Proving BM as "unfit"
Hello All. I rarely post here but would love your input and/or advice. My husband has joint custody with his ex and they take turns having his daughters every other week. We attempted to seek full custody about 2 yrs ago but because of circumstances out of our control, we had to settle with joint custody. Long story short...she has a live-in boyfriend that has no job and they recently had their electricity and phone shut off due to not paying their bills. They have resorted to living with his parents(this is the 8th week). My husband's custody agreement states that they can get an emergency hearing if his ex messed up again. I would consider this a situation that calls for an emergency hearing but wondered what you all thought of it. I'm sure some of you have been in similar situations.
Have any of you(or someone you may know) proved the BM as "unfit" in order to be granted full-custody?
Re: Proving BM as "unfit"
I never have, but I would think you would need more ammo than they had their phone/electricity shut off and are now living with his parents.
Are the kids staying with the boyfriends parents too?
RSVP Date: 2/28/2011
This is almost word for word what our attorney said to us when we asked about trying to get the BM in our situation declared unfit.
Water and electricity being shut off were enough for us to get a guardian-ad-litem appointed to investigate the living situations but not enough for a custody change. However, because you have that clause about emergency change if she screws up again, I think its possible that you could get a temporary change while things are looked into further.
I might get flamed for this but I dont care...
Have you considered that if she is that hard up for $, that whether you think you can win or not, taking her back to court which will cost her money, might be enough to push her over the edge?
If she cant afford it, or is just making bad decisions; having the added pressure of court and court costs might either A. push her to hand over custody to you guys or B. push her to screw up worse and do something that DOES justify a custody change.
Remember the best thing you can do is document EVERYTHING. The more info you have showing she doesnt have her S H I T together, the better off you are in court. Even things you dont think are that important-like constantly being late for custody changes etc. We DID have BM declared unfit and stripped of her parental rights and an order of protection placed against her. So if you have any questions at all just PM me.
Sorry, Im with everyone else and have to say that it is damn near impossible to prove a parent is 'unfit'.
BM used to have supervised visits with SS but then we ended up in court bc she wasnt paying support. At that time she said she didnt want to do supervised anymore and the judge (not the usual one) said OK and she got unsupervised. Since they we have been trying to get it changed back but once BM has that right, courts are VERY hesitent on taking it away.
Currently BM lives in a motel... one room... with her mother and her fiance (which SS doesnt know). However, since there are no drugs or alcohol use that we can prove, there is nothing that can be done. To prove a parent is unfit the courts want proof that the child is not safe when with that parent... we were told that do this we would need DSS to investiage the situation to determine if the arrangements are unfit... but again... you need significant proof to get DSS to check out the situation to begin with.
As others mention, your best bet is to keep track of EVERYTHING... good and bad. Sadly if you go into court with just all the negatives some judges will think you are being judegmental or nitpicky.... so if something good happens that shuold me mentioned with the 1000 bad things that came with it.
Luckyangel...I like the way you think
We have a lot of "old" dirt of her from when we attempted to gain full custody abot 2 yrs ago. This is not the first time they've had to leave their house b/c their power's been shut off. I think it was last summer that it happened the first time. They were evicted from their last house(about 2.5 yrs ago). She claims she left from her job at a bank b/c she was accused of stealing but I don't think they could ever prove it. Her boyfriend did a stink in jail for kicking some guy's teeth out....the list goes on. I really wish we would've continued pursuing full custody when we had a good chance but unfortunately the circumstances didn't allow it.
I think my husband is going to call his lawyer next week, but thanks to everyone and their suggestions
Sorry, but I think it's sad that "filing and making her pay might push her over the edge." is a good thing. Pushing her over the edge won't guarantee a custody change, will make for a much more acrimonious relationship, and harm your SK in ways you might not know. You think you're looking out for the SC but you're not. You're "out to get BM" regardless of the rationalizations.
If you have 50/50 shared custody, do what you can to mitigate the harm you think she's under at BMs. She has food, clothing, shelter and that's what the court will look at. Anything you do to destabilize her destabilizes your SKs as well. Your job is to keep the kids as stable as possible. Can't you do that in the 50% (and if you can swing it, more. If she's struggling, don't you think you can try to work *with* her to see the kids more, relieve her of some of the stress and financial burden, etc.)
If you have to prove her unfit, you're going to need a lot more than "she's living with boyfriend's parents." You're going to need: she's abused them, boyfriend's abused them, he's a pedophile, they do drugs, they do drugs in front of the kids, they do *hard* drugs in front of the kids...
If you can't get that, you're only going to cause more harm than good by trying to pull the rug out from under her.
-BM.
Look, are your sk's giving any indication they are unhappy with the situation? How old are they?
About 30% of the time my SD lives in a one bedroom apartment with her mom, her moms sister, and assorted friends at any given time. Do I think this is an ideal living situation? Hell no. Do I think that makes her unfit? That's a little tougher. Although I may not agree with BM's method of parenting, my SD is a fairly well adjusted, happy 6 yo, who loves her mother and enjoys the time she spends there.
I don't know your BM, or the whole situation, but maybe she is doing the best she can, and if it isn't adversly affecting your SK's I would leave the situation alone, as you could end up doing more harm than good.
As I said in another post on here, with the way the economy is, the fact that they live with his parents means nothing.
Unless the children are being physically or emotionally harmed, I would encourage you to be content with 50/50 custody. Everytime you go back to court, the children are effected as well. If you don't have a good reason (i.e. their best interests in mind...because I have yet to see something that says they are being harmed in all of this.) I would back off.