Mother Wants to Relocate with Young Toddler

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

I'll try to keep this as short as I can but there are many details I feel will help you give me some answers.
I am a father of an 18 month old. He lives with his mother and has from the beginning. His mother and I were never married and we broke up shortly after our son was born. I signed AOP in hospital but never pursued any custody. My son has my last name. The mother and I have gotten along well enough to handle things out of court thus far. I pay a small amount of child support that we agreed on each month. I see my son a couple times during the week after work where he lives and have him about half the day on Saturdays. He is very attached to his mother and is still breastfeeding which I've supported. After a failed try at an overnight visit at my house we decided it was best to continue shorter day visits for the time being.
Here is where my question comes in.
The mother claims she needs to move to Colorado where her family is relocating. EDIT: Forgot to mention that the move is planned to take place in several months. END EDIT. She is about to finish school and has also found better job opportunities in the Denver area where her family already owns a home. She gets financial help from her parents and her mother watches our son while she works part time and goes to school.
She claims it would be best for our son to move with her because of job opportunities, our son's close relationship with his grandmother, and better schools than Oklahoma. Here are my questions.
Can I keep her from moving?
If I can't keep her from moving, can I get at least 50-50 physical custody?
If I can't get 50-50 physical custody, what would a court likely enforce as far as visitation goes?
Who will have to pay for transportation?
I work overtime during the week, will a court frown upon having my son in daycare during his visits with me?
Thanks in advance for your input.

Mom wants to move from WHERE to Denver? I mean where in Oklahoma.

Mother lives in Midwest City.

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Quoting ddadok

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Mother lives in Midwest City.

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Okay, thank you.

I'm assuming you're talking about a literal 50/50 timeshare. In your situation that's just not going to happen, so let's get that one out of the way. In terms of enforceable visitation, start looking at parenting plans. You want to focus on his age and long-distance plans; deltabravo.net can give you a better idea. Realistically you are looking at visiting him in his locale at first, eventually having him come to your state to visit. Because of his age, and because of the current state of your visitation, I wouldn't expect that to be too soon but rest assured it will happen eventually.

The court can make one parent responsible for the costs of visitation, or both - there is no set rule.

You really need to get custody and visitation sorted out in court sooner rather than later. A court order will protect ALL of you, and it will save a lot of heartache in the future. There's nothing stopping you from actually filing for custody but given that Mom is his primary caregiver the courts are typically reluctant to deviate from that unless there's a solid reason for doing so. Because there's no court order, Mom is actually free to move whether you approve or not; in fact, at this point she doesn't need permission from anybody at all.

Court orders are your friends. Remember that.

Thank you Dogmatique. Your response is what I was afraid of. Not that I expect this to happen, but consider this scenario. Let's say mother leaves state with child before anything is established in court. Is there anything I can do at all if this happens? What options would I have at that point?
What if I weren't to return my child on one of his visits to my home? This isn't something I want to do but I also don't want her taking my child away from me if I can't ever see him.
At what age would I expect to have him visit here? And how long could visits last? I don't have the kind of money to pay for the amount of travel required for me to see my child.
This seems awfully unfair and as I expected, biased towards the mother. I didn't think courts were still this old fashioned.

It's not a bias towards the mother, it's a bias towards the primary caregiver. If that's Dad - and that's more common than you think - then Dad has the edge.

If Mom leaves, you have the right to file for custody and request that the child is returned to home state pending a final custody determination. In fact, you have that right now.

Don't play games by not returning your child. You have said yourself that you've already had a failed overnight attempt - so why would not returning him be in HIS best interest?

The question I asked regarding not returning him was mostly hypothetical. I am curious though how that would be handled if neither the mother nor I have custody. I don't see how law enforcement could step in and force me to return him.

So I can keep her from leaving with him? She's a good mother but I can't just let her move away with my child.

Back to the questions about what age a judge would deem appropriate for him to have visits here, and without his mother. How often and how long?

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Quoting ddadok

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The question I asked regarding not returning him was mostly hypothetical. I am curious though how that would be handled if neither the mother nor I have custody. I don't see how law enforcement could step in and force me to return him.

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I said nothing about law enforcement. In family court, on the other hand, you can quickly find yourself enjoying supervised visitation at your expense in Mom's area. Mom does actually have custody be default; if you were married it would be different but as an unwed father, you're at her mercy until the court says otherwise.

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So I can keep her from leaving with him? She's a good mother but I can't just let her move away with my child.

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You can object to her moving the child.

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Back to the questions about what age a judge would deem appropriate for him to have visits here, and without his mother. How often and how long?

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Have you looked at parenting plans? What are your expectations? Give us something to work with.

I want you to read this, too. I highly doubt you're even close to this Dad's mentality but it does serve as a warning.

Start here and then read his other threads. http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149186

Wow what a guy. I am not that clueless and selfish, I appreciate your sharing that with me.

I haven't looked at patenting plans in depth. The more threads I read on here makes it seem like any long term visits would be out of question.

