Q: My ex wife was charged with DUI, Mis. Child Abuse, driving while license revoked, and a couple other minor infractions.
After reading through her tickets it also appears there was a pos. of cocaine as well, but she plead guilty to the traffic charges in order to have the felony possession of cocaine dropped. This happened 5 months ago and I was never made aware. I filed an ex parte for emergency custody, motion to change custody agreement, and contempt bc she is not supposed to be drinking in excess around my daughter. I feel my chances are very good of getting full custody but the system has let me down so many times I have to admit I'm having doubts. Our last custody battle drug out for a year and a half and cost a ridiculous amount of money to get exactly what I was asking for which was 50/50 custody. Can anyone give me some insight as to how my case looks. My brain tells me it's a no brainer but I can't help to think, "could this slip through the cracks as well ?".
A: There is no 'winning' issues like this only degrees of losing and there are never any 'guarantees' . Couples who are smart, work things out fairly themselves, for their own benefit and the benefit of the child and pay a flat rate fee of $250 for a simple parenting agreement to end up with 50/50 custody. Couples who aren't, pay a "ridiculous amount of money" to have strangers decide things for them that they likely could have decided themselves for free or very low cost. That said, sometimes you don't have a lot of options. If your ex will not agree to a change in custody that saves everyone time and money and benefits the child, then you may not have a lot of options but to go down that road of spending a ridiculous amount of money again. So essentially you have a hard decision to make. One thing is for certain if you want to take advantage of this situation the sooner you do it the better. Every day you wait mulling it over makes it look like less and less of an 'emergency' to change custody and makes it look more like you are OK with an irresponsible drunk having custody of your child. Best of luck.
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