Ooh boy. Follow

Tell your aunt to DIAF for me. Assuming you've been given all of the pertinent details and passed them all along here as well, there is no reason for her to get full custody from a willing, able and loving parent. I hope her first rebound fling has an 18 foot **** and spears her carcass on it when he's done.

So she's being spiteful? Understandable I suppose, but still she needs to calm the f*ck down before going forward with a custody battle.

This. Honestly, I'd support your uncle getting full custody over her (though I don't think either parent should be seeking it). She's THAT willing to ignore the well-fare of her kids?

My mother divorced her first husband (with whom she had two daughters) because he was a raging alcoholic. The kind of alcoholic that would get drunk instead of going to work, so he couldn't hold down a job. Would show up to pick up his kids drunk, if he showed up at all. There were even a few times where she had to flee the apartment with my sisters, because he was starting to get violent.

And know what she never did? ******* about him in front of my sisters. Neither of them can recall a time of her EVER insulting him or raging about him. She pretty much gave him a decently high custody percentage (at least every other weekend), and he would only show up for some of them, and would show up for others drunk (so my mother wouldn't let them go, but did so gracefully without screaming in his face).

Frankly, this guy was a hell of a lot worse than your uncle, whose offense seems like jaywalking in comparison to me. But the fact that it was handled gracefully (on her side, at least--on his not so much) saved my sisters a TON of stress.

Divorce is always going to be a ****** time for the kids. There is NO EXCUSE for either parent intentionally making it harder. On the contrary, both parties should be encouraging their children to never stop loving the other parent.

And, honestly, there's no reason they need to know the fine details. "We're getting divorced because I'm gay" is more than sufficient. "We're getting divorced because your father is a cheating ******* who rather stick it in boys than in women, so I'm asking for full-custody because there's no way you are safe with him" is not necessary or okay.

Nil pretty much nailed it. This ***** needs to calm down before she seriously damages her children. Anger isn't a justification, it's an excuse. This possibly applies to your uncle as well, who needs to take a step back and stop fueling her rage by getting angry himself.

All her rage is likely a rouse to throw off the trail of her cheating on him as well, I can give you the name of a few good PI's...

Seriously. I get that she has the right to be mad. Hell, she has the right to hate him with every fiber of her being if she wants to.

But that doesn't excuse her getting the kids involved in this. Especially since I've seen little in this thread to suggest that he's a bad father. And a hell of a lot to know that, at least right now, she's being a horrendous mother.

And, honestly, if he has problems with the courts because of the gay thing, there are decent advocacy groups that will help him out. This isn't an uncommon situation, at all, because so many gay men got married and had kids, like he did (of course, he might be bi as well). But, y'know, he likes men. Is he going to go without sex for the rest of his life?

People can fool themselves into thinking they can, but most don't have that kind of willpower.

So plenty of lawyers have a lot of experience dealing with this exact same scenario.

I wonder if some element of the "get full custody" push in these situations comes from a desire to cut all ties with the other party (rather that it all just being a revenge thing).

I mean, if you have joint custody, then the other person will still be involved in your life, to some degree. You might have to see them from time to time. And even if you don't, you'll still hear about them, you may have to schedule around them, and you witness the effect that their parenting has on your kids. I'm sure it can get rough.

I bet that's part of the attempt to get full custody sometimes. Breaks are easier when you can completely cut ties with somebody.

Edited, Jul 21st 2011 12:53pm by Eske