Location: California
Title basically says it all. My wife and I hit some financial rough patches about 5 months after my son was born. She asked for permission to move home with her mom and dad to “save money” and her parents and I don’t get along, so I made other arrangements for myself. There was never a plan or a discussion to have her leave me with my child. We didn’t even officially separate or start new relationships until February of this year.
There is no custody agreement in place, no divorce, no restraining order. My wife just has my son 500 miles away and refuses to let me see him, refuses to send me pictures, she begs for a custody agreement where I sign my entire rights away and she won’t “ask for child support” which isn’t even legal in my state to my knowledge. We clearly weren’t happy before she left but she’s acting like I have zero rights. It’s starting to get to the point where I fear for my son and I live in a clearly better situation, I want to file for full custody myself. She started asking this in April. I haven’t seen my son since October of last year. What legal recourse do I have?
Comments
At most you are going to get a step up plan of short visits where they live and then some form of shared custody. Unless she is an addict or abusive you aren’t getting full custody and living 500 miles away is going to leave you with a much smaller amount of parenting time than mom. If you want 50/50 you’re going to have to move to where they are. If they’ve been there for a year that’s where jurisdiction is and where custody and child support will be decided.
The longer you go without traveling there and attempting to see your child the less likely you are to get any significant amount of time. You gave permission for her to move and then did nothing for a year. It is going to be a long, expensive process to get parenting time.
Are you on the birth certificate? Editing to ask if you’re married to her or were married to her?
Yeah she didn’t kidnap your kid. Y’all separated and she has custody. You now get a divorce and get custody and child support arranged. This won’t bode well for you as you’ve been separated for a year and haven’t see your kid in what will be more than year since you saw them last. Good luck
Custody is only handled outside of marriage (during/after a divorce). So you’ll have to file for divorce and sue for custody in the sate where your child has resided for the past 11 months. That chances of you getting full custody are probably 0, unless there’s other info missing here.
If you remain married you have the right to see your child, but that does not mean your wife is legally obligated to facilitate this in ANY way. You could show up one day and take your child to live with you and it would not be kidnapping. However, this would be a TERRIBLE idea. Were you to take a child from their residence/state where they lived the last year it would go very bad for you in the ensuing divorce/custody battle. Like you could end up paying significant child support with next to no access to your child.
If your living situation is truly better than where your child is now, the correct way to handle this is to hire a divorce attorney that will fight for you and your child.
Hey you need to file for divorce and file an RFOfor custody of your child asap. The longer it goes before you take action the worse it will be for you.
I’m a California family law attorney fyi
Don’t sign any agreement she prepares. I can send you a sample if your curious of what it need to cover. What’s your plan for visitation and holidays?
Have you thought about how you intend to address? Did you make a police report? Why or why not?
You had a reasonable expectation of seeing your child daily and that suddenly changed. Who cares if it didn’t work out between you two, what about the child needing both parents?
You’re getting a lot of unfounded opinions here. No one “has custody” until custody is established in a parenting plan. Talk to an attorney ASAP. Only an attorney is going to solve this for you at this point. Given the nature of what you’ve explained, you should not attempt to do this on your own.
It is important to move fast. Get an attorney right now. Start everything yesterday. This will be long and complicated, so an attorney is the right way to go.
No kidnapping has occurred here. This will be entirely within the civil realm. You have described no crime.
You have rights if you choose to pursue them. Start now.