How to Get Out of an Awful Relationship with Full Paternal Custody

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

I am in an awful relationship and completely miserable and badly need whatever advice I can get. I don't even know where to start and am not sure I can fully articulate how awful I feel or fully communicate how sad I have become.

My issue is that I am in a completely dead end, unhealthy relationship with a wife who is somewhat unstable. I would have ended this relationship long ago but she regularly threatens to take our child from me and this is something that frightens me to no end. Thus, I simply put up with it despite knowing that this is not good for my child. A part of this refusal to let go comes from my nature as one who will put up with things much longer than I need to.

We have an 8 year old son who is absolutely my world, my heartbeat, my everything. We do absolutely everything together and I do almost everything for him. My wife does absolutely nothing. She goes to work, she comes home, she lays in bed and has no involvement with our child whatsoever. She never helps with the upkeep of the house and makes much more of a mess than anyone.

With respect to the upkeep of the house, I do all of the laundry, I wash all of the clothes, I clean the kitchen, I do all of the cooking...everything.

With respect to our child, I cook all of his meals, I bathe him, I help him get dressed (he is big enough to dress himself), I do his laundy, I help him with all of his homework, I register him for all of his activities and take him to those activities, I stay in contact with and meet with his teachers, and so on and so forth. None of this really matters to me, as I totally relish and am consumed with being the father of such a beautiful young son.

What bothers me is the fact that I have a wife who preys on this and threatens to take my son...my world... away from me if I threaten to leave her. The irony is that she has no seeming interest in his life. For example, she has only been to one of his soccer games and while she was there, she didn't even pay attention. When I do everything to raise our child, I really, really mean I do everything, despite having a successful career as a top-rated software engineer in a major, major technology company.

My biggest nightmare is losing custody of my child to her. In all honesty, I cannot even bear to share custody with her as I fear that she is incapable of taking care of him even 50% of the time. Once, when we were dating, she left her 11 year old daughter alone (unbeknownst to me until years later, after we were married and had our son) for the night. I was horrified and do not trust her to be any different or responsible with our son, should we have to share custody. She yells at him all of the time and is extremely critical of him even though he is the sweetest, most honest, kind and generally good natured child you can imagine. However, he pushes her away and has no respect for her...for which I get blamed--and make myself feel awful and responsible for.

I currently live in MA and am planning to move to NC in a few months. My company has approved my request to become a fully mobile employee and, as my family has a home in NC that needs someone to live in and take care of, I have decided that it would make financial sense to leave MA. My wife is planning to come and it is really putting a damper on my enthusiasm for this move when I know it could and should be a new start for me and my son. I don't even want her to come.

My family (even her parents) are all non-invasive but have spoken up to ask why I continue to deal with this. They all know that I am a nurturing type, but they have made it clear it has gone on for much too long and that my son and myself would be clearly better off without her. I just don't know where to start. Can anyone help me to begin to gain the courage to deal with this the right way?

I could continue to go on and on about how miserable I have become in this relationship and how much I know it is unhealthy to remain, but I think the above captures the general scenario pretty well.

Any advice would be amazing. Thanks.

No matter who is the primary parent, the other parent WILL have ample, unsupervised visitation. Some sort of joint physical custody is the norm, along with joint legal custody.

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Quoting jimmyjazz

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

I am in an awful relationship and completely miserable and badly need whatever advice I can get. I don't even know where to start and am not sure I can fully articulate how awful I feel or fully communicate how sad I have become.

My issue is that I am in a completely dead end, unhealthy relationship with a wife who is somewhat unstable. I would have ended this relationship long ago but she regularly threatens to take our child from me and this is something that frightens me to no end. Thus, I simply put up with it despite knowing that this is not good for my child. A part of this refusal to let go comes from my nature as one who will put up with things much longer than I need to.

We have an 8 year old son who is absolutely my world, my heartbeat, my everything. We do absolutely everything together and I do almost everything for him. My wife does absolutely nothing. She goes to work, she comes home, she lays in bed and has no involvement with our child whatsoever. She never helps with the upkeep of the house and makes much more of a mess than anyone.

With respect to the upkeep of the house, I do all of the laundry, I wash all of the clothes, I clean the kitchen, I do all of the cooking...everything.

With respect to our child, I cook all of his meals, I bathe him, I help him get dressed (he is big enough to dress himself), I do his laundy, I help him with all of his homework, I register him for all of his activities and take him to those activities, I stay in contact with and meet with his teachers, and so on and so forth. None of this really matters to me, as I totally relish and am consumed with being the father of such a beautiful young son.

What bothers me is the fact that I have a wife who preys on this and threatens to take my son...my world... away from me if I threaten to leave her. The irony is that she has no seeming interest in his life. For example, she has only been to one of his soccer games and while she was there, she didn't even pay attention. When I do everything to raise our child, I really, really mean I do everything, despite having a successful career as a top-rated software engineer in a major, major technology company.

My biggest nightmare is losing custody of my child to her. In all honesty, I cannot even bear to share custody with her as I fear that she is incapable of taking care of him even 50% of the time. Once, when we were dating, she left her 11 year old daughter alone (unbeknownst to me until years later, after we were married and had our son) for the night. I was horrified and do not trust her to be any different or responsible with our son, should we have to share custody. She yells at him all of the time and is extremely critical of him even though he is the sweetest, most honest, kind and generally good natured child you can imagine. However, he pushes her away and has no respect for her...for which I get blamed--and make myself feel awful and responsible for.

I currently live in MA and am planning to move to NC in a few months. My company has approved my request to become a fully mobile employee and, as my family has a home in NC that needs someone to live in and take care of, I have decided that it would make financial sense to leave MA. My wife is planning to come and it is really putting a damper on my enthusiasm for this move when I know it could and should be a new start for me and my son. I don't even want her to come.

My family (even her parents) are all non-invasive but have spoken up to ask why I continue to deal with this. They all know that I am a nurturing type, but they have made it clear it has gone on for much too long and that my son and myself would be clearly better off without her. I just don't know where to start. Can anyone help me to begin to gain the courage to deal with this the right way?

I could continue to go on and on about how miserable I have become in this relationship and how much I know it is unhealthy to remain, but I think the above captures the general scenario pretty well.

Any advice would be amazing. Thanks.

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Dad....you have some hurdles....

First, if both you and mom work its going to be difficult to prove that you have been the primary caretaker for the child. Not impossible, just very difficult.

Second, joint legal custody (joint decision making) is very much the norm and the odds of you not having to share custody with mom, even if you get primary custody are slim to none.

Third, if your son is disrespecting his mother, you bear some fault there. You should not be tolerating that, its not in your son's best interest.

Fourth, and the biggest problem of all, is that you want to relocate the child a very long distance away.

What you need is a consult with several different family law attorneys to get their take on your situation and to get their take on what the most likely outcomes would be.

People do divorce and get permission to relocate with their children, but its usually in situations that are a little more clear cut than yours...where there is lots of outside evidence that they have been the primary caretakers for the child(ren). Based on what you have described here I think that even if you were able to get primary custody, and permission to move your child, you would have to expect that your son would be spending the bulk of school holidays and most of the summer with his mother, and that you would be paying for the transportation for that to happen.

Again however, consult with several family law attorneys in your area...just don't pick the one that promises you that you will get everything that you want.