# divorce and child custody when one parent is mentally unstable



## smorgasbord (May 28, 2013)

i am in the process of filing for divorce from my emotionally abusive husband. there is a good chance he will try to fight me for custody, not because he genuinely wants to raise our daughter but because he wants to hurt me the best way he knows how.

i'm not worried much about that because there is no way in hell anyone will grant him even 50/50 custody right now. i only work part time, but he has no stable job and is living off of his GI bill money and basically defrauding the government because he doesn't actually attend classes. i live with my parents and my mom watches our daughter while i work. i have been her primary caregiver since day 1, and our state has "tender years" laws in place that usually place custody with the primary caregiver (usually the mom) and visitation with the other parent until at least 3 years old (our daughter is 1).

what i am worried about is him being allowed unsupervised visitation. i would love, at some point, for him to be able to take our daughter for a few hours a couple days a week to his place to spend time with her. but i do not feel the least bit comfortable with that right now. 

he was diagnosed with depression in november and has been on and off 10mg lexapro since then. he has not seen anybody since then to be reassessed. he is unstable and will talk about not wanting anything to do with her if he and i are not going to be together, and the next minute he will say he is going to fight me for full custody. he gets angry and threatens to cause bodily harm to me in various ways and blames me for most of his problems.

in addition to that, he has never spent more than a few hours with her at a time. not even alone. any time he has watched her for more than 2 hours, other people have been present and have done most of the supervising. the last time he watched her alone it was for an hour and she broke the blinds because she wasn't being supervised. most of what he does with her involves showing her youtube videos on his phone and when she wants to get down and play, he spends the rest of the time on his phone and will let somebody else be responsible for her.

has anyone else been through a custody situation similar to this? i am just worried they will grant him access to her without me or my parents being there and given his behavior, the thought of that makes me extremely uncomfortable. at this point he is less of a father and more of a babysitter you wouldn't hire more than once.


----------



## Pluto2 (Aug 17, 2011)

You can request a mental evaluation by the courts and request supervised visitation. I can tell you being depressed won't stop him from obtaining some type of joint custody. The evaluation is easier to obtain than a supervised visitation requirement, but it varies. Some jurisdictions make both parents go to parenting class whenever custody is in dispute. Have you seen an attorney in your state to find out how the courts handle these types of concerns?


----------



## smorgasbord (May 28, 2013)

Pluto2 said:


> You can request a mental evaluation by the courts and request supervised visitation. I can tell you being depressed won't stop him from obtaining some type of joint custody. The evaluation is easier to obtain than a supervised visitation requirement, but it varies. Some jurisdictions make both parents go to parenting class whenever custody is in dispute. Have you seen an attorney in your state to find out how the courts handle these types of concerns?


that alone shouldn't stop him; mental illness by itself should never stop someone from being able to legally parent their children. it's that he's not responsible with it. he goes on and off his meds at random. and when he goes off them, he is a nightmare to be around and unpredictable.

i've got a bunch of screencaps of texts from him saying he doesn't want to be in her life if he can't be in mine and things of that nature. i'm not sure if that will be relevant in court.

i know that we are required to take a "parenting after divorce" class before we are granted a divorce but that's about it.

i have spoken briefly to my attorney about it during my initial consultation with her and she said we could put in a request for supervised visitation given his current state and behavior but she didn't say how likely that was to be granted.


----------



## helolover (Aug 24, 2012)

I recommend reading "Splitting" by this guy:

http://www.billeddy.com/books.htm

All available as kindle books from Amazon.com too.


----------

