Advice regarding a change in custody of my 10 year old son.

I have been divorced 6 years and I have had nothing but problems with my ex-wife ever since. Mostly I don't approve of how she has been living her life in regards to our 10 year old son. She has been involved with 5 different men and she always gets him involved with these men very quickly, like in about a month or a little less. She has remarried a guy she hardly knew and who willn't talk to me at all infront of my son. Besides that she has hardly held up her end of our divorce settlement.

 

Any idea's about what I could do to start trying to change our settlement so I could try and get full custody of my so?

 

I ask this because we are meeting tomorrow (she asked me to meet). When we do this she is always threating me with taking my son away from me. We have joint custody! I'm always worried that since she is a woman and his mom the courts would side with her.

This sounds like something which definitely needs to be discussed with your lawyer.

Yes. Only the courts and your attorney can arrange a change in visitation/custody. However since she is equally the child's parent, no matter how much you dislike her choices, she can do whatever she wants within reason. Be the best dad you can be and don't make your child a pawn in an angry bitter divorce because you don't like her choice of men.

 

Don't punish your child because you're mad at your ex wife. You also need to stop meeting with her and injecting yourself in her life. Only discuss your son and pick him up and drop him off. For any custodial changes the courts will decide but punishing your son to get to your ex wife because of your over involvement in her love life, etc and the nature of your contentious divorce is not in anyone's best interest

I have been divorced 6 years We have joint custod.

Your ex shouldn't have custody at all, if she's introducing him to new men in the first month. It's disgusting, she's putting her lust and selfish needs above your child's emotional well being.

 

My ex tried this and it resulted in me getting full custody of our children, due to our children's reactions..... My 16 & 14 year old having emotional breakdowns and our 11 year old having such severe panic attacks he stopped breathing and had to be revived. She had a mandatory notification reported against her and in court the judge tore strips off my Ex and called her behavior "emotional child abuse" and used statements like "no child should ever be put in this situation"

 

Court councillors and child phycologists recommend 4-6 months as a suitable time from the start of a new relationship to the point you introduce your kids.

 

I'm a member of a single fathers group and many people are now stipulating a no early contact clause with new partners, when negotiating children's needs and custody in court. A good family lawyer should recommend this as a high priority.

Your ex shouldn't have custody at all, if she's introducing him to new men in the first month.

She is remarried and therefore in "stable" relationship in most court's view. If the OP is not remarried and just using court challenges to harangue her and the child as a pawn, it's a tragedy all around for this child who is an innocent bystander in this type of contentious divorce.

She has remarried.

She is remarried and therefore in "stable" relationship in most court's view. If the OP is not remarried and just using court challenges to harangue her and the child as a pawn, it's a tragedy all around for this child who is an innocent bystander in this type of contentious divorce.

 

Fair enough if she's done the right thing before getting married and introduced this man slowly, but if her house is a revolving door of men and she's involving her son with men she's only known for a month, she's not being a good mother.

Well to be completely fair this OPer has written multiple posts about his ex wives mates so while Matt is projecting his feelings towards women the reality is what wiseman is saying she has a more stable situation she’s married so it’s foing to be hard to prove anything and if it’s coming off to us that he’s using the child as a pawn because he doesn’t like the new boyfriends I’m sure a court will too.

 

Don’t get me wrong I don’t think children should be exposed to any of this but it just really doesn’t seem like anyone true focus is the child right now which honestly is a real shame.

 

Don’t drag your child through a custody battle until you are sure you’re doing all this for the right reasons.

Your ex shouldn't have custody at all, if she's introducing him to new men in the first month. It's disgusting, she's putting her lust and selfish needs above your child's emotional well being.

 

My ex tried this and it resulted in me getting full custody of our children, due to our children's reactions..... My 16 & 14 year old having emotional breakdowns and our 11 year old having such severe panic attacks he stopped breathing and had to be revived. She had a mandatory notification reported against her and in court the judge tore strips off my Ex and called her behavior "emotional child abuse" and used statements like "no child should ever be put in this situation"

 

Court councillors and child phycologists recommend 4-6 months as a suitable time from the start of a new relationship to the point you introduce your kids.

 

I'm a member of a single fathers group and many people are now stipulating a no early contact clause with new partners, when negotiating children's needs and custody in court. A good family lawyer should recommend this as a high priority.

 

I’m sure your children’s extreme reactions has little so so with the man and more to do with either your exes or your or a combination of both of your actions.

 

Such a shame, those poor children.

 

Weren’t you the poster who wrote about a mail order bride type situation?

 

....

Hey, guy. You gotta cut the **** and start looking out for the best interests of your kid. I thought I remembered you so I looked back. The kinds of decisions she makes include:

 

Now we are divorced and my ex-wife has her own place. This guy still comes around and my son has mentioned a few things to me. First he tells me about how this guy likes to wrestle with him and when they wrestle he likes to tickle and grab my son on his butt. Now I was just on the phone with my son and the guy was over for Thanksgiving and my son was telling me that the guy was wearing pink underwear. I asked him how he knew this and he said that “he showed him his underwear”

Now before you assume I'm in your corner rubbing your shoulders, I'm not. You gotta drop the pettiness with her living a life "you don't approve of." It's not about what you approve of. It's about the well being of your son. If that were your motivation first and foremost, that would have been how you lead your post. I unfortunately have to agree with the others in that, while to me it sounds like it very well could be in your kid's best interests if she's dating guys sporting their underwear for your son and marrying men two months into dating them, you're tackling the issue for every wrong reason you can.

 

As far as how you'd win full custody, it's not about stacked odds in court. It's about whether you've got a case enough for a judge to revoke a parent's powers and rights. I've got my opinions, but you've also by your admission got joint custody, which is the fair outcome if lacking compelling, documented evidence why it shouldn't be the case. I'm not sure of your gripe here. I'm suspecting that if you did have the cause and evidence, you'd be sitting in your lawyer's office right now rather than asking complete strangers who by and large are uninformed with regard to the entire situation. At least I'd hope so.

 

So stop being petty. Focus on being a father, not an ex-husband. Just because she lives a life you don't approve of or may actually be making decisions detrimental to your child's well-being doesn't mean it's legally actionable. Keep your head up, be situationally aware in case it should come that he shouldn't be in that home and you're provided the opportunity to actually demonstrate it, and in the meantime if you're worried your child lacks stability with his mother, you at the very least do your best to make sure he has it for at least the half-week he's with you.

 

And, again, if you've got cause and evidence, talk to a lawyer, not us.

Either you can document and prove to a court that ex is unfit, or you can't. If you can't, then your best shot is to get along with ex and offer to take the kids more often if it would be helpful to her.

definitely seek and hire a lawyer for this. This is a legal proceeding and decided upon by law, not by us. A lawyer would know what could work or would work best here to get your concerns across and get more consideration from the court.