My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Alabama
I presume I should give a little background information here, so here it goes: I recently uncovered an extra-marital affair between my wife and one of her co-workers. As soon as I confronted her with it, she informed me she wanted a divorce. We have two minor children together, one who is severely disabled and requires 24 hour hands on care. I have been the 24 hour hands on caretaker for him and my other child for 4 years now as a stay at home father. She wants me to agree to moving into separate homes and to sell and divide up all that we have now and agree to live free and clear of all financial obligation to each other. I oppose this 1. because our sick child can not medically tolerate being shuffled back and forth between our homes, & 2. I don't agree with uprooting our children from the only home they've ever known so I believe she should move out if she so desires, but nothing else should change especially using her income to maintain the lifestyle we all are accustomed to.
I immediately went to the courthouse pro se and advised them that I did not want a divorce and asked to file paperwork for a legal separation and paperwork that would prevent her from relocating the children. The clerk advised me that there were no forms for legal separation and that I would have to go through a lawyer for that, and advised me that I could either file for a divorce or for custody. Off the cuff I chose the latter. I had to file for a waiver of the fees since I have no income of my own and the judge approved my hardship waiver so now the case is set for pendente lite hearing this coming July 30.
The issue is, however, my wife has become extremely hostile towards me since I won't agree to her terms, so she is in the process of moving herself and the kids out. I returned to the courthouse twice and informed them of this and they had me write two handwritten letters to the judge explaining this. I presume those letters were ignored since the only order he issued was for us to attend TransParent classes within 45 days. He explained the court would make no final judgment on the case until we both attend these classes. The problem is that the hearing date is sooner than those 45 days so my wife might not attend those classes in time.
My main question is how do I proceed? As I understand it, there are certain rules of civil procedure. I presume those handwritten letters did not properly follow the rules of procedure, so now I am presuming that I must file a proper motion of some sort to get the judge to issue a temporary order disallowing her to relocate the children until all this is settled in court.
Also, I've learned that this has turned into a full blown divorce case instead of simply a custody case which is what I thought I filed for. I was surprised by that.

