can we get custody?

[DRAGONSFIRE]

What is the name of your state?PA
My husband is planning to go for custody of his 2 children. The daughter was illegally given custody to my husbands exs, ex-boyfriend, and they refuse to let us see her. for the past 7 yrs we only seen her about 5 times. They refuse to return phone calls, and when we would show up to get her, her "dad" would try to talk her out of going with us. His son-to another woman-is the same situation, to an extent. We use to be able to see him a good bit, up until I had a son (the ex is totally obsessed with my husband and figures if she cant have him, no one can). So for the last 5 yrs, we only seen him about 3 times. She avoids us, wont return calls, wont answer door when we show up to get him, or takes off out of town, and told the people at Domestic relations that she doesnt want him to have contact with his son, but she wants the support money, which she goes EVERY YEAR for an increase-claiming cost of living keeps rising- (part of her spite against my husband for not wanting her). Even though she gets her sons SSI, her income, her husbands income and support payments. He wants a paternity test done, because he has reason to believe the boy is not his, but Domestics wont let him have one. What can he do to speed along the custody? Does he have a chance to get custody under these circumstances? Both kids are 10 yrs old (hubby was a busy boy back then), plus we have 2 kids of our own.

 

[stealth2]

Okay, it's a little confusing - he has two kids with two different women and doesn't get to see either of them? Does he have visitation orders?

 

[DRAGONSFIRE]

No, no visitaion was ever set up by the courts. He would just call and try to get the kids every chance he could. For a while, we could never afoord an attorny to help us or the fees involved to fight for custody. But now he has a great paying job and we want to get these kids. They have a right to know us.
Yes, 2 kids to 2 diferent women. Plus 2 to me. The woman he has the girl to, abandoned their daughter to run off with someone she met on the internet, and moved to california (shes back now) and thats when they gave the custody to her ex-boyfriend. They lied and said we never wanted to see her, and they did not know where we lived. We did get to see his daughter 2 times since then, but now they wont answer their phones or nothin.
There is no custody setteled with his son. They never went to court or nothin about it.

 

[Zephyr]

I would have to say that MOST of the responsibility for the frustration of your current situation lays solely at your husband's feet, it would have costed next to nothing, you wouldn't have needed an attorney to get basic visitation rights to these kids....why did he sit on his butt for so long? you will have to start proceedings to get visitation with the kidss asap, I wouldn't hold my breath for custody though as he does not really have a relationship with either of the kids.

 

[stealth2]

No, no visitaion was ever set up by the courts. He would just call and try to get the kids every chance he could. For a while, we could never afoord an attorny to help us or the fees involved to fight for custody. But now he has a great paying job and we want to get these kids. They have a right to know us.
Yes, 2 kids to 2 diferent women. Plus 2 to me. The woman he has the girl to, abandoned their daughter to run off with someone she met on the internet, and moved to california (shes back now) and thats when they gave the custody to her ex-boyfriend. They lied and said we never wanted to see her, and they did not know where we lived. We did get to see his daughter 2 times since then, but now they wont answer their phones or nothin.
There is no custody setteled with his son. They never went to court or nothin about it.

So why do you think Dad has a good chance at custody? He's never bothered to set up visitation. Neither of these mothers had any legal obligation to provide visitation outside of a court order. That's on Dad for not doing anything about it.

 

[DRAGONSFIRE]

So why do you think Dad has a good chance at custody? He's never bothered to set up visitation. Neither of these mothers had any legal obligation to provide visitation outside of a court order. That's on Dad for not doing anything about it.

I never said he had a good chance, I came here to see if anyone thought he might since it is his ex's that wont let him see the kids. He has tried everything, short of going to court. He is the type of person that he believed these 2 when they said he could see the kids, but when he would show up, they would just not answer the door, or take off before he got there. And the fees for going to court are not that cheap, expecially when we had nothin to work with, at the time, we could barely afford to pay the support obligations as well as the bills at home. We lived pay check to pay check. (You would have to know every detail to totally understand.) Plus he has to go to a class before getting any visitation or anything else, and with him driving truck, he could never afford to miss any time driving to go to them, until now. And the fact that his one ex ABANDONED their daughter and the Pennsylvania Child Custody Laws In Pennsylvania state: Joint (shared) or sole child custody may be awarded based on the best interests of the child, and upon a consideration of the following factors: which parent is more likely to encourage, permit, and allow frequent and continuing contact, including physical access between the other parent and the child, and neither of his exs or his exs, ex-boyfriend do this.

 

[Zephyr]

The thing is, it probably would have costed less than $200 to get visitation through the courts... this is not something one really needs an attorney for, by doing nothin he is now in the awkward position of having to explain why he has done nothing to make sure he was a part of his childrens lives, money was tight- is not going to cut it. But he will probably get visitation, custody almost certainly not.

