Ex husband forbids contact with my 8 year old son

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ledis80

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well, it is a long story but heartbreaking for me, i got divorced 3 years ago after a almost 7 year marriage, and had a son with my ex husband.
after the divorce we had shared custody which allowed me to see my son every weekend and so on. but things got hard for me in the beginning of 2008 like loosing the job, no money, got evicted and wrong choice of friends. so in the summer of 2008 i decided to move in with my sister in another state to get my life back on track.
i got there, found a job but soon after had to quit due to bad work ethics. well anyways, 4 days after i arrived at my sisters house my ex husband send me a request for change of custody to full custody for him which included numerous lies including that he lied about the place and country my son was born in, he lied about me being a drug addict and mentally ill. i tried to go to court but could not afford to drive all the way to arizona so my ex husband got full custody, included sayin that i have to give him a 2 week notice if i want to see my son and that it has to be supervised. i also got ordered to pay $500 dollars of child support per month because he lied about my income being 16.50 while i was being without any income, i only had on money whatever my sister decided to pay me for watching her 2 children. which was litterally maybe $20 dollars a week. anyhow, since summer of 2008 i have not seen my son once, every time i ask my ex to let me see him he comes up with another excuse. also he allows me to talk to my son once in a while, but only when he calls me, i am not allowed to call his account, (it is skype via the internet, but he does not allow any video calls,) i received 5 photos of my son within the last 3 years, never any phone calls on special occasions like christmas, birthday, mothersday or any other special day.
right now he is in korea for the last 2 years which he gave me a 2 day notice before he left the country to move there.
he demands i pay child support, yet i have not gotten any info on my son. he refuses to let me know how tall or heavy my child is, nor will he allow me to send any clothing or anything else on toys then what he says i am allowed to send. if i get a phonecall from my son it is mostly 5 minutes long. he himself set the phonecall schedule for saturdays at 7pm, weekly, but i am lucky if i get one phonecall a month and usually it is not around the time he said. he said he is caling at 7pm but it has been numerous times that i sit on the internet waiting for a phonecall for more than 4 hours after the scheduled time.. he constantly gives me excuses why i cant get a call or why i cant see my son. the last time i requested to see my son he told me i have to come to korea, give up my passport and other identification, be escorted by the military police and so on.
is there anything i can do? do i have any rights or is he the only one that has the right to set the rules?
please help me, it is breaking my heart having to beg him to let me talk to my son.
nadine
 
You have a mess. Your solution is to get back into the court with jurisdiction on this and get a new visitation agreement. Custody and visitation are different issues. You won't be denied reasonable visitation without good cause. It sounds like right now you don't have any visitation order for anyone to enforce in order to help you out. You will have to go back to court. The court makes the rules, not your ex.
 
I have a different take on this.

He has been in Korea with your son for TWO YEARS?

Then Dad will (correctly) claim that Korea would have jurisdiction over the child and that Mom cannot file anything in the US relating to her son at this point ; it is also on a practical level far too late to object to the move. Dad does actually hold all the cards in this situation.
 
Is the child's father in Korea as amember of the US military?

Is the child a US citizen?

Does the child hold any other citizenship?

In what state were you divorced?

Has a court stripped you of your maternal rights?

What have you done to improve your life?

How much in arrears are you in regards to child support?

Do you have a copy of the divorce decree, child support order, and visitation order?
 
One more thing, madam, if your "ex" is a Korean national having repatriated to his homeland two years ago (please be seated before continuing)...












and you don't have oodles of money......(are you sitting down)














getting to see your son might be very, very hard; if not impossible.










If your "baby daddy" is a US serviceman, there could be some hope!!!!!
 
my ex husband is a us citizen, but not in the military, i myself am a german citizen and my son is dual... does that explain it any better?
 
It does, but unfortunately it doesn't help you.

As long as Dad and the child are legal residents of Korea - then that's where you're going to need to fight this out.