If she were to stay in MWC and didn't plan on moving, my hope would be a split 50-50 custody when he's ready for it, I was hoping by the time he turned 2. She has disagreed with me on this, as she grew up in 2 homes week to week and hated it. It's simply not an option on her end.

If she moves, I'd like to at least see him once or twice a month in the beginning and have him for the summer. At what age could this be extended? I have no idea how I could possibly be able to take off work often enough to make that work though, let alone pay for that kind of travel.
When he's older I would like to have him in Oklahoma at least half of the time if a school schedule will allow. I asked before but will my hectic work schedule hinder my chances? I don't know how courts feel about daycare.

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Quoting ddadok

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Wow what a guy. I am not that clueless and selfish, I appreciate your sharing that with me.

I haven't looked at patenting plans in depth. The more threads I read on here makes it seem like any long term visits would be out of question.

If she were to stay in MWC and didn't plan on moving, my hope would be a split 50-50 custody when he's ready for it, I was hoping by the time he turned 2. She has disagreed with me on this, as she grew up in 2 homes week to week and hated it. It's simply not an option on her end.

If she moves, I'd like to at least see him once or twice a month in the beginning and have him for the summer. At what age could this be extended? I have no idea how I could possibly be able to take off work often enough to make that work though, let alone pay for that kind of travel.
When he's older I would like to have him in Oklahoma at least half of the time if a school schedule will allow. I asked before but will my hectic work schedule hinder my chances? I don't know how courts feel about daycare.

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50-50 isn't commonly ordered unless both parents agree. It takes two very dedicated parents to make it work and that is, unfortunately, is also uncommon. The problem you're going to face is that when custody is initially decided, if you want to change anything you'll need to meet a two-prong test.

1. There is a substantial change in circumstances and,
2. The change warrants a custody modification.

This is another place where you could get some realistic ideas of what you can expect, and there are a few decent Men's Divorce Support forums where you can get some ideas, too. Deltabravo.net has some fantastic information there - it's well worth the time.

The courts are still, overall, not keen on an infant being away from their primary caregiver for extended periods. I know you're not in Indiana but their parenting guidelines are probably the most concise and consistent in the country - it's set up so that if parents cannot agree the court will order the standard parenting plan without hesitation. Have a look anyway even though they won't apply to you (they can still give you an idea). http://indianaparentingtimeguidelines.info/

I need to preface this next part by telling you that initially, this Dad (a different guy from the one I mentioned above) was the wronged parent initially. He quite literally went home from work one day to find her and their child .. gone. To another state. Mom was in the wrong, and had he just saved some money to get an attorney well ... well, this probably wouldn't have happened . That's the parenting plan he was given. It is the most restrictive plan I've ever seen outside of abject neglect and abuse cases.


Please understand Dad, I'm not trying to scare you or deter you at all. I'm just wanting to show you an example of how easy it is to mess up your own custody status without anyone else mucking it up for you. I (and several others here) know him from another legal forum as well as this, and we watched the train-wreck from start to finish.

Do not forget, you have the ABSOLUTE right to file for custody yourself - first thing in the morning. Quite honestly that might be your best bet.

Dogmatique, should I guess that that thread is spinny? I haven't looked yet.

Jeez neither seem to be spinny. More crazy than I thought.

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Quoting Ohiogal

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Dogmatique, should I guess that that thread is spinny? I haven't looked yet.

Jeez neither seem to be spinny. More crazy than I thought.

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The second one is indeed Spinny. The original GAL also got a four-year restraining order against him ...

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Quoting Dogmatique

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I said nothing about law enforcement. In family court, on the other hand, you can quickly find yourself enjoying supervised visitation at your expense in Mom's area. Mom does actually have custody be default; if you were married it would be different but as an unwed father, you're at her mercy until the court says otherwise.



You can object to her moving the child.



Have you looked at parenting plans? What are your expectations? Give us something to work with.

I want you to read this, too. I highly doubt you're even close to this Dad's mentality but it does serve as a warning.

Start here and then read his other threads. http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149186

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Holy crap! I sure hope in that thread that guy got no visitation of his child. Stealing babies in the middle of the night? Calling her crazy because she was pregnant and that PMS is not real? Where do people like this come from? That might be the most insane post I have read on here.

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Quoting qwaspolk69

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Holy crap! I sure hope in that thread that guy got no visitation of his child. Stealing babies in the middle of the night? Calling her crazy because she was pregnant and that PMS is not real? Where do people like this come from? That might be the most insane post I have read on here.

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Seriously :(

There was a guy who was here yesterday who admitted to killing the mother of his child and now that he's out of prison, wants to raise him like nothing happened and he's Father of the Year.

It's a 99.9 percent likelihood that he was the guy who strangled his child's mother and stuffed her in a suitcase because she threatened to take the child back to her native country. All the facts he gave lined up with the case perfectly- including his username. He got a very light sentence because his legal team was able to convince a jury that he had problems, such as Autism..

I think the award goes to him!