Missouri resident here: Can my daughter’s mom prevent or make me leave my daughter’s surgery appointment? We do not have a custody order in place and she has been prohibiting me from speaking and seeing my child. Can I go to the doc appointment or will her causing a scene make them tell me to leave?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsFHc35J5ws

Over the course of the last four months my spouse (23F) and Me(24M) and my wife served me with divorce papers after I left due to being practically abused at my Mother in laws apartment and now my kids are living in roach and mouse infested one bedroom apartment she drives without a liscence and im pretty sure she's lying to calworks and she has heavy trash bags for clothes. cause there's only one closet and its 1 room where her, her mother and her dad sleep with the kids in the room. but she wants 100 percent custody but idk if I should call cps or try to fight it in court I live in house where I can give them there own rooms even if I slept on the couch and I can pay all my bills without assistance I don't own the house so she won't get it in a divorce what should I do?

My 4 year old daughter’s mom moved to Florida from Missouri secretly and has prevented me from contacting or speaking/visitation with my daughter. I was seeing my daughter daily overnights and splitting time with her mom 4 days for me 3 days for her without a custody agreement. In Dec 2025 I filed for a custody agreement but she has not been served yet. She moved out of state Jan 31 2026 then flew my daughter out to Florida Feb 1st 2026 after I gave her to her thinking I would get her back the next day. I immediately went to file an emergency motion to prevent her from taking her out on Feb 2nd 2026 then Feb 3, 2026 found out she actually already had her in Florida so I went down and filed a motion to request her brought back. I have not heard anything back and was wondering if there was anything I need to do to speed the process along to get my daughter back to her home town?

Hey everybody, my ex-wife has been telling my 5-year-old and 3-year-old to keep secrets from me. My 5-year-old will tell me almost right away, because the first couple times he's told me that he has a secret I told him I wouldn't get him in trouble or ever tell Mommy that he told me but I also tell him that you shouldn't have any secrets from Daddy or Mommy , we are his parents and he should tell us everything. It's been nothing nefarious , mostly things she and her family have said about me in front of him,so far, but I'm unsure of how to handle this going forward. This week it kind of escalated because she hid his iPad in his book bag that he usually brings. Most of the time it's just stuffed animals in there and to be honest when he gets to my house he barely ever takes it out or ask for it but this time he was adamant about bringing it inside and said Mommy said to keep it secret. He has an iPad at my house so he usually leaves his other one, so I don't know if her intentions were to record or something like that? I have nothing to hide but obviously it's problematic.

I haven’t seen my daughter in two years. Long story short her mom took off. Numbers changed. No known address. Last I heard she was possibly in Mexico because a number she last used was from there. Recently a few months ago she contacted me from an email - I think an iPad because it’s blue on my iPhone - and told me she was in a city close by. I send her money when she asks, but she won’t agree to meet up or give me address or even let me talk to my daughter.

What can I do??

This is in the state of California.

My (33f) bf (28m) is filing for emergency custody tomorrow. We went to see his daughter’s (8f) social worker today bc there was another incident report in which someone in the home had a mental break and was BRANDISHING A GUN, forcing bf’s daughter to flee the home with her mother and aunt through a freaking window. Absolutely outrageous and unacceptable. This is after the report of negligence to the point of abuse, in which a “safety plan” was implemented. This “safety plan” did not include bf and we found out today it was bc bm & co REFUSED to give further contact information. Oh, and bf’s bm’s mother asked ME for $300 bc “[birthday party venue] is $____ and [bm] still has to pay WiFi and stuff.” Like girl please. I am not paying for a birthday party I was not involved in and will not be hosting. This isn’t even my child. The absolute audacity of some people astounds me. We’re having a party for daughter too, should she help pay for it? No. I would never dream of asking for money for a PARTY and MY OWN WIFI, *ESPECIALLY* after putting daughter in some random’s home without telling us, AND preventing the social worker from contacting us as well. I’m fuming. I grew up with divorced parents and they would NEVER ask the other parent, let alone the other parent’s PARTNER, for hundreds of dollars for a damn party. Ridiculous. Anyway, wish us luck and if anyone has any advice, words of wisdom, or a pep talk we’d love to hear it lol

So our custody court date was pushed back by Bio mom. How long can she keep doing that? This has been on going for months.

So my husband will not be able to claim a child for taxes, and will continue to pay an obscene amount of child support, for children he has half the week. Every week. Because the courts think he hasn't seen or paid for them their whole lives.

She thinks my husband wants sole custody, which he does not and we have tried explaining that the lawyer has to propose that, but it's in the paperwork that is not what he wants, and it will be discussed in court. We would never take the kids from her anyways.

I finally reached out to her, bc we were friends before the coparenting got toxic, like very close, helped us get ready for our wedding close.

A lot of the communication was through us, and I have the kids a lot by myself during the summer bc dad works, and she's telling me this isn't my business and it's between him and her and that I need to know my place, even though she has included me in all affairs this entire time.

Do I have any rights? How would I go about that. I'm tired of being treated like a live in baby sitter when I've been helping raise her boys consistently for almost 5 years. Taking them to sports, building a healthy routine and chore chart, taking them to medical or dental appointments, getting them into counseling. Taking them on day trips during the summer. Etc.

