Divorce Advice for Men | Fathers Rights Divorce | Child Custody

Question:

My husband currently has visitation rights and his ex has sole legal custody. For 6 weeks now, my husband has not been able to talk to or communicate with his ex because she is always avoiding him. Relatives are the ones who always coordinate the drop offs and pick ups. The judge allows grandparents to help with transportation, but we know the kids are only seeing the grandparents since the mother is never home.

We feel that if she isn't around to see the kids, then we should have full custody of them and let the grandparents have some visitation. Right now it feels like we're splitting parenting time not with the mother but with the grandparents! Is there anything we can file with the judge to modify this situation? At what point is it considered child abandonment if the mother is never around during her parenting time?

By Molly Murphy

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell

In recent years, the issue of whether a grandparent has the right to visitation with a grandchild has become more prevalent. Sadly, when parents decide to get divorced the parents of the non-custodial parent often end up cut off from their grandchildren.

Question: The father resides in Georgia, the child support case is in Florida. The child lives with the grandmother, the father pays $200 a month to grandmother. 

The mother of the child decides she wants to collect child support even though the child does not reside with her and she does not have legal custody of the child. She files for support with no proof of residence where the child lives. The court orders the father to pay $400 a month to the mother when the child does not live with the mother. 

How can this happen? How do we fix it?

Question:

Is it legal for my fiancé’s parents and mother in law to deny him his son's phone number and visitation rights? Right now he is not allowed to call his son or to take him out alone. These are the rules of the grandparents, not of the court. There is no court ruling him to be an unfit parent or anything else for that matter. The child just lives with the grandmother in New York while the father is in Maine.