Thank you for your reply.
I wish I could hire an attorney. As I said, my husband pays no support whatsoever, so you can imagine that it would be very difficult to get the money together for an attorney. I will try to somehow file something through the e-filing system and see if the judge dismisses the case. I am just looking for good reasons to include in that statement.

But just to add some information: Texas DID have jurisdiction over the children and could have kept it. The attorney I had there at that time managed to have the custody part of the case dismissed. So the court determined that it is an inconvenient forum and that the German court would be a more appropriate forum. But, as §152.207 Texas Family Code (inconvenient forum) (d) states: "A court of this state may decline to exercise its jurisdiction under this chapter if a child custody determination is incidental to an action for divorce (...) while still retaining jurisdiction over the divorce (...)."

The fact that the court DECLINED jurisdiction, but that was the decision of our judge. The court did have jurisdiction over the children at first, even though they were not living in TX anymore and had moved to Germany with the father's consent and following his wish.

(just in case somebody else ends up in this thread looking for information on custody matters and forum of inconvenience-decisions...)

take care
Claudia

P.S.: If anyone still comes up with good ideas on how to argue my motion for dismissal, all suggestions are more than welcome!