I have a soon to be 10month old son as you see above. And I am 7 months pregnant. ( with my husbands baby). I have been seperated since July of this year. We seperated because he filed bogus charges on me. Claiming that I grabbed our son, in a way that could hurt him. I would never do such thing. I had to leave our home, without our son and go to court the next morning. I go to court. My husband never showed. The charges were dropped. The judge told me to go home. I go home to NOTHING! He took off with our son and took everything out of the house. Food and all. I finally got ahold of the Judge and got my son back. It took me 3 days. When I went to pick up my son, the only thing he gave me for him was the clothes on his back and 1 bottle. I am all past that part now, thank god. Right now my husband gets our son Wed at 4 til Sat at noon. Thats court ordered. Its ok with me for right now, cause he can't get him on his days, cause of the way he works. I do not agree with the court order one bit. My husband as ammited to smacking our son at 7 months of age, he has threatened to kill me if I have our son around another guy. He is a 5 time past convicted felon. He has 2 other children that he is not apart of theirs lives. One he has no rights too. One night recently he had our son over night. He sends me a text message telling me that he is taking our son to the er cause he is sick. He wouldn't answer my calls or tell me what was going on or anything til the following day. To find out there was nothing at all wrong. He was fine. He pulls all kind of stuff like this to keep me upset. Knowing that I am having problems with this pregnancy. Knowing that there is a chance that I could go into labor early. On the days that he is suppose to have our son & don't get him. He threatens to call the cops on me, saying that I am not following the court orders. When he don't even come to pick him up. I have to go back to court this month on the 21rst. For some reason my lawyer don't want to bring all of these things up. Just a few of them. I am glad that he wants to be a part of our sons life. But he really isn't being a part of his life. I am going to try and see if I can get my husband ordered for every other weekend. With all that I have on him, I should be able to get supervised, but since he has already got him. I don't think that supervised is even a question now. I don't want to have to worried and be stressed out everytime my husband gets our son. When he has him, I never know if he is keeping him all night or a few hours or what he is doing. Lately its been a few hours. But when he does keep him all night, he calls and if I am not here. He tells me that he is bringing him home. So I come home, cancel whatever it is that I was doing. And once I get home. He will tell me nevermind. He calls just to make sure that I am home. Its got to end. There is something that needs to be done. But what can I do. And I know once I have this baby, its going to be worse.


Is all of this going to hurt my case if I bring it up now. My lawyer hasn't brought any of this up yet.. & what would be the right way to bring up this issues

You knew that he was a five time felon when you married / made the children with him. That is what the court will tell you. I'm not trying to be mean but that is the way they will look at it. So that part of your argument will not make a difference. The only way it would is if they are violent felonies in which case, you'd have to prove you didn't know about his past, or answer for why you chose him. Perhaps that's why your attorney is not bringing that subject up.

Same goes for his lack of involvement with his other two children. The court would question why you would involve yourself with someone who has nothing to do with his other children.

If he smacked your (then) 7 month old, if you made no police report, then you are as guilty as he (failing to protect the child). Again, the court would question why you did nothing to report this.

From here on out, you have to document his missed visitations. You can do this in several different ways. Make and keep a journal of visitations. Make a police report when he doesn't show up. (if your local department would do that kind of report)

If he makes any threats, report it to the police. Every time.

If he won't keep the child overnight, don't let him come the next day to pick him up. Wednesday through Saturday is his visitation time. For example; He picks him up Wednesday at 4 but returns him at 9 that evening. Unless your order has a provision for the right of first refusal (one parent has the first option of having the child when the other parent has to work or will be out of town), and you agree to getting him back and letting your ex pick him up Thursday, he just forfeited the rest of his visitation. When this happens, make a police report if possible. Show the officer the order (Wed at 4 until Saturday at 12) so there will be a record of why you didn't let him have your son if he shows up on Thursday.

Most visitation orders have a provision for a parent being late for pick ups. Ours is 30 minutes. If either parent is more than 30 minutes late without calling, the remaining visitation is forfeited.

Sometimes you have to really enforce the order as it is written or you are setting precedence.

You let him control you through this and they only way to stop it is to stand firm. If he makes a threat, call the police. If possible, have a friend or neighbor in your home (and out of sight) whenever there is supposed to be an exchange. Have a tape recorder going whenever you have to have a conversation. He can't deny a threat if you recorded it. West Virginia is a one party state when it comes to recording telephone conversations. That means you can record your conversations with him and you don't have to tell him you are doing it. Kind of hard to go to court and deny things when there is a recording of it.

Good luck.

I wasn't aware of his 2 other children when we got married, Nor his felionies, I knoew of one.. I have everything recorded. Him admitting to almost everything.. I had a protective order agaisnt him when he smacked our son. My lawyer told me to drop it So I would have contact with him when he had our son. But didn't bring up the fact why I filed it.

What the court will hear will be "your husband had children and felonies and you never knew about them?"

This will make you look terrible. Really.

Your attorney is also referred to as "counsel" for a reason... they know what the system will accept and how it will review your case.

If there are some things that your attorney says don't talk about, then listen... yes, take the advice of the person you are being charged per hour to listen to!

Okay. Don't quite understand why your attorney would ever tell you to drop a restraining order. That can only help your case. Especially when the order was placed after he abused the child. The child being the center of the whole custody dispute. That makes no sense at all.

If possible, record a conversation about his criminal history and why he kept it from you. At least you can show you had no prior knowledge of his history and married him anyway.

How could you not know if he had children? I think that is not true.... You obviously didn'y know much about him.

This children that he had, he had when he was 19 years old. He was never in there live. And he never told me about them, until I done some research and found out. Yes I did rush into the marriage and Yes that is my fault. He was my first boyfriend when I was younger. We started dating after 13 years things went so well, we rushed into it, Got married and got pregnant. My main concern he how he is with my son, he can't even get our son on his days ordered. My worry I have been trying to contact my lawyer, and he has not got back to me. I have court this coming wed. And I haven't had an appointment to talk things over with my lawyer. I was suppose to have one yesterday. But it was cancled due to court. If my lawyer don't show up. I am wondering how to approach some of this issues with out him. I don't want it to be post poned. Because the things that he is pulling on me when he does get our son. I have trying to get a hold of my lawyer since we went to court last month. To get the court order that was set til we go back to court. I never recieved one.. I called the court house, they told me to call my lawyer. I don't know if there is a first right of refusal in the court order or not. I just wanna know how to approach things if I have to go in with out my lawyer.

Just so I get this straight in my mind...

You dated him for 13 years without knowing he had kids or multiple felonies?

What the heck DID you talk about?

Listen to your lawyer... you do NOT want to trot that out in front of a judge.

NO We started dating after 13 years.. He was my childhood boyfriend

We were together for about 2 months before we got married.. I typed it right,, but it just didn't go together.. We got together march of 06 and got married in may of 06