r/Custody

Hey everyone

For context- we broke up, I had to petition for paternity etc to stop her from taking our child across state lines. She ended up filing a petition to relocate anyways and lost and it cost me about 40k. I had to remove her from the home during litigation (never married), and because of this she left to another state and just recently moved back. I tried many many many times to avoid an court stuff, offered her a bunch of money to get her on her feet instead of paying a lawyer and she said no. It was basically a winner take call. I know how much my kid loves their mom and Im very glad im not in her shoes but I feel guilty, and fear resentment from my child once theyre old enough to understand.

EDIT- I have proactively offered 50/50 from the start of the case and even before which it was turned down everytime (as she wanted more) and then eventually realized she cant handle more with her schedule

I was looking at a calendar tonight and started thinking about some shit. My kid turns 6 in 3 weeks, Halloween is coming up, and both of those things fall during what would have been my “years” with her.

It got me thinking. Am I the bad guy for fighting for my daughter and winning to the point where her mom legally only sees her 4-5 days out of the month? Is there a chance my kid resents me for that one day? Im painted as a monster.

I know I could’ve been a better partner when we were together, just like her mom could’ve been better too. Maybe us not being together is ultimately for the best, but I’m thinking about my kid here.

My kids mom only has her every other weekend. Part of me wonders if I should be going above and beyond and offering to bring my child to her mom on a Wednesday for a couple of hours, then drive back, pick her up, and get her home and ready for school. That’s a lot of extra effort on my end, but am I wrong for not doing it?

The thing is, I know I wouldn’t get that same effort in return. And I keep thinking that if I were in her mom’s position, I’d be trying to fix things or at least asking if we could all do something together because I missed my daughter and wanted to see her but that hasnt happened.

I’ve honestly never thought about any of this until tonight. I was just looking at a calendar and realized how little time they actually spend together.

I fought hard for my daughter, and I believe I had my reasons. But at what point does protecting your child and doing what you believe is best turn into potentially limiting their relationship with their other parent?

I’m not asking whether I should get back with her mom or anything like that. I’m asking whether, as a father, I should be doing more to make sure Chloe has a relationship with her mom, even if her mom isn’t making the same effort herself.

I want to do what’s best for my daughter, and I’m genuinely questioning whether I’m looking at this the right way.

Then the other thing is child support...am I wrong for putting my ex on it? Financially she makes more money than me right now, by alot but she has more bills than I do. It's diffucult to work as much as Id like with the kids schedule + twice weekly appointments. She can barely get by supposedly and now has to pay, again I know she would do it to me in a second but I dont operate like that.

I dont want to come off as insensitive to all the anyone out there who got the short end of thew stick (for now), keep on fighting I just feel guilty....like a survivors type guilt. I was used to always putting myself last. Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Noone ever "wins" here and the kids always lose.

Father of 14yo daughter. Currently under temp 50/50 order pending hearing next month on petition to modify. Prior to temp I had 5 of 14 overnights.

A few months ago, after a fight between child and mom, mom took child's phone and went through all her massages. Among other things, mom found inappropriate pictures shared between child and child's bf. Mom was advised by police to delete the pictures immediately. She did not. In fact, she showed the phone to child's GAL weeks later. GAL acknowledged seeing the pictures in a letter she sent to our conciliator (she couldn't make the hearing, so sent a letter instead).

Since mom had unrestricted access to all of our daughter's messages, I've requested the ability to do the same (once I know the pictures are gone). Mom refuses without someone else supervising my review. She still has exclusive control of the phone (she hasn't given it back to child).

If she's still maintaining the criminal CP images on the device, and has shared them, how much trouble could she be in? What would you do in this situation?

Context: I have 15 year old twins with an ex partner. I have had primary custody for their entire lives. They have always lived with me. In early childhood, they would often go for long stretches of no contact with bio father. He’d disappear for periods of time and then resurface. All of that to say, I have made the parenting decisions for the entirety of their lives. I would consult him, but it was hit or miss whether I’d hear from him. I filed for child support when they were 10, and he magically reappeared and wanted custody suddenly. We currently share a 70/30 split, with joint decision making. Due to issues with harassment and threats, I had an RO for awhile. I do not have any contact with him and vice versa. The only time I have directly contacted him in the past couple of years was for medical emergencies. Our custody agreement will expire in about 2 years, and I just want to ride this out until it expires.

