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I have returned to this board to plead for advice.
My situation is quite complex. I have a 5 year old daughter and the mother and I have been separated since 2004. I do not have joint custody, only access. There are other issues involved with my current situation that make it damn near impossible to divine exactly what I should be doing. I am concerned for my daughter's care at the moment, and while I don't believe she is in any serious danger of physical harm, I sincerely believe the environment in which she lives is not healthy or stable, and there is no reason to believe it will be in the future.
I will try to be brief, but it's very difficult.
- Ex-wife left Ontario with my daughter in September 05 with new boyfriend without my approval. I was not knowledgeable enough of my rights at the time to prevent them.
- in late October 05, ex and BF got into physical altercation, resulting in my daughter being removed from home to foster care.
- ex told me she wanted me to have custody, she couldn't handle it.
- I proceeded to set things in motion on my own without attorney.
- ex revoked her wish for me to have custody. broke off contact with ex.
- i continued to proceed since I still had issues about her abilities to care for daughter.
- 45-day foster care order issued by BC court for daughter, Nov. 10.
- I first proceeded without a lawyer, but eventually hired one, and a few months later, ordering my daughter released to me immediately.
- After traveling to BC to meet with them on Dec 20. foster care agency contacted by their lawyers informing them that Ontario court overturned my Dec. 9 order based on daughter's residency being long enough to transfer jurisdiction to BC court. Also cited my failure to prevent them from leaving beforehand as tacit approval of move.
- my lawyer advised me it was now a BC matter and he was powerless to represent me, suggested i contact legal aid BC
- legal aid BC took my application on Dec. 20, but later informed me I had to apply in Ontario since I was resident there, and then have it transfered. I was already turned down by ontario legal aid previously.
That was my first tussle with them. Since then, the situation has not improved.
- Ex and boyfriend relocated to Newfoundland in 2006, and eventually got married. Situation between myself and ex calmed, and she allowed me to visit drew on several occasions when finances allowed.
- In July 2008, ex's new husband abandoned them, later citing he could not handle living with her due to her continued mental issues. There had been continuous allegations of spousal abuse from both of them throughout their relationship.
- Ex once again expressed a desire to give me custody of my child. once again, I set things in motion. Three days later, she once again retracted it.
- On my last visit to see my daughter for her July birthday, my ex was clearly incapable of functioning. She was often seen sobbing loudly, hermitizing herself in her room, and displaying severe mood swings. At one point, she displayed vocal aggression toward me regarding a relatively ineffectual issue and forbade me from seeing Drew for the remainder of my trip. I was forced to inform the local CAS in order to report the situation at the home which I had witnessed first hand. Unfortunately, nothing serious was ever done by the agency and I was unable to get action on this before I departed the province or upon my return home.
Throughout all of this, my primary concern has been for my daughter's best situation. My ex continues to display and admit to her incapability to properly care for our daughter -- even posting several videos on YouTube announcing this. Here is one: YouTube - I give up. Apart from this, I have been keeping exhaustive records of court proceedings, emails, IM conversations, anything that documents the quality of life at my daughters home. I simply am out of options as to what to do with it all, or whom to give it too.
Many of my friends and family believe that the best situation would be for her to be in my custody and return to Ontario. The problem is that there is an inter-provincial aspect to this entire thing that I have not been able to overcome. Although the original custody order was in Ontario, it was overturned by a BC court. To my knowledge there is no court file in Newfoundland.
My ex, seen in the video, has displayed willingness to put our child in foster care until she 'gets herself right', and also to make arrangements to live with me. Having heard this song twice before, I believe it not one bit. My biggest fear is that the moment I make any move toward anything that denigrates her, she will pull the carpet out from beneath me again -- of this I am sure. At that point, she will cut me off (from visits, daily phone calls, etc.) from my child, and my only option will be to win, or lose contact, it seems.
I cannot afford a lawyer without borrowing large sums of money from other sources, which are not really available either in my current situation. Legal Aid will not speak to me, since I work, but fall into that netherworld where I don't qualify, but also cannot afford representation on my own. Even so, any lawyer I do hire would, it seems, have to be resident in the same province as the child, which makes everything more complicated. I cannot relocate there to pursue this due to my current job, which I would need to prove that I'm a reliable caregiver and win the case.
I am being pressured by many of my friends and family to 'move hell or high water' in order to get my child out of there. I have even been offered moral support by her ex-husband, and her own mother, when she was alive, who also helped out with the legal fees in my BC campaign. But, quite frankly, none of these people have any real clue as to how to overcome my current obstacles.
So I turn to you. I feel overwhelmed, powerless, confused, beaten and guilty about how my child may be affected in ways that I am not aware of with my current level of contact. What can I do? What is the best and quickest way to ensure her proper care? I have been told by legal advisers and people in the know that the odds are stacked against me, because I'm a white male, and therefore regarded as evil, and the only way to achieve custody is to throw gobs of money at it and wait several years.
I need to know this isn't the case. And if it truly is, then I need to learn a way to go around it or plow through it, or otherwise take action to ensure my child is in a safe and nurturing situation, whatever that may be.
