I wanted to share my experience with divorce, as well as family court, for anyone who might be considering divorce or is considering filing a motion within Domestic Relations Court aka "Family Court". I want to start off by stating, there are no real winners in Family Court.
I cannot stress this enough. Everyone loses in one way or another. Navigating through Family Court is time consuming, stressful, confusing, and expensive. There is no way to do it without the help of an attorney, and many divorced mothers (and fathers) simply cannot afford to fight for their children. That results in children being left in bad situations, which is my biggest issue with the whole system. The flaws plaguing Family Court are not exclusive to my particular county, but are widespread throughout all Family Courts in the country.
My oldest son, Jay, is from a previous (brief) marriage. My husband, Tyler, has been co-raising my son since he was just three years old (and a blessing he has been!). My divorce was brutal, taking over two years, and costing over 23k! I had to file for bankruptcy after my divorce was finalized. I want to give anyone considering filing for divorce, an idea of the financial devastation that could happen. This type of expensive, lengthy battle is more likely to occur, when one party is both unreasonable and also has substantial financial means to use our flawed court system as a weapon (which is exactly what happened in my case).
I ended up agreeing to a 50/50 shared parenting plan, mostly to just get the divorce finalized, and to be able to move on with my life. I should note that the main reason my former spouse fought me for custody, was to reduce his child support obligation. The more parenting time a father has, the less child support he has to pay. Which is entirely fair, but it unfortunately encourages custody battles.
Over the course of several years, my son progressively became more and more unhappy during his visitation with his father. He would call and text me constantly, begging me to pick him up early. He would often return home from his visitation and tell me that he was being belittled, criticized, called terrible names (such as fat, useless, and stupid), and beg me to do something to get him out of having to go there anymore. I knew another court battle would be taxing, both emotionally and financially, and I had a spouse and other children to consider, so I waited, and hoped things would improve. I had numerous discussions with his biological father, trying to help him see that his mistreatment of our son, was hurting his self esteem, and causing him to not want to spend time there. Nothing changed, in fact, my son's unhappiness grew to the point where all he seemed to do was complain about his father.
One Saturday evening, I picked him up from his father's home, and during the car ride, my son stated to me "I wish I could die, just so I can get away from him. Because that's how he makes me feel". That cut right through my heart like a knife.
I hired an attorney that very week, and petitioned for sole custody. This was no easy task. I was eight months pregnant, about to take on the stress and expense of a new baby. We were living on one income, as I had a difficult and high risk pregnancy, and was not working. It was a lot to take on. The worst timing possible. But I could no longer stand idly by, watching my son be miserable all the time.
My attorney stated that a case like mine would take 5-6 months, and cost no more than 3k. In reality, my case took almost a year, and cost around 6k (twice the amount of money and time we were quoted). When dealing with family court's process, I felt like I was constantly having to break through one roadblock after the next. It's almost as if they want to make it so difficult and expensive for anyone to get anything done, that most people will just give up.
In the end, justice did prevail. I was awarded sole residential and legal custody of my son (i.e. all decision making power). His father was granted limited visitation, known as a "standard order". His father appealed part of that decision. Not the custody, but only the child support (which had been increased). I agreed to settle for a lower child support amount, to resolve the case more quickly, because my only concern was for the well-being and happiness of my son.
I wish I could say that losing custody has helped his father self-reflect and gain insight, but unfortunately, things between them have only gotten worse. His father has become even more hostile towards him, and is constantly berating him while he is in his home. My son does not wish to visit his fathers home at all, he absolutely dreads going there, and returns home upset after his visitation. I have little hope at this point, that his father will ever take accountability for his actions, or be capable of the change that is needed to repair their relationship. It's truly a shame, for everyone involved, but especially for my sweet, beautiful son.
For those considering divorce, or a change of custody, or any dealings involving Family Court, I wanted to give a real life perspective, on what it is like, and what you would need to be prepared for. My best advice is, during divorce or any custody case, think very carefully about what you are willing to live with and commit to, before agreeing to anything. Because getting a judgement modified, will require a great deal of time and money, and will require jumping over the many hurdles of Family Court.