Is Custody Always Awarded To Just One Parent?

I was recently granted my divorce along with sole custody of our 7 year old child. He gets visitation every other weekend and we alternate major holidays. It was a very volitle case with fault based grounds. My question is that I am thinking of moving to another state and am wondering if I would be responsible for driving to our mutual place (5 hours away), if he would have to meet me half way, or if he would have to drive the entire way?

I have custody of my son, who will be 15 next month. He father gets him every other weekend and has since he was 5 months old. He is at an age where he has “other” things to do and does want to go to his dads. Does he have any rights because his dad makes him come visit? We live 4 hours apart.

I had a child with my ex boyfriend. He never signed the birth certificate or any other legal document to show that he was the father. We split up when the child was about 8 months old. He has never paid me child support and the child is 2 now. He hasn’t seen the child since his 1st birthday. If I take him to court for child support do I have to let him see the child. It would be like sending my child with a stranger. He is also an alcoholic, he’s also on drugs and he is always getting in trouble with the law. I don’t want my child around that kind of environment. Any comments or ssuggestions are greatly appreciated.

I am the primary custodian of my 2 children (we legally have joint custody). I currenty have my children 240 nights per year and their father has them the remaining 125. I am about to finish my school and have decided to move back to my hometown for many reasons. this is approx. 92 miles/ 1 and 1/2 hours from their father’s. Currently I live 2 miles from my exhusband and his wife and it was very convenient for both of us when it came to dropping off and picking up our children. Now he is trying to make things very difficult for me because I want to move in state 92 miles away. I thought we would continue the weekend visitation as is and split the drive but he is trying to refuse to share any of the driving. What are my legal rights?

my wife and I were divorced. I wasn’t able to be there. she has custody of my son, how can I find out if I have any visitation. she refuses to let him visit me for the summer, i live in va. and only see him when i have vacation and go to s.c.
Please let me know what I can do to find out what my rights are as a non-custodial parent. I was ordered to pay child support which is taken out of my check each week.
Thank you

My brother and his wife live in Murrells Inlet, SC. They have 2 small children, ages 2 and 7 months. In brief, his wife demonstrates emotional issues from a damaging childhood. She has a history of angrily lashing out at my brother, friends and our family, while unprovoked. For the past six months, for no valid reasons, she has not allowed my parents and my family to see their children, even if we stay at a hotel off-site and he would bring the boys over to us for a few hours. My brother fears if he did bring their sons over to us without her permission, she would call the police on him and involve his sons in a public scene. She acknowledges that she knows this hurts my brother, but continues to do things like this anyway.
Aside from any pain my family is going through being separated from my nephews, we are supportive of what my brother needs to do for his family. My brother has said he would divorce her, for many other issues that just keeping his family away, if it were not for his children and his concern for their best welfare. She holds over his head that South Carolina does not have joint custody and he would not get to see his children. He has not said it, but I know he is concerned about his sons well-being if he were not in the house, as she has demonstrated that she can be emotionally and verbally abusive, something very difficult to prove in court without witness outside the family. She does not balk at using their children to get back at people she has viewed as wronging her. She has a history of twisting around the truth and he fears that she would lie to authorities to get her way and to get back at my brother, again, not caring about any harm to her sons in the process. On a positive note, he finally got her to go to marriage counseling with him, but so far, he sees an improvement a day or two after a visit, but then she returns to her normal behavior, feeling the rest of the world is the problem and nothing is hers.
My brother has a flexible work schedule with his own real estate business. He is the one who wakes up with the boys, gets their breakfast, and takes them for walks and bike rides, or swimming. He drops the oldest off at school two days a week and comes home as early as he can to be involved with their dinner and bedtime routine. He is extremely hands-on as demonstrated by the extremely close bond his oldest son has with him and the growing bond that is developing as his younger son gets older. No one is saying that his wife does not take an active role in his children lives, as well. She is temporarily home with the children, but plans to return to a full-time elementary school teaching position as the children get older.
Given the good care that BOTH parents give, would joint custody be an option in South Carolina and how would my brother go about building a case for it, if he decides to go the route of a divorce? Is his wife correct there is no joint custody in South Carolina? He has to prepare that his wife will act in a very vengeful manner and given her emotional instability, she would twist situations to create a truththat will portray my brother in an untrue, unflattering light, again, to get her way; this is another reason I think he is trying to avoid getting his kids involved in a family court system if he can. I want my brother to know there are options for him and his sons other than being subjected to this life he has now, trapped by fear he has no rights to custody or a continued, day-to-day role in his sons lives. Please advise.

Can a father of a child, who never married the mother and who has never lived with, get partial custody of a newborn?

