I am Active Duty Military Married (M24) to my civilian Wife (F25). She has a child (M7 months) with her ex BF (M27). She lives in Florida, I Live in Hawaii for the duration of my contract. The ex has not been super active in their child’s life. My wife has the child 95% of the time. She just started working and while she’s at work, her mother watches the child, but when she gets home, she assumes all responsibilities until she has to go back to work the next day. On Saturday and Sunday, it’s agreed between my wife and her ex that he will visit 12pm-5pm on Saturday and 2pm-6pm on Sundays. He hasn’t been consistent with this until maybe the last month and even so, when he shows up, he doesn’t spend even more than a small fraction of his time with the child and when he does, my wife has observed that he cannot be left alone with the child without proper supervision.
To make a long story short, the father has not been the most present to the child and does not financially support the child as much as he could. It wasn’t until a week or 2 ago where he started to show interest in being present in the child’s life by attempting to put him under his life insurance policy (he’s former reservist military on VA) and recently confessed to my wife (knowing that she is in a relationship) that he loves her. We had a verbal conversation at a restaurant and by the end of conversation, we had mutually agreed that he would be okay with my wife relocating with their child to be in Hawaii with me. We also discussed potentially me adopting his son to which he said “When the time comes, yes.” (He understands he would have to terminate his parental rights)
Fast forward to the following day, he shows up to my wife’s place of living (my wife lives with her mother) to see their son at their regularly agreed upon time frame and he does a complete 180 and is being very verbal and expressive about how he’s not going to allow her to take his son away from him, this that and the forth. Her mother also hangs up on her basically taking his side despite everything she knows about him.
Today, I am concerned that I might not be able to get my wife out here because I fear that the ex is going to try to fight tooth and nail to keep her in Florida. There is no court order, he does not pay child support either. I’ve been told by an attorney that she should be able to move here with no problem, but then if the ex decides to go to court, it could be an issue. I just want clarity on the situation. The goal is to have my wife and her child here in Hawaii with me and sooner rather than later. How can I do this without worrying that we will have legal issues on our hands, or at the very least, ensure she doesn’t get forced to stay in Florida for any reason?
TL;DR: I’m active Duty trying to get my wife who is a civilian to move to Hawaii with her baby, but fear that her baby daddy may get into the way of that happening.