The Battle for Custody
This past year has been pretty intense for me and my twins. We left a wonderful area and relocated back to my home town, which just doesnt seem as vibrant and promising as where we were. However it was neccessary in order to leave a toxic relationship filled with abuse and neglect. Once we were physically free thats when the father and me began the dramatic and expensive battle for custody. These days im just disgusted by the lack of honest, supportive and hard working attorneys. Family law matters are usually very complex and require help from an attorney that is more than willing to really listen. Unfortunately, Money is the motive, and it controls everything. A good attorney committed to justice for your family who takes time to listen is devastatingly hard to find. There's also very little resources to actively protect primary parents from the manipulation, Exploitation, and financial blackmail or withholdings initiated by the secondary parent. When you fighting with anyone for something as important a child custody things can and will get ugly quickly. Whats worse is when the one you are up against is vindictive and cruel but is intelligant, charasmatic, and great at playing pretend. People who fall under that catagory are more dangerous than anything, especially during such an emotional journey. I had to take part in two seperate custody hearings, one in each state of residence. For the first case i hired an amazing and efficient attorney which quickly returned an outcome in mine and my childrens favor. For the second case initiated in a long distance state I was unjustly mislead by an attorney and played for his financial gain. I was left with no representation and it seemed all odds were stacking up against me. Bad timing and bad luck got me From random accidents leading to serious injury to getting pulled by highway police while driving illegally more than 620 miles multiple times to appear in these court proceedings for custody. In the end it worked out pretty equally, and even though thats not always a good things, and in my case definately not the right thing, It is far from the worst thing. The worst thing obviously would have been if i was striped of my custodial right, or lost custody and granted no visitation with my children. Although those scenarios werent very likely to begin with they were still possible and could have suddenly become my reality. with Less than 3 days left until the final custody trial/hearing i chose to over ride my desire to win, my need to be right, and started making decisions that would gaurentee i wouldnt be kept from my babies, and i could continue overseeing their well being. In my particular situation there has been a true injustice, the villian has been precieved as the hero and was given the means to continue certian acts of abuse against me. However, this situation taught me to choose my battles wisely and shown the meaning of humbling. Now, ive just got to adjust and make the best of things.