Moving 5 Hours Across State Line

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

My ex and I have a 4 year old daughter. We were never married, broke up while I was pregnant. I am now engaged to a Marine and we will marry when he returns from his deployment. We will be moving 5 hours away to the base he is stationed at in North Carolina. My ex is refusing to talk about how we are going to handle things after the move.

Last year when my fiance was supposed to be stationed in Hawaii, my ex flipped out. He said "That is too far away. It's not like it's North Carolina, I can't drive to Hawaii. There is no way in hell I'm letting you take her." and "I hope he gets blown up while he is overseas." Sooo.. my fiance pulled every string he could to get his orders changed to NC. Instead of moving down there with him when he got his orders, I stayed in Virginia because I was having a complicated pregnancy and couldn't be left alone. Now my fiance is coming home, and I'm set to leave in Feb of 2010, but my daughters father won't talk to me about it.:wallbang:

We have never been to court for custody or visitation, only child support. The closest we came to it was our first court date when he denied paternity but then asked if he could get joint custody while waiting for the DNA test. The judge basically laughed and then yelled at him.

I just need some sort of input here..

Tomorrow I plan on going to the courthouse and filing for custody/visitation. Right now I let him take her almost every weekend, and if he wants an extra day I usually allow it. Like, I tell him I want her home Sunday night, but he normally just gets his girlfriend to bring her home Monday morning on her way to work (unless I need her home before the time his girlfriend would bring her back). Which is fine with me, I'm off Mondays, she doesn't go to school yet, and I babysit two kids the rest of the week so I get to be with her constantly anyway.

We normally get along fine. We gave up on fighting with each other years ago. I never even said anything when he purposely did not file his taxes just so I wouldn't get his return (he owes 4 grand in back child support) and when he kept quitting/switching jobs every 3 months so DCSE never had a chance to garnish his wages. But this has just gotten to be too much!

A few months ago, I gave him a list of 4 choices for when we move. The best being that we would meet in the middle twice a month and if he wants to see her more than that he was more than welcome to pick her up himself. and he gets 6 weeks during the summer and every holiday vacation. The worst was the last option of letting the judge decide. But he refuses to even acknowledge the fact that we will be moving.

For when we go to court I was thinking about saying what I want - which is Joint custody (no point going for full.) and him to have her for 4 weeks during the summer, meet in the middle once a month, and we switch off holidays by even and odd years but splitting christmas break (like say even year he gets her for the Christmas week and i get her for the New Years week and vice versa) - and if he doesn't go for that then I am MORE than willing to go to a mediator to solve this.

How does that sound?

Also, we will be moving again in about two years to probably some place farther away.. what should I do about that?

I'm sorry about the long post, probably didn't need so much back story. But, any help would be greatly appreciated!!! I'm so stressed out about this over here.

Thanks a bunch!

Re: Moving 5 Hours Across State Line

If you want to ask for joint physical custody, you should be asking to be designated primary custodian. Under the facts as you describe them, I think you should be seeking sole physical custody, and joint legal custody (shared decision-making).

Re: Moving 5 Hours Across State Line

Quote:

Quoting Mr. Knowitall

If you want to ask for joint physical custody, you should be asking to be designated primary custodian. Under the facts as you describe them, I think you should be seeking sole physical custody, and joint legal custody (shared decision-making).

Also you should have a long distance visitation plan that will allow Dad as much visitation as possible with YOU paying all traveling expenses.