels to several court houses and it can take a long time to get a cour date. There is no separate family court. After I fired the attorney, and represented myself in court that September (in hindsight I should not have done this, I think even that lawyer would have been better than no lawyer), my visitation rights were restricted to supervised visits, with the exception that I could take him to any public place within the city limits by myself. In Janaury 2013, I hired my new lawyer, who said I needed to wait at least a year under supervised visitation without any issues before I file for unsupervised. So around September 2013, we filed to go to court for the visitation issue, and I was issued a court date in May 2014 so that a full day could be devoted to the trial. My parents settled right before the court date. I was of course pleased with this outcome, but for them to fight me for so long and then suddenly give me what I wanted, $10,000 later, was frustrating. There are a lot better things that money could have been spent on. That's neither here nor there. My attorney says I need about 9-12 months of unsupervised visitation before I go for custody. That's where I am now. When I began this process, my child had not been with my parents nearly as long. It's unforunate that it has taken this long, but getting my unsupervised visitation back so that I could develop a better, more normal relationship with my son was worth the hard fight and every penny I spent. If I never get custody, I can live with the current arrangement. I firmly believe that it is in the best interest of my son to be raised by me and my wife. I'm sorry, but his grandaprents shouldn't be raising him when there is a capable parent in the picture. They need to be grandparents, end of story. And it may surprise you that many people in my extended family, my friends, and my coworkers agree with me. So if you don't agree, I don't care. I know what I would like to say to you, but I will remain civil and avoid the use of profanity Thank you all for your input and your candid opinions.
Goodness gracious. All of that twaddle without actually saying something coherent? That's impressive!
And yet, you're STILL not understanding the simple, fundamental point.