Hello. My ex and I have an “as agreed” custody situation at the present. We get along well and have thus far been amiable about our 7 year old son who currently lives with her in Coccoa Beach, Florida. We have recently agreed that he will come to live with me and attend school on January 2nd. He is steadily becoming more unruly with his behavior at school, and in the past he has done better in school when living with me. I am tired of bouncing him back and forth between us and realize that this is part of the behavioral issue. I think I can get her to sign Primary Physical Custody papers but need info on how to get those, and what all is entailed. I live in Aiken County, South Carolina so I am wondering if there will be any state to state issues. I am finding it difficult to get information, or maybe I am looking in the wrong places. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

At the age of 17 my son and a girl he barely knew (also 17), who were both in high school, had a child together. He is now 4 years old. My son instantly turned his life around and had tried to make the relationship with the girl work, but to no avail. They never went to court or had any legal papers drawn up but my son is on the birth certificate and he has always faithfully paid for medical insurance, anything the mother says my grandson needs and has been a wonderful father. He would very much like for his son to have his last name. He would also like to be able to have more time with him but the mother is cutting back on the time because she says it “disrupts his(my grandson’s) routine”. My son would like joint custody but the mother’s family says this is “bad for the child” and they are looking out for his best interests. My ex-husband and I divorced when my son was only 2 years old ( I never got one penny of child support from him and he’s not seen the children in over 20 years). Since he never had a father to do things with and wants to be a real father to his son. Does he have any recourse? Will he always have to be able to only see his son every other weekend? This just does not seem fair either to the child or his father. Why does the mother in this case get the right to call all the shots?

I live in California and my ex lives in South Carolina with our two daughters. She has recently told me that I am never to see them again but no courts have gotten involved. I know I have rights and want to be in my little girls lives I have no idea on how to get started in filing anything. what do I do?

I have a 8 yr old daughter.Her father has legal custody of her and I am suppose to pay child support. About 5 years ago I lost contact with him so I was unable to visit my daughter.So I stopped paying. Well about a month ago I was notified that her home life was in distress. Her father and his wife is seperated and she is being drug from place to place. Her home enviorment is far from stable. I was wondering is there any way for me to get custody back and since I could not contact him for those 5 years and wasn’t able to visit her is there anyway I can get those years of not paying the support dropped. The reason I lost custody in the first place is because I was unaware of a court date my lawyer did not contact me so he was granted custody. Any information is apperciated.

My son and his ex-girlfriend had a son 8 yrs. ago. His ex kept his son from him, so he filed papers in court to have visitation rights, he did not ask for physical custody. My grandson was 4 at the time. My son has been a great devoted father and would love more time with his son. His son adores him also. The mother is uncooperative, keeps important information from him- like when he had his tonsils removed, report cards, etc. My grandson has missed alot of school and is failing 2nd grade this year. His mother doesn’t help him with his school work (according to my grandson). She dropped out of high school. My son would like physical custody or at the least split custody. His son needs a chance to succeed and be happy and well adjusted. Is it possible to go back to court to try for physical custody or at least split custody or would you have to be able to prove the mother is totally unfit?

My husband and I have been married 18 years. We were seperated for quite a while. I had a baby by another man. Now, my husband and I are working things out. My childs father, sees her every other weekend. She is only 4 months old. Now he is wanting to see her every other weekend plus two to three evenings a week. At 4 months old this doesn’t fit into her schedule. He is saying that if I don’t let him see her more that we will all regret it because he will take it to the courts. We have no legal papers at this time. Does anyone have any kind of advise for me?

I live in Columbia SC and my ex-girlfriend is pregnant. She has alot of anger for me because the relationship didn’t work out, and I think she may try to keep me away from the child. What advice can anyone give me so that I can make sure I see my son.

Im 18 about to turn 19 in about 2 months. I have a younger brother that is 12. We were both in foster care until i turned 18 of course. He is still known as a foster child since he is not 18 yet. I want to step up and take custody of my younger brother. He now lives with his father in another county but his father has no custody of him. My brother has got punched in the stomach by his father and chocked. He wants to live with me so we can be closer. I am willing to take him in. But there are a few things on my mind. How do i start the whole ordeal? I was told to call the county cps hotline and report a abuse. What are my chances of actually getting him under my roof. Im still looking for a place for the both of us. I go to college full time and work full time. Im able to support the two of us. I just dont know what steps to take. Could someone be willing to help me out with my questions? Thank You.

