Do you personally know of any situation where the father was granted primary full custody?

[Anonymous]

FIL had full custody in the 70s. MIL walked out on the kids to pursue her career.

[Anonymous]

Yes--but it was uncontested by the ex-wife. She had borderline personality disorder and was bipolar.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my cousin fought for and won full custody from his XW. She was definitely unstable, but I don't know the details of how he documented it. He is an MD in a lucrative specialty, I think she quit her RN job when they got married.

He lives in IL.

[Anonymous]

He didn't get full custody, but got majority. She was a cheating whore. He did his research, hired a PI and caught her red handed. Male judge, he didn't have any sympathy for her. He wanted her to have some custody as it's important for a girl to have her mother.

It's like a 70/30 split with him having the majority.

[Anonymous]

Yes but his ex was a drug addict.

[Anonymous]

Yes my husband (my step son)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a divorce attorney, I have seen fathers get primary custody only in three circumstances:

(1) Mom doesn't want custody (used to be unheard of early in my practice, but now, in my 23rd year of practice, roughly once a year, I come across a mom who doesn't want custody).

(2) Father is a stay at home dad or works very little and has been the kids' primary caretaker for a long time.

(3) Mom has severe and documented mental or substance abuse problems. If the problems aren't documented, the man will need a slew of witnesses with nothing to gain (so, for instance, kids' teacher but not dad's meddling mom who is eager to edge out biological mom).

I have never seen a man get primary custody against an involved, normal mother who is fighting for custody. The most he can hope for is 50/50.

Can you bracket normal for us? Is averagely flawed, with cause for the occasional nothing-to-gain-witness's disapproval OK? The story upthread of the mom with very little visitation rights because "she came across as angry and vindictive" is terrifying. If someone was using expensive lawyers that I couldn't afford to take my kids away from me, in addition to whatever had led to the divorce, I just might come across as angry and vindictive too.

PP divorce lawyer here. I always roll my eyes when friends or relatives of the parent who lost custody claim their friend/relative was amazing and lost custody just because the spouse was richer or the non-custodial parent made a minor error like seeming upset in upsetting circumstances. There are certainly very biased, awful judges out there, but it is RARE that custody comes down to such simplistic factors. A lot of times friends and families aren't aware of the skeletons in the non-custodial parent's closet and are just speaking out of turn.

If your anger and vindictiveness make you do crazy things like go nuts in court, stalk your ex, or say insane things to the kids that your ex finds out about, then that's going to hurt your custody bid. If you can't control yourself when you have so much on the line, then maybe you really aren't the person little kids should be left with. But even that likely won't be dispositive of your custody fight unless you do something really crazy like physically attack your ex, have a series of outbursts in court, AND your ex has other documented instances of you being unstable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He didn't get full custody, but got majority. She was a cheating whore. He did his research, hired a PI and caught her red handed. Male judge, he didn't have any sympathy for her. He wanted her to have some custody as it's important for a girl to have her mother.

It's like a 70/30 split with him having the majority.

PP divorce lawyer here. Cheating alone isn't why a judge will make a custody ruling unless she was doing something that showed seriously poor judgment (like leaving her child alone with the affair partner for long periods early in the affair). There is more to the story that you don't know or aren't telling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the woman is the one who wants to break-up the family, than yes the father gets custody.

WTF?

[Anonymous]

The only case that I know of, the mom originally had full custody and the dad had a couple of weekends a month. (It was a long distance situation.). Mom tried to cut off those visits with untrue abuse allegations; dad went back to court and was eventually awarded full custody. Nasty court battle.

[Anonymous]

My best friend in high school and her older sister lived 100% of the time with dad. Mom had visits or meetings with them maybe once or twice a year which was usually just lunch out. She was definitely deemed "unfit" and i seem to remember it was due to substance abuse and reckless behavior. She had previously been married to a guy for like 3 weeks. Someone she met in a bar...

[Anonymous]

Why was she such a bitch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He didn't get full custody, but got majority. She was a cheating whore. He did his research, hired a PI and caught her red handed. Male judge, he didn't have any sympathy for her. He wanted her to have some custody as it's important for a girl to have her mother.

It's like a 70/30 split with him having the majority.

PP divorce lawyer here. Cheating alone isn't why a judge will make a custody ruling unless she was doing something that showed seriously poor judgment (like leaving her child alone with the affair partner for long periods early in the affair). There is more to the story that you don't know or aren't telling.

PP here:
Nope, he made more money, was pretty a good dad and that was it. She was the one who went out and destroyed the marriage, not him. They went to counseling and he had decided he wasn't going to forgive. Good for him.

I'm not sure how long after he found out she was still seeing him - but she was screwing the other guy for at least three months.

In any case, he got what he wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He didn't get full custody, but got majority. She was a cheating whore. He did his research, hired a PI and caught her red handed. Male judge, he didn't have any sympathy for her. He wanted her to have some custody as it's important for a girl to have her mother.

It's like a 70/30 split with him having the majority.

PP divorce lawyer here. Cheating alone isn't why a judge will make a custody ruling unless she was doing something that showed seriously poor judgment (like leaving her child alone with the affair partner for long periods early in the affair). There is more to the story that you don't know or aren't telling.

PP here:
Nope, he made more money, was pretty a good dad and that was it. She was the one who went out and destroyed the marriage, not him. They went to counseling and he had decided he wasn't going to forgive. Good for him.

I'm not sure how long after he found out she was still seeing him - but she was screwing the other guy for at least three months.

In any case, he got what he wanted.

New poster. I don't believe your story either.

Plus you seem pretty angry and biased.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the woman is the one who wants to break-up the family, than yes the father gets custody.

WTF?

The misuse of 'than' should show what we're dealing with there.