I thank you all in advance for your attention.
My situation is quite complex. I have a 5 year old daughter and the mother and I have been separated since 2004. I do not have joint custody, only access. There are other issues involved with my current situation that make it damn near impossible to divine exactly what I should be doing. I am concerned for my daughter's care at the moment, and while I don't believe she is in any serious danger of physical harm, I sincerely believe the environment in which she lives is not healthy or stable, and there is no reason to believe it will be in the future.
I will try to be brief, but it's very difficult.
- Ex-wife left Ontario with my daughter in September 05 with new boyfriend without my approval. I was not knowledgeable enough of my rights at the time to prevent them.
- in late October 05, ex and BF got into physical altercation, resulting in my daughter being removed from home to foster care.
- ex told me she wanted me to have custody, she couldn't handle it.
- I proceeded to set things in motion on my own without attorney.
- ex revoked her wish for me to have custody. broke off contact with ex.
- i continued to proceed since I still had issues about her abilities to care for daughter.
- 45-day foster care order issued by BC court for daughter, Nov. 10.
- I first proceeded without a lawyer, but eventually hired one, and a few months later, ordering my daughter released to me immediately.
- After traveling to BC to meet with them on Dec 20. foster care agency contacted by their lawyers informing them that Ontario court overturned my Dec. 9 order based on daughter's residency being long enough to transfer jurisdiction to BC court. Also cited my failure to prevent them from leaving beforehand as tacit approval of move.
- my lawyer advised me it was now a BC matter and he was powerless to represent me, suggested i contact legal aid BC
- legal aid BC took my application on Dec. 20, but later informed me I had to apply in Ontario since I was resident there, and then have it transfered. I was already turned down by ontario legal aid previously.
That was my first tussle with them. Since then, the situation has not improved.
- Ex and boyfriend relocated to Newfoundland in 2006, and eventually got married. Situation between myself and ex calmed, and she allowed me to visit drew on several occasions when finances allowed.
- In July 2008, ex's new husband abandoned them, later citing he could not handle living with her due to her continued mental issues. There had been continuous allegations of spousal abuse from both of them throughout their relationship.
- Ex once again expressed a desire to give me custody of my child. once again, I set things in motion. Three days later, she once again retracted it.
- On my last visit to see my daughter for her July birthday, my ex was clearly incapable of functioning. She was often seen sobbing loudly, hermitizing herself in her room, and displaying severe mood swings. At one point, she displayed vocal aggression toward me regarding a relatively ineffectual issue and forbade me from seeing Drew for the remainder of my trip. I was forced to inform the local CAS in order to report the situation at the home which I had witnessed first hand. Unfortunately, nothing serious was ever done by the agency and I was unable to get action on this before I departed the province or upon my return home.
Throughout all of this, my primary concern has been for my daughter's best situation. My ex continues to display and admit to her incapability to properly care for our daughter -- even posting several videos on YouTube announcing this. Here is one: YouTube - I give up. Apart from this, I have been keeping exhaustive records of court proceedings, emails, IM conversations, anything that documents the quality of life at my daughters home. I simply am out of options as to what to do with it all, or whom to give it too.
Many of my friends and family believe that the best situation would be for her to be in my custody and return to Ontario. The problem is that there is an inter-provincial aspect to this entire thing that I have not been able to overcome. Although the original custody order was in Ontario, it was overturned by a BC court. To my knowledge there is no court file in Newfoundland.
My ex, seen in the video, has displayed willingness to put our child in foster care until she 'gets herself right', and also to make arrangements to live with me. Having heard this song twice before, I believe it not one bit. My biggest fear is that the moment I make any move toward anything that denigrates her, she will pull the carpet out from beneath me again -- of this I am sure. At that point, she will cut me off (from visits, daily phone calls, etc.) from my child, and my only option will be to win, or lose contact, it seems.
I cannot afford a lawyer without borrowing large sums of money from other sources, which are not really available either in my current situation. Legal Aid will not speak to me, since I work, but fall into that netherworld where I don't qualify, but also cannot afford representation on my own. Even so, any lawyer I do hire would, it seems, have to be resident in the same province as the child, which makes everything more complicated. I cannot relocate there to pursue this due to my current job, which I would need to prove that I'm a reliable caregiver and win the case.
I am being pressured by many of my friends and family to 'move hell or high water' in order to get my child out of there. I have even been offered moral support by her ex-husband, and her own mother, when she was alive, who also helped out with the legal fees in my BC campaign. But, quite frankly, none of these people have any real clue as to how to overcome my current obstacles.
So I turn to you. I feel overwhelmed, powerless, confused, beaten and guilty about how my child may be affected in ways that I am not aware of with my current level of contact. What can I do? What is the best and quickest way to ensure her proper care? I have been told by legal advisers and people in the know that the odds are stacked against me, because I'm a white male, and therefore regarded as evil, and the only way to achieve custody is to throw gobs of money at it and wait several years.
I need to know this isn't the case. And if it truly is, then I need to learn a way to go around it or plow through it, or otherwise take action to ensure my child is in a safe and nurturing situation, whatever that may be.
I thank you all in advance for your attention.
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