The Mother of my child left him with me permanentaly on 6/12/05. He is now 4. She called him occassionally and saw him apprx. 4 times from that date until 11/23/06 when he went with her MOm for Thanksgiving and a few days for christmas. Prior to the 6/12/05 date I kept him the majority of the time. She started living with a guy and they both got on drugs really badly. I allowed my son to go with the Mom’s sister for a visit for Easter because the sister was even irate about the way she treated our son. Well, the sister was to bring the child back home within a week when she returned to her home state, and my son’s Mom begged me to let him stay another week and she would drive him home. She has now had him for three weeks and will not return him. I took her to court in N.C where I live in 10/06 and we mediated and I even agreed to forget her arrears for child support because she had a new baby. She has him in S.C. and I was wondering if anyone could tell me if my son has to be there a certain amount of time to establish resendency before she can file custody papers. (we have very loose agreement on custody that we were to figure out. She agreed to let him live with me and now she has taken him from his home, routine, everything!!! and he has hardly had a relationship with her in a long time, her decision. Please help!!!!

I recieved control and custody of me 3 children 3 2 and 12 months. My husband took my 3 and 2 yr old to see spidy 3. this was not good my 2 yr old daughter was very upset and had a nightmare over the movie. I thought that control meant I was to be involved in any decision making concerning them.This was not a decision I would have approved. Dont I have the right to say no to bad choices like this?

i have custody of my daughter, she is 16yr old and now she wants to go live with her mother. At what age can she do that and iam i still legally responible for her if she does that.

My husbands ex-girlfriend and him share a two and a half year old son. We live in California, and she lives in South Carolina. Because of legal fees, we were not able to travel to South Carolina for the trial, and as a result we were badly reperesented. She was given full custody, and child support, while he was given a meer one weeks visitation a year (less than 1% of the time!). My husband and I both feel that she is being greedy with her sons time, and that we should all share joint custody for his benefit. She has since bought a house, while we still rent an apartment, because the child support is so high. If both parents are fit, than why can’t the court appoint them half custody? It seems distructive and counter-productive to give all rights to the mother, when the father really wants to be involved.

My sister and brother in law were married for 15 yeras and now going through divorce. For the past year leading up to her filing, they have lived separately and he has had visitation with their daughter every weekend and holidays.
Approximately six weeks ago, he asked for the daughter to visit for two weeks, which my sis agreed since it is summer. He refused to bring her home.
There was an emergency custody hearing in which he won temporary custody after making false allegations of physical abuse by my sister. He and his lawyer also did not share information prior to this proceding as we were unaware he even had a lawyer. They were able to, however, obtain all information that my sis’s lawyer had presented to the court prior to the proceeding.
He has now had the child for six weeks with out allowing for any physical contact between this child and the maternal side of her family, myself included.
What legal grounds do we have as far as 1.) He has made false allegations of child abuse against my sister.
2.) He obtained initial custody of the child under false pretenses. They had a verbal agreement that stated he would have the child for two weeks and bring her home, which he refused to do at the end of the two weeks. I beleive this was his plan all along.
3.) He has not paid one red penny of child support in the year since their separation began or one penny towards the marital debt that was incurred during their fifteen years together.
4.) He has also no given any restitution to my sister for her half of the interest in his vehivle which she is joint owner of.
5.) He has family members with a history of violence against minor children per my nieces’ own statements to various family members.
6.) This child has many health isuues (ADHD and ODD) for which she has been going to some of the best doctor’s for two years for treatment, and she has been making phenominal progress this last year. I feel like he will change and go to a joke of psychiatrist here in our home town and there is nothing my sis can do.
What can we do?

My sons father and I had a 6 year relationship.. I became pregnant and he started to use drugs.. I advised my sons father that he was not allowed to see our child, he then became clean and had to serve 6 months in prison.. My question is he now has a good job but lives with his mother which also does drugs.. My sons father is taking me to court and i would like to know what are his chances on get joint custody or unsupervised visitation.. I have never been in trouble with the law, and I do not use drugs.. He has only bought 2 packs of diapers and my son is 10 months old, Please help

im not married, i live in south carolina and my ex lives in florida… he wants to take my son who is almost 2 months old now to florida with him for certain holidays and the summer…. can he do this and if so how old will my son be before he can?

My Husband has a 6 year old daughter besides our child and her mother do not let us see her only when she wants to. Hes in the Army but we are married and live together can we file for joint custody of her? Even though hes in Active duty?

When I finally got my divorce granted in SC in 2009, my ex was in jail in another state, and I got full custody of our daughter. She is now 16 years old. I remarried in early 2010. In August 2010, he got out of jail, came back to town and lived in a half-way house, stayed there for 2 months, then moved in with his now fiance’. I have sued him for child support. Now, wants joint custody of our daughter. She does NOT want to live with her Dad. Will the court grant joint custody anyway? He’s showed our daughter the papers, convinced her he can’t pay support, yet he bought her a car (which he flaunts in her face now but won’t give to her because she said she doesn’t want to live with him).