
Quoting
coltsmom
My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Minnesota
I share 50/50 custody of my 13 year old with my ex. We have been divorced for nearly four years. As a result of my ex-husband's verbal/mental and physical abuse on his oldest son (my stepson) at the age of 16, it resulted in him losing custody, three years later, our oldest son we had together took his life just 4 days shy of his 17 birthday. The text message left on my son's phone blamed his father. Now my youngest son is left to deal with the wrath of his father's abuse. My son has confided in me that he hates going to his father's and that all he does is yell at him and badmouth me (mom). I attempted to have my son go to counseling after his brother's death, but after his father found out questions were being asked about "him" he told my son he no longer had to go. I again brought up counseling to his father and his father asked why and said he didn't need counseling. My son always complains about being with his dad, he fears that if he says anything to him about how he feels his dad will beat him or get really angry. I even have my son on video tape telling me how bad it is at his father's house. I try very hard not to say bad things about his father and try to comfort my son with words of praise and reassurance that he can call me anytime he feels it escalating. I finally talked my son into going to a counselor since he is only willing to share pieces of information with me and I know he needs to open up. I asked him how he would feel if he had full time with me and visitations with his dad. He said his dad would be really mad and make it miserable for him. My question is, what are my chances of getting full custody with just visitations at his father's house. I don't want his father out of my son's life but I want to control the amount of verbal and mental abuse he imposed on him. Thanks for reading.