Yes, it's possible for a different country to have legal jurisdiction over a US citizen.
 
my ex husband is a us citizen, but not in the military, i myself am a german citizen and my son is dual... does that explain it any better?
the court has not stripped me of any maternal rights, my ex husband was given full custody and i am allowed supervised visits with my son.
we got married in germany but divorced in tucson arizona.
when he filed for full custody he included numerous lies, therefore it was ordered by the judge that the custody agreement can be modiefied once i appear in front of the tucson court showing a drug and mental screening.
can i transfer the case to california court or is it better to just start a new case?
i know that most likely i wont get full custody of my son due to not having seen him in almost 3 years, but the ex forbids it.
but atleast i want visitation to start with it.. after that of course i will file for custody of my son.
i know it is bad that i have not paid any child support, but i am jobless since end of 08 and currently enrolled in college to pursue my carrer in criminal justice and am also trying to find a half day job to help cover the expenses.

so therefore, i am confused as since above i read korea has the rights, do i stand a chance if i file for any changes in the custody and visitation in california? since i am a resident i thought it would be possible to do so..
 
Hon, you really need to speak with an attorney.

If you haven't paid child support, and had no contact...it's even possible (though I can't say how likely) that your parental rights were terminated involuntarily.

The biggest problem you have is jurisdiction. Two nations cannot both have jurisdiction over a custody matter and although your original agreement was decided in the US, your ex and your son appear to be legal residents of Korea - they do meet local requirements, even though they are not Korean nationals. That means your ex can fight the US retaining jurisdiction.

Even if we assume that you can successfully fight for jurisdiction to remain here, Dad will have to be served with everything you file - how are you going to do that if he's in Korea?

I really do feel for you - but I cannot see you changing anything at all unless you hire a top-notch attorney who is familiar with international custody cases, or unless Dad returns permanently to the US.
 
yes i have thought about that and when he went to korea in 2009 he told me it would only be for 2 years because that is when his contract runs out.. however, when last year in september i returned to the U.S, i asked him when in 2011 he will be returning to arizona and his answer to me was that he thinks he is going to stay in korea for a while longer because due to me he is in such a bad financial crisis since he does not get paid as much as he made in the military.. fact is though that when we were still maried he questioned being the father of our son, still to this day tells everyone i tricked him into becoming a father and in front of 2 police officers told me back in 2008 that he is going to make sure i will never see my son again, well since i only seen my son for 1 hour and that was back in 2008. i am pretty sure that he does all this to hurt my feelings, and even his new wife, (the reason why i divorced him was that she moved in before i moved out) tells me things like i am not my sons mother nor do i hold more rights to him than having given birth to him and so on.. there is so much more to this story that it is hard to keep up the faith.
i atleast want some visitation rights with my son, and even though i numerous times had the chance to buy a plane ticket to korea and rent a hotel room and all that he tells me i can only see my son for 2 hours. how am i supposed to understnad that i have to invest all this money yet am only allowed to see him for 2 hours... i am ordered to pay child support but where are my rights as a parent?
also, since he put numerous lies into the papers that he filed in order to obtain custody do i have the right to let the judge know? for example he told the judge my son was born in tucson arizona, when in fact my son was born in germany... cant he get prosecuted for lying to the judge? and how do i go about getting legal help or aid with no income?
 
I truly am sorry for your plight - it really is heartbreaking.

But legal aid is not going to be able to help you, in all likelihood - they are very much limited by funding and this is a case which spans two continents, which is going to make the costs of litigation skyrocket.

I honestly don't know what else to suggest. You can try legal aid, or charity groups, to see if they can offer some suggestions. You can also try the State Bar Association referral service to see if there are any pro bono groups able to assist you.

To answer your last questions, the time in which you could have brought up those things has long since past. Even if he lied or misrepresented the facts, you've had two years in which you could have challenged the findings.
 
well, all i can say is thank you for your honesty.
i just guess that my best bet is to wait out until he is back in the U.S to file for anything or maybe just see if me and him will find any kind of middle on anything concerning my son.
i will just have to talk to a lawyer about visitation right and see what he has to say.
but thanks so much for the honesty, atleast it isnt any false hope.
 
I wonder what would happen if a mother from Germany took her son in Korea back to Germany?
I'll bet German laws and the government would protect her!
 
yes they would protect me and my son since he is dual citizen, but i would never do such a thing...
that is also why my ex husband wants me to, if i want to go all the way to korea, to see my son for 2 hours only, to give up all kind of identification i own and be escorted by the military police since he thinks i would kidnapp my own son..
but why, in all honesty, would i spend thousands of dollars on a plain ticked to korea and back, rent a hotel room, a car or spend money on a taxi if all i get is 2 hours with my son?
 
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