 

[DRAGONSFIRE]

We tried again yesterday to set up a weekend visit with my husbands son. His ex changed her phone number so we can no longer call, so my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and me went to their house, and his ex looked out the window, but would not answer the door. And I was told that she (ex) has told people that I am 'verbily abusive" to the boy!! At a support hearing the ex said she wants my husband to sign off his rights because she doesnt want him to see the kid, but my husband refused to. Where is this right? How is this in the best interest of the child? Why do people like to blame my husband for "not getting off his butt and doing anything"? For 5 yrs we had a relationship with this kid, (when it was convienient for the mother to have a babysitter) up until I had my boy 5 yrs ago. If he saw us at the store he'd yell and run to us, now the kid is not aloud around us! Same with his daughter, after 3 yrs of seeing her, the ex-boyfriend no longer lets us see her! 3 weekends in a row, before the mother abandoned the daughter, the daughter was at our house, and then the ex and her boyfriend lied in court (which we knew nothin about until afterwards when we found out the mother abandoned the girl and we went to get her and the school showed us the court papers) and said we never did see her and they didnt know where we lived!! Then 2 times after the mother left, we saw her, and the girl would cry on my shoulder because how much she missed her mom, and how she loved to be with us. How is this my husband fault? We tried Now the ex-boyfriend refuses to return phone calls! I need advise!!! We want custody!

 

[stealth2]

Part of the problem is that neither you, nor your MIL, nor you SIL have any legal rights wrt the kid(s). Dad hasn't gotten any sort of visitation orders (and ya know - he COULD have filed for them himself w/o an attorney. Not ideal, but certainly possible). Until he DOES have something from the court, there is no legal obligation whatsoever to provide any sort of contact. I'm not sure why that's a difficult thing to understand.

 

[Zephyr]

For you to sit there and say " I don't know why everyone is saying why didn't he get off his butt..." that is childish... it's being said because he did NOT, repeat did NOT do ANYTHING to legally establish his rights with these kids, that's hard to hear but that's the situation, whining about it won't help, starting the process to get some sort of visitation will.

 

[DRAGONSFIRE]

There is no whining, it is stating the facts! Its people like you that make people like us feel we can get no where with seeing children. i have taken steps, and just found a top lawyer who specializes in these cases, and who also thinks that WE CAN take custody of these 2 kids under these curcumstances! The mother of the daughter, ABANDONED, the daughter and wrongfully gave custody to her ex-boyfriend, and the mother of the son is trying to "poison" the son against me and my husband and they refuse any contact despiet our efforts! (we have witnesses to everything) And you should not jeperdize the well being of 2 children over 2 other kids. I could not let my kids go without food, or a roof over their heads in order to go to court for visitation of the other 2. It would not of been simple and we would go to court more then once because these 2 would of kept fighting to keep him from seeing the kids. Once we go to court and win this custody battle I will make sure to come in and rub it in every doubters face! The exs are the ones at fault here NOT us!

 

[stealth2]

Look - if Dad couldn't afford even pro se filing fees, he had no business having more kids. Again, he has no visitation rights until the court gives them to him. The court will not give them to him until he files for them. YOU, my dear, have no rights at all in terms of the legalities. Zip, Zero, Nada.

 

[Zephyr]

unless he is a multiple felon, child abuser, druggie whatever he would have easily got visitation with very little cost, your kids never would have been in danger of losing food or their home, I hope you are not planning on going into court with this "it's all their fault" attitude.

 

[brisgirl825]

Once we go to court and win this custody battle I will make sure to come in and rub it in every doubters face! The exs are the ones at fault here NOT us!

That's real mature.

He wants a paternity test done, because he has reason to believe the boy is not his, but Domestics wont let him have one.

Sounds like he really wants to be a dad to that child.

Go throw your hissy fit to the judge. He didn't care about those kids for years now he wants to take them away from all they know. Good luck!

Sarah

 

[LdiJ]

Your husband has had 7 years to attempt to obtain and enforce visitation rights with his daughter...yet he has only seen her 5 times in that time period.

If he had had one...and enforced it, the boyfriend NEVER could have obtained custody.

Your husband has had 5 years to attempt to obtain and enforce visitation rights with his son....yet he has only seen him 3 times in 5 years.

He didn't need an attorney to obtain visitation rights, nor to enforce them. He could probably do it without one now...but its a whole lot more complicated than it would have been 10 years ago.

Of course domestics won't let him have a paternity test, he waited far too long for that.

You also stated that basically both women are have done this because they couldn't have your husband....since the kids are 10 years old I think that its pretty safe to believe that they are no longer interested in your husband......and were probably no longer interested in your husband shortly after they discovered that he got BOTH of them pregnant. I also suspect that your husband was pretty panicky at the time and not terribly interested in establishing his "rights".

Your husband is basically a stranger to these children at this point. The odds of him getting primary custody of the kids are SLIM. His chances regarding his daughter are greater (despite the fact that it has gone on longer with her than with his son) only because she is not in the custody of one of her parents. However if the man she regards as "dad" has been in her life for a long time the odds are still slim.

Apparently neither of these mothers have behaved well.....however your husband is equally at fault here. The sooner he accepts that, and behaves accordingly...the more sympathy he is going to get from a judge.

I hope you realize how expensive these two separate battles are going to be....because these are the kinds of battles that take 10's of thousands of dollars to win....don't think that the retainer he paid is the total cost.