Advice on Dealing with Divorce and My Little Girl

I'm sorry T., but the laws in place to prevent one parent from taking a child out of the country without the other's consent are there for good reason. For example, if your husband decided to take a job in Mexico and wanted to move there with your daughter, this law would greatly benefit you.

I know you feel your child will have a better life in Canada with your family (and you might be right!), however the courts might agree that a father should not have to go to another country to visit his own daughter. He has rights too.

Perhaps when things settle down and you've been apart for a few years, he may agree.

Meanwhile, I am not a lawyer, so everything I've said here could be completely off the mark.

Plus he may just be MORE involved after you separate. For now he feels his role is primarily to work and support you and his child. Maybe, but you know him best, right?

Keep an open mind, k? Every change seems impossible when you first experience it. Then time goes on and you realize it's not so awful after all.

Take care of yourself. I, too, wish there was more background info in your post.

:)

I'm not a lawyer, but in my situation my ex moved out of state almost a year after the divorce was final. At one point, he thought about going after sole custody and trying to move the kids. Eventhough mine are old enough the court will let them have a say in where they live, he had nearly no chance of the judge allowing him to move them out of state.

Try and work out a schedule with him without the attorneys that allows you to move to Canada. If he gets enough visitation, he may be willing to work with you. Remember, judges do not like to be making the choices for you so make EVERY effort to settle.

We just settled (in a room at the courthouse 15 minutes before the scheduled custody hearing). Neither of us is happy. Neither got what we wanted. We both got what we needed. We now have a schedule.

Good luck! Divorce is never easy, but you will make it through.

Just keep in mind that court orders can be altered. If you agree to stay in the US for now, and your husband loses interest and doesn't visit his daughter, you can take things back to court and ask to move closer to your family.

Divorce is tricky. Your daughter does have a right to have access to her dad. Instead of making a big deal about it since you have lawyers. I would have the attorneys haggle the child support/visitation. Then document for the next 6 months how much time he actually spends with your daughter and if he pays on time. After the 6 months if he is as you say not spending the time required or not paying then go back with the lawyer and state about the need to move. But I'd give my daughter the ability to spend time with her dad. What ever you do do not sign a non refundable retainer agreement with the attorney. You will never see that money again.

You can work out custody with a mediator rather than in court with your attorneys. A good mediator will try to find a solution that works best for everyone.

If you can afford attorneys, then consider setting aside money for your daughter to have some sessions with a counselor who will understand what she is going through and help her make sense of it.

Some fathers seek joint custody and more hours with their children because it reduces the child support they must pay. Once that is in place, they are less demanding about the time they actually spend with their chidren. Later on, it may be easier to make a move to Canada.

When your daughter is older, it will be easier to live farther from her dad because she will be able to travel alone for summers to see him.

It is in your daughter's best interest to spend more time with her father, as long as he is a safe person. She will probably want to get to know him and I would encourage this if I were you.

Theresa said it best. I am sorry you're going through this T., and I hope you can work it out. Do you have a great divorce lawyer to contact for advice? I am not a lawyer so I don't know all the legal ins and outs on this.

Good luck and remember - your child is an innocent victim in this - you and your ex need to keep her happiness and well being as numero uno and put everything else aside.

If your lawyer does not have experience in questions regarding moves like the one you plan, you must either find a lawyer who does have such experience or ensure that your current lawyer gets the right advice here. As others noted, there are laws to prevent one parent from taking a child out of the country against the other parent's will. Are there any special agreements on this between Canada and the United States? Only a good lawyer can tell you. Are there ways he can sue for full custody if you insist you would take her to Canada? Only a lawyer can answer. It is vital that you get a very, very good attorney. Find the money however you can, but be willing to pay to get someone who knows what he or she is doing. You need to do some serious homework to get the right person.

While you can argue all you want that he ignores her when he's at home, that won't mean a thing in court if he says he wants custody or partial custody, or if he wants to prevent you from moving. Unless he's abusive and you can prove it, he will have rights over her that you will have to deal with.

OK, my 1st reaction is to please as much as child support is important and needed in your daughter's life, do not make it part of the package for her father's visitation or custody agreement. I know that your lawyer will address both issues for you, but in other words, if something should happen, for instance he were to get laid off or a lower paying job and fell behind in his payments, please do not ever let that keep him from seeing his daughter if he is still trying to come and see her and wants to see her. As a custodial parent of 2 children who I recieve child support for, I do understand how hard it can be when the other parent isn't paying their child support for months on end, and then tells you (or the kids) about their latest vacation to Aruba, their new BMW, (while you are driving a van much older than your children that barely keeps from breaking dowm and has no AC), his new video game system, his new ipad, and the 60" HD flat screen plasma tv that he just bought to put in the "game room" that he had refurbished in the house he just bought ..... all while he is getting further behind in his CS pmts because he had his hours cut at work and simply can't "afford" to make his payments. UGH!
The reason I say this though, is because it won't really do you any good. Your daughter does love her father, and will only direct her anger toward you. You will only be hurting her in the end. Money and visitation are 2 very different things. I know that my own children very quickly saw all that their parent was doing with his money and heard his telling me he didn't have the CS money, he had a big mouth and couldn't wait to talk when they were out of ear shot and figured they were to young to understand, so they came up with their own opinion of him, which seems to be that they love him, but he is selfish and likes to spend his money on him, not them. Their needs don't come first. As far as the moving to Canada goes, see how the lawyer goes, but I would try to give the soon to be ex a chance first, just for my child's sake. I wouldn't want that thrown in my face years later. (and believe me they always do much later) If he doesn't take advantage of the time to come and spend quality time with his child on a regular basis after a year to 18 months, then I would pack up and go live wherever I wanted to live. He had his chance and you need to go where you can be happy and get the family support and support of your friends that will ensure you and your daughter are happy and healthy. Good luck! Divorce is never easy, especially with all of these variables! I'll be thinking of you! <3

I am not sure that you can take a child out of the USA without written consent of the other parent, even when you are together and just going on vacation, let alone moving. One thing you would want to do right away is get a duel citizenship for your child. A lot of fathers pay more attention to their children after they seperate because they realize what they are missing and there isn't someone else to leave it all to, so he may take more interest after he moves out. I hope this is the case for your little girl. It is heart breaking for a child to grow up without their father in their life. It will be costly but nessessary for her to go back and forth from Canada to the USA and you will probably be responisable for half of it.

Besides what everyone else is saying, you are saying you are Canadian, so do you have Canadian citizenship also? Does your child have Canadian citizenship already?

One thing is if you take your US citizen child into Canada from a US citizen dad - he can file for kidnapping and probably have her returned but that will have to go through international request, so will take a while. A worst thing for you here will be if you do not have a US citizenship yourself.
A completely different thing is if you take a dual citizenship daughter to Canada. Then Canada might not agree to return her since she is a citizen also. In this case it is better if you do not have a US citizenship.
By citizenship I mean not a fact that she is entitled to one, but that she already has a passport.

Dealing with international issues like that is a lot of headache and risk too, you might not get what you want at the end. I doubt that it is really what you are contemplating.

Courts usually never agree to move a child, when they make a decision they usually try to keep the life the child currently lives as much as possible - meaning same house same school same schedule, same spending habits.
Also, after the court decides on visitation schedule and it is signed and everything, it is really difficult to change it afterwards - you can but you have to apply and you have to have prove and if the dad does not agree that will not happen. It is worse for changing the custody arrangements after the fact.

So I say, get the best possible custody and visitation arrangement for yourself right from the start - whether it is via mediation or court. Don't count on being able to easily change that later.

Find a mediator first. Their goal is the best SOLUTION, not to "win".