Separated for 3 1/2 years

[Dagas]

NY
I am cutting out a lot of the details. Their is a lot more drama.

1. Heterosexual relationship
2. We have 2 kids. Young
3. End of 2019 she asked for a separation. I didn't want it but she insisted because we had not had sex in a year. I asked for that we see a marriage counselor and she refused. Their were several reasons, he alcoholism which she refused to acknowledge which created a disconnect in our relationship. She also became morbidly obese and blamed me for just about everything.
4. I agreed a week later to a separation. This was done verbally, no involvement in any agency. 2 weeks later she slept with someone else and proceeded to have a relationship with another man
5. I didn't know at first but I felt something not right. She still slept in the same bed and would, at all hours wake me up with music and talking to people including men and pretending she wasn't. Very much gaslighting me. Which clued me and then I found evidence of her doing so and found out who she was with.
6. She had totaled her car completely on her way to a lover. She bought a used car and had 2 additional accidents. No insurance company wanted to insure her. So she could no longer drive. I was very much relieved because she was a really bad driver.
7. We saw a therapist but the therapist did not do a very good job with her as, she, the therapist went towards my side of things and said things that my wife could not handle or believe. Mostly about the alcoholism.
8. Couple of years of a terrible separation. At the time I could not afford a divorce so it was cheaper to keep her due to the fact also that I could not trust her with the kids. One night I came him to a house filled with gas. She had turned on the stove and was just sitting near the living room table and drooling completely drunk. The gas stove was on with no fire. I opened all the windows and doors and turn the fan on to aerate the house. I was in shock.
9. She then did the unthinkable. She drove drunk with the kids in the car. She was not just drunk but wasted. Luckily people pulled her over before it would turn into a tragedy.
10. They arrested her and I had to go pick up the children from the police department. Worst day of my life.
11. The kids seemed ok but they explained what happened and told me that the don't feel safe around her anymore. She lost her license.
12. She then broke up with her former boyfriend and found somebody else closer. Slowly she moved into his house and she has not been in the house for the last year.
13. She used to give me some money but that stopped 6 months ago. All she does now is pay the car payments for a car that I cosigned with her. That's all.
14. I take the kids 5 days a week sleeping over and she takes for 2-3 days. Sometimes she takes them from 5:30PM to 8:30-9PM.

The kids are now complaining that she is drunk while they are their. They describe to me all of it.

 

[STEPHAN]

Do you have a legal question?

 

[adjusterjack]

File for divorce and custody.

Can't afford a lawyer.

Go online to your family court website and find forms and instructions. Do it yourself.

Or, continue being complacent and it will never end.

 

[not2cleverRed]

Most of what you've stated is not legally relevant. NY state no longer requires "fault".

What is relevant:
1) You can file for divorce. No one cares about the grounds.
2) You can request temporarily orders pending the divorce. She's a b****, so establish child custody first. Her being a felon as a result of Leandra's Law (per your items 9, 10, 11) is a reasonable argument for you to have physical custody and for her to be NCP.
3) Joint legal custody will likely be recommended by everyone. This is different from physical custody. This is more for decision making about the children. You can true for sole legal, but it will be difficult if she fights it.
4) Most of the things you've stated, other than her felony, lack proof that would be admissible in court. Going forward, document things.

Your children need you. Someone has to put the best interests of the children first.

Find the forms, start the process. Ask for at least the minimum CS, and that it go through the CSEB. You know she won't give it willingly.

 

[LdiJ]

Most of what you've stated is not legally relevant. NY state no longer requires "fault".

What is relevant:
1) You can file for divorce. No one cares about the grounds.
2) You can request temporarily orders pending the divorce. She's a b****, so establish child custody first. Her being a felon as a result of Leandra's Law (per your items 9, 10, 11) is a reasonable argument for you to have physical custody and for her to be NCP.
3) Joint legal custody will likely be recommended by everyone. This is different from physical custody. This is more for decision making about the children. You can true for sole legal, but it will be difficult if she fights it.
4) Most of the things you've stated, other than her felony, lack proof that would be admissible in court. Going forward, document things.

Your children need you. Someone has to put the best interests of the children first.

Find the forms, start the process. Ask for at least the minimum CS, and that it go through the CSEB. You know she won't give it willingly.

I agree with all of this but I do think that his odds of sole legal custody are better than most people. She did drive drunk with the children in the car (and get arrested for it) and that alone puts her judgement in question. Supervised visitation is not out of the question either.

 

[commentator]

Of all the people who come on here describing a situation where a person desperately needs legal representation you are certainly in the top tier. When I began reading this, and rest assured, it is doubtful that the courts would let you get more than three or four sentences into this, the question popped into my mind, "Holy cow, YOU LET THIS PERSON HAVE YOUR CHILDREN right now for two or three days a week?!!???!!!"

Instead of trying to help these kids, you're detailing and spouting about your relationship, how many times you guys have separated, had sex and how she started a new relationship with blah blah blah.... First of all no one is interested in your or her fidelity, alcoholism, gaslighting, etc. Even in a divorce case only, no one is interested in this. If there were no "young" children involved, you people could go your separate ways, or stay embroiled in this drama forever more. It's about the safety and security of these children!

There are little human beings involved here who are living in hell at least two or three days a week. We do not know the details of how you care for the children while you have them, I'd certainly want to know if I was going to have to make a decision about the children's future situation. Because you seem to want to share a bushel of information about how horribly your wife has blown caregiving and terrible things she's done, yet you KEEP leaving the children with her! They've told you they do not feel safe around her anymore. Where's the person who's going to make them feel safe?

You seem much more obsessed with where she lives and who she is currently sleeping with than the fact that she's keeping the kids while constantly drunk, has already put them in very dangerous situations several times that you know about, and that she is probably driving them around while drunk and uninsured (Hey, the fact that a person no longer has car insurance or a driver's license in no way keeps that person from driving!!! Never has, never will!)

If you could afford a therapist to try to save your marriage at some point, you can afford an attorney now. Your children are in danger. I do not think you can do this yourself. In fact, if you show up in court with the details you have tried to present above, I'd be thinking foster care. Get these kids to a safe place, keep them there, and sue for sole custody with supervised visitation only. Your children do not need to be around this person any more. Convince me that they need to be with you!

 

[AlmostThere]

Your job as a parent is to look out for the best interests of your children. Please go back over your original post and find any part of it that focuses on the best interests of your children. You are focused on what your wife is doing and fixing her. Your children deserve and are entitled to a parent who protects them from harm. Divorce might be financially devastating, but children deserve to be in a safe environment.

Right now, YOU are enabling your wife to put your children in danger. You are endangering them.