All that to say; I am a hobby genealogist. I have done DNA testing, and have built an extensive family tree for myself. One of my children is interested in having DNA testing done himself. I’m assuming I will need to get permission from the bio father to do testing. Can I get suggestions on how to approach this? Do I just let it go and wait until child is no longer a minor?

My son won’t get any information from Dad himself. Parents (as far as I can tell) were probably undocumented, and what little information the bio father has he will not share with the children. They do have some contact with their grandmother, but they don’t speak the same language so that is not a source either.

My co coparent and I moved to 50/50 a year and half ago. Things have been going fine. We are high conflict unfortunately but the custody arrangement is good with our child. Well recently I was bombarded or so it felt- with a handful of isolated incidents that co parent wrote down and was told if i couldn’t agree with them on it all and do what they think is the right thing. For example- purchase a bike for the child bc the child told THEM they want one but when I’ve tried to get them one they are adamant they only wish to ride a scooter and do not want a bike. Mind you- all of these things listed on the motion filed to move from 50/50 to me only having every other weekend are much like the bike example that is actually on the motion. Another one is that I have 3 other kids who participate in activities and that i am denying my child of independence and a childhood due to having other children. To add- co parent also has 3 other kids in the home as well. Anyone dealt with this? It feels like such a money grab for an attorney to file such a stretch of a motion. There is no drinking, smoking, or substance use of any kind in the home. No change life changing events of any kind either . I just am curious if anyone’s has this happen and how it panned out. I’m at a loss for words on it because it’s so out of left field.

I live in Iowa. Raised a stepson for 16 years. Wife got pregnant and then 6 years later discovered the kid wasn't mine. Very horrible marriage.

Finally divorced... In an attempt to see the child after the child was withheld. To apply for a temporary custody order, you have to file for divorce in Iowa so I did. By the time I got to see the kid, she started to hate me. The whole family hates me. Years later, I'm paying 30% of my wages for a kid that isn't mine that I see for 2 days a month. The kid absolutely doesn't want to be around me, and my ex-wife and her new boyfriend have a family together.

I filed for a motion in 2025 to relinquish rights with a DNA test that says the child isn't mine. Was denied but taken off the birth certificate. My child support went up because I attempted to relinquish rights and contacted the bio dad who doesn't want to be involved. Then is when the judge dropped me from every other weekend and Wednesday, to Saturdays every other weekend and child support went from 25% to 30%.

I filed again in 2026 and was denied again, stating that because the child is now 9, this financial support is her status quo. I paid an attorney to represent me, but I think she fucked me over.

I can't live another decade like this. I was even told that if I got fired intentionally that they would put me in jail for 30 days on contempt

My husband had a very traumatic childhood with abusive and alcoholic father. I finally got him into trauma therapist- who said that he doesn't have the capacity to show empathy and doesn't have the capacity to take accountability. He is also impulsive and aggressive and has a violent criminal record and an ex wife that says she was physically abused by him. I have nest videos of some of this behavior, as well as him talking poorly of me to the kids/ trying to get the kids to say I was abusive to them/ etc..

What are the chances that I get majority parenting time through a custody evaluation?

[Ramsey County, only one judge right now in family court?! Minnesota]

For those who had a judge order joint legal and physical custody, is there a primary parent named?

Everything I have read is that you need a robust parenting plan and now it appears my ex refusing to agree to almost any parenting plan provision. I have been in a custody battle for nearly 3 years. My ex has been fighting the professionals for 50/50. Multiple investigations were done resulting generally in a 9/5 schedule. One professional was open to my ex having slightly more time in summer, but not 50/50. My ex has switched lawyers 4 times. The last time was forced after his associate attorney became so aggressive calling the GAL incompetent and harassing me that she was pulled from his file by the senior partner at that firm. My lawyer said it would like help push settlement. Now he attempted to settle still pushing for more time in summer, but I countered with similar to GAL and his lawyer is writing it up. I know my ex is beyond upset as from the start he said he wanted 50/50 on paper, but I could keep the kids all the time. He is already refusing to respond to messages about our kids and acting erratically and performative, which again is something the GAL noted in the past. He doesn't actually care about being a dad, he just wants to win. Even his adult child will say things like dad only cares about me when it is about him, otherwise she comes to me for actual support. Even on her wedding day, he complained non-stop and went against every wish she told him as it wasn't what he wanted. It simply reminded me that is what my younger kids continue to deal with every day of their lives as even on the most important days of their lives, it will never be about them.

