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There NEEDS to be a nationwide discourse regarding the discrepancy in how family court judges handle termination of parental rights versus how they are handled in foster care cases. If I was not in the picture, the county would have stepped in and my ex would have lost his rights years ago. But because I am stable, it falls on ME to file for termination, and it likely won’t be granted, because Family Court is built upon the (flawed) premise that “it is in the best interests of children that they benefit from frequent and continuing contact from both parents” (no matter how f#cked up the parent may be).
This screenshot is from a free legal resource where I asked if this new information would finally be the nail in the coffin. Nope, even a murder at his home is not enough. And no, he is not a suspect, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the actual murderer.
Quick breakdown of events:
· I initially divorced my ex because he’d spiraled into addiction and was using meth. He denied this, which led to a year-long wild goose chase of him failing over 10 (!) drug tests and denying the results of each one.
· During this time, I was forced to allow visits to continue at his house. The children would come home with terrible stories of witnessing CPR, sleeping on the floor next to people who were passed out, missing school because dad took them to the casino instead, and on and on. The judge insisted that “drug abuse is not necessarily child abuse”.
· My son came home from a visit and complained that he had asked for water in the middle of the night and that his dad’s friend gave him some, but it tasted like smoke and made him feel funny. I took him to a drug testing facility and it came back positive for meth.
· Finally, ex was put on supervised visitation and a step-up plan. The terms of the step-up plan were: At a random time, the supervised visitation monitor would direct him to take a drug test and he would have to comply. If he passed the drug test, he would gradually get unsupervised visits, starting with hours, then days. However, every time the monitor asked him to test he danced around it with absurd reasons for why he couldn’t. The monitor stopped asking.
It’s been 4 years now. No progress, and a murder at his house. Why can’t my children and I be free? And I HOPE FDS wouldn’t do this, because everyone else does, but please don’t shame me for choosing him or lump me in with him as a tweaker. He is not the man I married and I would have never chosen him if I knew how he would end up. Also, please no hate for the attorney who answered.
This is an honest answer based on experience and is what my former attorney, a female always advised me: Don’t rock the boat. Once you have supervised, you are very unlikely to get anything more. If you move to terminate rights altogether, judges will punish you and loosen the restrictions instead.
A child literally being given meth isn‘t enough to justify the termination of parental rights? That is just crazy. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
This is terrifying and so unsafe for the kids! I am so sorry. Have you thought of taking this to the media??? Consult with a lawyer first but discuss the matter at hand. Women need to rage a war on family court. A lot of women who tried to have full custody due to abusive fathers (sexual and physical) ended up losing custody all together against the Parental Alienation BS. Can you take your kids to a psychologist? Let them write a report?
If you were a father, you could quash a mother’s visitation rights on these exact facts in my state. Fathers are allowed to be shitty and still have access to their kids. Not the case with mothers, who are held to a much higher and unfair parenting standard.
this...is a nightmare.
i'd like Family Court to present current evidence that interaction with both parents provides maximum benefit to a child/children, especially in the case of one parent being a drug addict. i can think of about 5 million instances of it NOT being beneficial at all.
where is this premise coming from, Freud?
Family Court needs to update their proof.
I'm so sorry this is happening to you and your child :(
I actually have the somewhat controversial opinion that a child's safety and (physical and mental) wellbeing should ALWAYS be considered more important than any of the parents' rights or feelings. Always. Children are not their parents' property and there should not be an automatic or default right for any parent to interact with them if they haven proven themselves to be unfit or if the child has been proven to be safer and happier somewhere else (e.g. with other relatives, in a foster family or with adoptive parents).
And I know that that leads to controversial or sad situations where an actually loving parent will only be allowed supervised contact in a safe environment (or no contact at all) with their child because they cannot provide a safe environment themselves through no fault of their own (e.g. because they are mentally ill or became homeless without their own fault).
But the safety of a child is more important than their parent not being sad.
And the whole "I have a right to see MY child" is narcissistic, selfish behaviour of a parent who considers their child property, not a person. A parent who truly loves their child would recognize that being with them is not safe right now and would work on getting better and improving their own life instead of forcing contact. The fact that so many courts actually support this is a farce.
Hold up hide all identifying info first. Comb through your post