Custody Order After Short Reconciliation

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Georgia.

Ok in the early part of last year I filed for divorce from my wife and at the temporary hearing she was granted physical custody of our children. Since that time, we've had two other modification hearings. At the first modification hearing, the judge ordered her to not allow her boyfriend to have any contact with the children whatsoever because he has an extensive drug and family violence criminal history. Before the end of 2012, she attempted suicide and was institutionalized. Another hearing was held and the same judge who heard the first modification granted me physical custody and ordered her to have supervised visitations and upheld the issues related to the boyfriend. At the beginning of this year, we decided to try to work it out by reconciliation and did so for roughly 3 months until I caught her with the ex boyfriend and she left. During those 3 months we reconciled, she was institutionalized twice more for mental health reasons and about to be picked up again for the same thing.

My question is whether or not my custody order from before is valid and if not how do I protect myself in this circumstance. My understanding of custody orders in Georgia is that they are valid until a judge states otherwise and reverses or dissolves it completely.

The most recent order is still in effect, even if you reconciled for a bit.

Don't worry Dad, you're good. :)

The present status of your divorce case is what? Has your divorce remained pending this whole time?

Yes, until the court either terminates the order, or the order is replaced by a new or updated order, it remains in effect indefinately. In cases like this, the judge would issue the order and anticipate that if mom were ever to get herself to a point where she felt capable of challenging the order, she'd do so. Glad for the sake of your children that you took the steps you needed to in order to get the children safely into your care!

The other issue is that even if, at some future point, mom gets herself together and wants to challenge the order, odds are not in her favor. Multiple suicide attempts and institutionalizations worry judges, and, every day that goes by with the children in your care is another day of stability for them> Judges are VERY reluctant to disrupt children's lives by altering custody unless there are DIRE reasons to do so - such as the circumstances that resulted in you being awarded custody. In other words, mom won't just be able to pop up some day and say "ok, I'm ready to have them back". She'd have to prove not only that ALL of the issues related to her loosing custody are appropriately solved to the satisfaction of the judge (not easy), AND she really have to prove that YOU are unfit or the children are in some sort of danger such that moving them yet again would be in their best interest. That is a HUGE burden to overcome (as you've seen, first hand). Otherwise the court is most likely to find it in the child's best interest to MAINTAIN the stability they are building with you now.

Thank you all so much for the replies and yes it's still been pending the whole time.

So if she shows up out of turn I just go by the current order?

Yeap, go by the current order. I would find it difficult to believe that you'd be held in contempt for sticking to the order!

Sounds good. Thank you all so much for your responses. I was pretty sure but when in doubt, ask the interwebs, right?

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Quoting smackdaddiest1

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Sounds good. Thank you all so much for your responses. I was pretty sure but when in doubt, ask the interwebs, right?

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LOL absolutely. Come back any time you want :D

I didn't know if this deserved its own thread or not, so I just added into this one....

I just found out yesterday through my own checking that the last custody order was never signed by the judge. The motion was heard on December 18th, 2012. It's not as if there was any problem, I believe it just got lost in the shuffle of paperwork and never got signed. The attorney that I have is really a friend, he doesn't even practice family law regularly, he took this to help me out as a favor so I hate continuously asking him for stuff. It's not that he's a bad attorney, he's really a great attorney, he's just hard to get in touch with on occasion. When I spoke to his paralegal earlier this week, she looked in the file to see if they had a copy of the order and they did have an unsigned one. My attorney told her that he didn't feel comfortable calling the judge's office about it at this point. He's done a great job for me, so I would feel like a real doucher if I asked him to withdraw at this point, but at the same time I know enough about the case I feel somewhat safe representing myself since I'm in no position to "hire" another attorney.

Part 2 of this is I haven't heard a word from my (ex)wife since she left the other day. She hasn't showed up to her mental health appointments, hasn't been communicating with family members, and no one knows for sure where she is. Her mental health counselor told her mother that if she had shown for her appointment the other day, they were going to mandate her to an inpatient mental health treatment for 30 days, but she never showed.

My question is this: If I motion the court to modify the custody order again, is there any way I can ask the judge to mandate her to that 30 day inpatient treatment before she's allowed visitation with the children. Keep in mind, her visitations are already supervised because of the mental health issues from before. I also do not want to come across as being vindictive in any way, as it's actually my children's wish that she get this inpatient treatment. Also, the attorney issue puts a slight damper on things as well.

Would I be out of turn to call the judge's secretary and find out about the last order not being signed? My guess is yes, which is why I haven't done it.

Sorry for the long "question", it's just been weighing on my mind all night.

In custody cases, when a judge issues a ruling from the bench the judge normally expects the court to follow its rulings. But as they say, "Courts speak through their orders," and if you want to be sure that you'll be able to enforce an order you need to make sure that it's reduced to writing and entered by the court. Normally one of the parties gets the task of preparing for entry a written order consistent with the court's findings, and it's possible that the problem arose when no order was prepared by that party; that should be reflected in the record.

The judge isn't going to require inpatient treatment, let alone an arbitrary amount of such treatment, based upon your say-so. If her counselor testifies that she's in a fragile mental state and requires a thirty day period of inpatient treatment to stabilize her medications and mental condition, and that she poses a danger to herself or others if she does not get the treatment, then it's possible that the judge would impose additional restrictions on visitation pending treatment - but we can't address this with any certainty without the detailed facts (way more than you should post in a forum, even assuming you have all of the relevant facts).

I suggest starting with your lawyer to determine if the court was preparing its own order or if one was to be submitted by one of the parties and, if the latter, whether or not an order was ever prepared for submission and the status of that proposed order.