The issue is we spent 20 hours drafted a parenting plan in coparenting therapy that wasn't perfect but had a lot of provisions like using OFW, responding to messages within 24 hours, automatic agreement if no response in 48 hours, not allowing significant other at mutually attended education and medical appointments, robust non-disparaging clauses, etc. My ex is now saying he wants to throw out the entire plan and it sounds like he wants a very bare bones with just schedule, holiday plan, and vacation. He hasn't been following the plan we had so I know why he wants it all dropped, but it gave me a lot of options to proceed and also document his non-compliance.

In the past my lawyer has said judges in our county don't get into details of parenting plans. I filed as my ex is controlling and abusive. I really wanted a plan to protect my rights and the kids. I also know just a few months ago everyone was in agreement the draft parenting plan was mostly agreed upon and my ex stated it in court. The custody study also recommended individual therapy for him and continued coparenting therapy, but I know my ex feels he doesn't need help. Coparenting therapy was a bit of joke as my ex would agree to a lot and then completely disregard and the therapist didn't hold him accountable. The therapist who did resulted in him quitting after 1 session. That said it allowed me to document things and was some sort of escalation point. I wonder if I can use that though to demand he agree to a parenting plan over asking the judge to order therapy.

For some more background, my ex made his older child hate her mother and constantly spoke negatively about her. He has openly admitted in writing to doing the same to my kids with me. He has also listed his new partner as mother and my son has been told I'm his secondary mom. I have zero doubt him and his partner will continue to escalate as my kids are already acting completely off (when he tries to turn them against me it results in them being much more clingy and making awkward comments about me). My ex will demand to take over things like every other appointment, but then he will just stop for months at a time. He has extensive substance use issues and I think his new partner does as well, but not in a way easy to prove to court. That said, I do think it has effected his ability to function like when a doctor told him our child had a brain injury and he thought she was fine. The GAL said there is zero doubt I'm the primary parent based on these types of issues, but my ex I think believes he can do it too.

Did you end up having essentially no parenting plan provisions? The idea of this is daunting for me as the draft plan we had was working reasonably well and I could have lived with it and just continued documenting how he was not following it. He has also done things like push to remove my daughter's therapist who did confront him about his concerning behaviors.

About three months ago I made the decision to leave my verbally abusive husband, and I took our child with me. This has not been an easy decision and it’s not what I wanted to do. We have been under a ton of stress and I was genuinely hoping that he would go get some help for his mental health and things would calm down. Instead, after months of him disregarding my concerns about the condition of his mental health, he served me with a divorce and is pushing for a provisional hearing to discuss custody/parenting time, child support, and division of assets and debt.

Leading up to my decision to leave, I was told by someone that there was a large quantity of drugs hidden through our house. (Very complicated situation) I gave my husband the benefit of the doubt and believed him. However, my father and I went to the house just to double check everything. I didn’t find anything but my father found cocaine in the basement. He did not tell me this until things escalated between my husband and I.

Eventually during a relocation I just decided not to go with my husband and I stayed at my parents house. At that time I was still letting my husband see our child. My husbands behavior started becoming for more erratic and he let me know on multiple occasions that he was going to take our child from me and that I would never see her again. He started knit picking everything and would send me photos of every little thing he thought was wrong. She had a TINY bump on her forehead(toddle learning how to walk) accused my mom of not taking care of her. And just really crazy accusations.

I went to the location my husband was living while he was at work (the place was in my name so I was able to get a key) and when I went in, there were multiple bottles of bourbon sitting on the floor, and an entire tote full of THC edibles and bags of marijuana. A WHOLE TOTE FULL, just sitting on the ground. I have concern that with that quantity he might be selling it rather than just having it for personal use, but ALSO it was just sitting out where our child could have easily accessed it. I decided it would be in our child’s best interests to not go back over there. I didn’t say anything to anyone because I was very scared that if I reported what I had found, that I would be to blame considering the place was in my name and not my husbands. The day after I had found all of that, I sent my mother and our child to go swimming at my cousins house all day so that my husband wouldn’t come pick her up. The day after that, my husband showed up to my mother’s house to pick Frankie up as soon as I clocked in to work. He was acting very erratic and let my mother know that none of us were ever going to see our child again. My mother was unaware as to what I had found and she let him take our child. He ended up not being able to handle having our child and brought them back to my mother’s house. After this, I decided not to let him see our daughter.

