My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Commonwealth of Virginia
This is quite a long, mess of a custody battle, but I will do my best to keep it as simple and short as possible.
I currently have temp sole custody of my late significant other's son; father passed away in October of 2017, he is 11 years old, and has been in our primary care since his biological mother's incarceration during the ages of 3 and 4 years old. Prior to her incarceration, without any court order established, she had been the primary care giver for the first 3 years of his life, with my late SO having him two days a week on average. Although, extenuating circumstances at times, including law trouble & substance abuse, occurred in which the father (my late SO) was awarded temporary emergency custody when his child was 2 years old, due to child neglect and endangerment. Child was removed again in 2012 due to his complaints of domestic violence, neglect, and unfit environment. This began the Divorce and Custody battle which resulted in the father being awarded joint primary physical custody with bio mom awarded weekend parenting time.
Fast forward to the present, in April 2017, our oldest son requested to be kept away and protected from his biological mother whom he had weekend visits with the majority of his life, due to the familiar on going neglect and other detrimental behaviors and environmental conditions, such as domestic violence and sporadic physical abuse, as well as the unfit living conditions. Once his father passed, I received emergency temp custody of him for fear bio mom may attempt to uproot his life. She requested & was awarded court ordered therapy between herself and their son, with the courts intent being to mend the relationship in turmoil for the good of the child's mental and emotional well being.
The therapy has helped the child let go of some anger and pain he has held onto, and allowed him to accept his love for her as his bio mother, yet his position on keeping his life and environment the same, at his established residence with me, his legal guardian & primary mother-figure (he calls me mom), has not changed. His desire is to be able to see her when he would like, along with at family holiday events, but without her having the control to force him into anything, specifically, the authority to make drastic changes to his life such as his residence with me and my role as his legal guardian and primary caregiver throughout his childhood. I believe his desires are very logical and reasonable for his age in this difficult situation. I fully support him and his desires in this. I feel it is important to maintain contact and continued support of his biological mother in hopes of genuine change of behavior within her, but I will always simultaneously protect him from any further harm or disappointment that could come from her, and I hope the court will give me the authority to do so. Let me also add, the bio mother is in arrears with child support in the thousands.
Anyway, I guess my question would be, now that I've given a brief background (yes, thats brief, believe it or not), how likely is it for the courts to allow me to maintain primary custody with the promise to keep the bio mother reasonably involved?
This is quite a long, mess of a custody battle, but I will do my best to keep it as simple and short as possible.
I currently have temp sole custody of my late significant other's son; father passed away in October of 2017, he is 11 years old, and has been in our primary care since his biological mother's incarceration during the ages of 3 and 4 years old. Prior to her incarceration, without any court order established, she had been the primary care giver for the first 3 years of his life, with my late SO having him two days a week on average. Although, extenuating circumstances at times, including law trouble & substance abuse, occurred in which the father (my late SO) was awarded temporary emergency custody when his child was 2 years old, due to child neglect and endangerment. Child was removed again in 2012 due to his complaints of domestic violence, neglect, and unfit environment. This began the Divorce and Custody battle which resulted in the father being awarded joint primary physical custody with bio mom awarded weekend parenting time.
Fast forward to the present, in April 2017, our oldest son requested to be kept away and protected from his biological mother whom he had weekend visits with the majority of his life, due to the familiar on going neglect and other detrimental behaviors and environmental conditions, such as domestic violence and sporadic physical abuse, as well as the unfit living conditions. Once his father passed, I received emergency temp custody of him for fear bio mom may attempt to uproot his life. She requested & was awarded court ordered therapy between herself and their son, with the courts intent being to mend the relationship in turmoil for the good of the child's mental and emotional well being.
The therapy has helped the child let go of some anger and pain he has held onto, and allowed him to accept his love for her as his bio mother, yet his position on keeping his life and environment the same, at his established residence with me, his legal guardian & primary mother-figure (he calls me mom), has not changed. His desire is to be able to see her when he would like, along with at family holiday events, but without her having the control to force him into anything, specifically, the authority to make drastic changes to his life such as his residence with me and my role as his legal guardian and primary caregiver throughout his childhood. I believe his desires are very logical and reasonable for his age in this difficult situation. I fully support him and his desires in this. I feel it is important to maintain contact and continued support of his biological mother in hopes of genuine change of behavior within her, but I will always simultaneously protect him from any further harm or disappointment that could come from her, and I hope the court will give me the authority to do so. Let me also add, the bio mother is in arrears with child support in the thousands.
Anyway, I guess my question would be, now that I've given a brief background (yes, thats brief, believe it or not), how likely is it for the courts to allow me to maintain primary custody with the promise to keep the bio mother reasonably involved?
Grandparents and Third Parties: How to Obtain Primary Custody of My Late Significant Other's Child
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