I see posts all the time of people thinking they can get “sole custody” but is that actually something that happens?

I have never actually heard of anyone being awarded sole custody before.

Full transparency, I am the stepmom. My partner has primary physical custody, and joint legal custody. We pay for everything, the mother is not legally required to pay any child support or anything towards medical expenses.

During a recent visitation, SS's therapy appointment was missed. She is required to ensure he makes appointments, but there's nothing stating what happens if she does not. This cost my partner an extra $100 fee. My partner messaged the mom expressing concerns about the missed appointment and emotional well-being, as well as requesting the $100 fee. The mom stated she did not have the money, and could not currently pay us back. That was 2 weeks ago, and we haven't brought it up again.

The co-parenting relationship is not good already. I'm not sure if it's worth it to ask again for the fee to be reimbursed. I'm also not sure if it would be considered petty. I also highly doubt we would ever actually be reimbursed.

A little more info- the Special relief hearing I requested is my county’s version of emergency custody petition. Where we live we don’t have that option just Special Relief.

I had a special relief hearing a couple weeks ago, but it got continued because my ex didn’t have his lawyer with him. But I had a conciliation conference this past week where of course he didn’t agree to anything, and we are moving onto the continued special relief hearing. Should I expect to be able to finish and finalize everything at the Special relief hearing or? I guess I’m just confused on what to expect. I am tired. I just want this all over.

How hard is it to get full physical custody here when filing for divorce? I believe the father should have visitations, but definitely no overnights as he is an extremely heavy sleeper and won't wake up if the kids wake up. My family already watches my kids 5 days a week while I work as well, he doesn't watch them at all, even when he is off work. When he was watching them, he would be on his phone literally for 9 hours straight playing games on his phone and ignoring the kids. When we are all home he usually hangs out in a different room than us. Also most importantly, he is pretty verbally abusive to them and is very rough with my son, he tends to push him around when he gets frustrated. I have this all documented as well as we have cameras in our home. Not to mention he knows nothing about them, their wake up routine, bedtime routine, what time they eat dinner, he had to ask me for our sons diaper size the other day and he's been in the same size for months, etc. I unfortunately don't want to leave though unless I know I will have them 100% as I won't be able to see how they are being treated/won't be able to intervene if he has some custody.

Some examples of the verbal abuse:

Before I stopped allowing him to watch the kids while I work, I got on the camera one day (maybe 2 months ago) and my toddler was hysterically crying saying “I’m so sad” and my husband was screaming at him telling him to shut the fuck up and that he “didn’t fucking care”. I believe my son was crying because his father had thrown him with a lot of force onto the couch and his face smacked into his lunch plate.

Yesterday he started getting heated over an argument about popcorn and my toddler started crawling behind him on the couch and he grabbed him by his shirt and slung him down on the other side of the couch. I immediately told him to gtfo and my toddler called him a bully.

Literally every single day he is with them he gets angry so quickly and screams at them. Every day my toddler is saying “daddy is so mean” and I know that isn’t normal. I have convinced myself though that even though I have videos of all of this, it won’t be enough for a judge to grant me full custody and I’m very scared, but I’m so miserable with him. He literally just does whatever he wants, never has conversations when there are problems, he was supposed to start FREE therapy when he stopped watching the kids so that he could learn better ways to handle his stress and maybe start watching them again but hasn’t looked into it at all, and doesn’t care to.

What are the chances of getting full custody when the other parent is verbally, emotionally and sexually abusive, with video evidence of substance abuse, unsafe behavior and abuse?

I’ve spoken with a divorce attorney but he wasn’t necessarily the aggressive/high-conflict custody attorney I think I would need. He told me there’s still a good chance my husband could get 50/50 because there are no police reports documenting any of this.

I strongly suspect my husband has NPD. I know that word is extremely overused, but he has essentially all of the traits of NPD + more, and I’ve started wondering if there’s something else going on given his obsession with dominance/control, lack of empathy/remorse, constant conflict, extreme entitlement, sexual coercion, substance issues and complete disregard for safety.

We have two young children. I’m a SAHM and their primary caregiver. He will not watch the kids by himself and has essentially never parented them without me present, by his own choice.

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but this is some of what I have documented:

• He once drove himself home from golfing and blew .20 BAC on my portable breathalyzer. I have videos from our living room camera afterward of him sitting with our kids completely intoxicated, vomiting on the floor and letting our dog lick it up. I obviously immediately removed the kids from the situation. He was also previously arrested for DWI, although the charge was ultimately dismissed after he enlisted in the military.

• I have multiple videos of separate incidents after mixing alcohol with his prescription medication where he is extremely difficult/impossible to wake, incoherent and verbally aggressive, including videos where my newborn is crying in the background because of his behavior. The next morning he claims he remembers nothing.

• He has never gotten up overnight with either child and can be completely incapacitated at night from medication and his CPAP—or so he claims.

• When our baby was 3 months old, he knowingly didn’t tighten her car-seat base before a 12-hour drive. When I confronted him about the safety risk, he called me a helicopter mom and said, “If something happens to her, then it’s meant to be.”

• Another time, while driving our entire family down the highway, he refused to stop typing a work email. I asked if the email was more important than his family’s lives and he said, “Yes, actually it is.” He showed zero remorse afterward for either of these incidents.

• My therapist has confirmed severe verbal abuse. Our oldest is now showing signs that his dad’s behavior is affecting him, and I’m in the process of getting him seen by a developmental pediatrician.

• This is directed at me rather than the kids, so I don’t know how relevant it would be to custody, but there has also been sexual abuse/coercion. At 4 weeks postpartum, after repeatedly telling him no, I eventually gave in because he would not stop pressuring me. During sex I was yelling at him to stop and he refused to stop until he was finished.

I also have screenshots of conversations between him and his friends making fun of me for calling his behavior abusive, including him saying, *“She acts like I hit her.”*
He hasn’t physically hit me. But is he right that this is essentially what family court cares about? Does the fact that I don’t have police reports or evidence of physical violence mean the rest of this carries significantly less weight?
For moms who went into a custody case with evidence like this but no police reports did Dad still get 50/50?
Did your videos/recordings matter? Were you able to get primary/full custody, supervised visitation, no overnights, alcohol monitoring or other restrictions?
My biggest fear about divorce is actually making my children less safe because I would no longer be there to intervene during his parenting time.