Every day for about two months he asked me to see our child. It was a really really difficult thing to have to say no. Most days I just didn’t respond, but there were a few time I told him exactly what needed to happen before I would feel comfortable with him seeing her, and I still stand by this decision. I know this looks very bad on my end that I wouldn’t let him see our child. It’s not what I want, I want our child to know how much their dad loves them and I want them to have a relationship with on another, but I need to know that it’s safe.

On top of the drugs I found, my spouse has a LONG history of not following through with mental health follow up care. He is diagnosed with (something?) I just don’t know exactly what but he is prescribed multiple psych medications and has had episodes of severe mania including hallucinations and physical violence. Since having our child my husband had been doing a gradual dose reduction of one of these medications but without his doctor knowing it. He went to the doctor about two months before all of this occurred and he didn’t discuss the dose reduction with them.

I have videos of the drugs that I found.
I have numerous videos of him being verbally abusive to me in front of our crying screaming child. (So bad that he tells me my boss needs shot in the head, and that I need a “retard handler”, that him being at home with our child is doing what he considers to be “playing n*gger all day” just horrible horrible things that should never be said and that should definitely not be said around our child who’s brain is quite literally like a sponge right now.
I have screenshots of numerous conversations between my husband and I.
I also have screenshots of messages between me and my father in law explaining to him that my husband has given me every reason to not trust him and that I had told my husband I was concerned about his mental health.

The only thing that my husband really has against me is that because of a situation in which I cannot live in my home at the moment, our child and I have been living at my parents house. Said house, admittedly is very cluttered. Mostly because most of my belongings as well as our child’s belongings are here and it’s a small house. It’s clean, our child has a safe place to sleep, she’s well fed, and most importantly she’s happy and loved. Since our child was born, my husband has been to ONE dr. Appointment, he’s only been to ONE WIC apt. When our child had a medical emergency and I had to take her to the ER my husband didn’t even take the initiative to come to the hospital. He has never given our child a bath, never gets them dressed, never makes them real meals, and he is about to try and make me look like a terrible mother. I just know he is. At one point my husband came into my parents home without permission, and took pictures around the house. Whatever, I don’t really care. HOWEVER, at that time my mother was talking a GLP peptide and my husband found the needles. (Grey market no prescription) he’s threatening to hold that over my head. None of it was ever in any location the our child could have gotten ahold of it, and it’s not even in the house anymore. I also had horrible postpartum depression, but I sought help immediately and have followed up with it and followed through with it. I have also sent him some really nasty text messages which I do regret, but I was hurt and I was acting reactively. I just know it all looks bad, but I cannot bare the thought of loosing our child. I can’t eat I can’t sleep I’m not performing at work I’m sick to my stomach my stress level is at an all time high.

And the real kicker to all of this is that his attorney worked as a guardian ad litem in our county for nine years. I’m very concerned that if a GAL is appointed, that it will be someone that his attorney has a personal relationship with.

For those who have gone through divorce mediation with kids, what are some things you’re glad you included in your final agreement or wish you would have thought about beforehand?
We have a couple kids together and I filed for divorce following an assault. I’m trying to make sure I think through as much as possible during mediation so there aren’t a bunch of things left open to interpretation later.
My family is also out of state, so traveling with the kids would most likely involve flying.
Some of the things I’m already thinking about are:
• Parenting schedules, holidays, birthdays and school breaks
• Summer vacation and deadlines for choosing vacation time
• What happens if a parent doesn’t use their scheduled parenting time
• Traveling out of state, flying, passports and how much notice is needed
• Exchanges and who is responsible for transportation
• Medical, dental, therapy and extracurricular expenses
• School communication and activities
• Reimbursements and deadlines for paying each other back
• Communication between parents
• Childcare and right of first refusal
• What happens if either parent moves
• Pets we had during the marriage, who keeps them and how vet bills, medications, grooming, boarding and other expenses are handled, especially when one person ends up taking care of everything
• Anything else you wish you had included that would have prevented arguments or confusion later
I know every divorce and situation is different and I’ll obviously go over everything with my attorney. I’m really just looking for things people learned from experience that I might not think to ask about before mediation.
Thank you!