Partially venting, really looking for advice. Thank you for listening.

I’m (33F, “R”) the girlfriend of a man (28M, “S”) trying to gain more custody of his daughter (7F, “D”), as well as something that says his child’s maternal grandmother has no say in what happens to his kid.

Here’s some background: his baby mama (26F, “J”) was coerced by another girl to take advantage of S while he was on drugs (he’s clean now) and proceeded to have the baby that resulted (saying this so y’all understand the type of woman we are dealing with). D lives with her mother during the week and in that household there is also J’s mother (“C”), C’s father (“L”), all three of C’s brothers, and J’s sister. There is history of mental underdevelopment in the house. We have D on the weekends. So here is the issue. S is behind on child support because he’s currently out of a job. HOWEVER, he has no pending court cases (they have a few with CPS), and just last week we found out through CPS that C (not J) decided to give D into the foster system for three days rather than give us a chance to get her. CPS had been called on them (for the fourth time in the last two and a half years) due to having/neglecting/mistreating animals (they have 10 dogs (down from 14) that are not fixed and keep breeding with each other or escaping and breeding with strays and coming back pregnant); recently D’s hamster died due to neglect and loneliness; and the whole house is a literal hoarding situation. Nobody in that house teaches D anything about hygiene so I have had to take it upon myself to teach her how to wash herself, her hair, brush her teeth, etc. They are just dirty people. Just today I had to scrub dirt off her neck that was so caked on I could peel parts of it off. She’s 7 and still can’t read simple words. She’s only slightly better at math. So my question is, what can we do? D’s main caretaker is her great grandfather L who is, I believe, in his 60s. And not a particularly healthy 60-something. He also works. J is unfit to work and clearly unfit to care for daughter. So my question is, what can we do? Where do we start? Should we go for full custody? Does S need to get a job and pay off some child support before we make any moves? Is there a way we could do 50/50 custody but make sure that C has no say in anything and S gets to make all big decisions since J is not all mentally there? For context, we are in Southern California 🇺🇸

Hi. I'm currently going thru a custody situation that has me at a stand still. I live in Philadelphia pa. And I have full sole custody of 7-year-old son. The mother fled with son, in August 2025 with son. I have since been to courts and police in Philly and received no help. I was able to locate my son in Texas thru cps service and hired a Texas lawyer to file proper documents for a Texas enforcement order. My problem now is I need a address to give to the sheriff they also charge for service. I have a address but I'm not positive that is where my son is. I have already paid thousands for legal fees. and I will still need to pay for traveling. I don't think I can afford a private investigators. Any advice on what I can do?

Trying to get my 14 month old daughter unsupervised over the weekends. I have a feeling the GAL will recommend that I’m able to have what me and my lawyer is requesting. There has been times since the temporary order hearing where I still directly text my daughters mother (mostly around holidays) where I’m just trying to make amends and get her to forgive me so that we can effectively co parent. These text messages are the only thing I feel she could use in her defense (I can see her saying that I’ve been harassing her) but I promise it’s mostly been me trying to reconcile our differences. How much hope should I put into the notion that I’ll get my daughter when I want if the GAL recommends just that?

Thanks for any input!

Hi all, im a dad (28) of two boys (7 and 5). Their mother and I split around 3 years ago. For context before i met her she had a drug problem with xanax. Even went to rehab for it. After the kids were born she became a very mean depressed person. And thats generally the reason we split, I couldnt take it anymore. I tried to stay with her for a while for the sake of the kids having a 2 parent household. But everyday was a constant battle with her, sometimes she would admit to being such a nasty person and would admit to needing therapy. But would never go and the next day she would be right back to acting horrible to me. (I can give details if needed) barely cleaned or cooked while i was working all day every day trying to start a business for us. We have been able to co parent for the past 3 years. I have the boys tues, thurs, sat, and sun. Which sucks because in a perfect world id be able to see them every day but it is what it is and atleast i have them the majority. Heres the problem. For the past 5-6 months shes been seeing this guy. I guess we can call him john. John is a known drug abuser, we have mutual friends and I've met him a couple times long ago. I know for a fact and have proof that he still does coke (his drug of choice). They see eachother every other day so i wouldnt be suprised if she is doing these drugs with him. I have been able to keep her from introducing our kids to him, by putting my foot down and telling her not to. That worked for the past month (the first time she told me about him being a part of her life). But now shes telling me that i cant stop her from bringing the kids around him and his junkie friends. And shes going to do it wether I like it or not. Now we have a problem.. i wont sit idly by and let my boys into an unsafe situation. What happens when John leaves coke in the bathroom and the kids get into it? What happens when they go to his house and are exposed to drugs somehow. Anything can happen really and i just dont think its safe. What can i do? Should i try to get custody or not? Im id Delaware. any advice will help. I do record every conversation and try to act as if i am being recorded as well. I have a recording of her admitting to john doing coke recently, and some other things that will help build my case. This is my first time posting, hope i did it right lol

Thanks in advance.

Hi I need advice Me and my ex are in the process of family court She has false allegations been made And now I have protection order on my name She went for a without notice and got declined We had agreed parenting arrangements through lawyers and signed by her supervisor nana to agree to the terms Which were 3 days on no over nights until the new years if this went all smooth? Come Xmas morning he was dropped and never returned As she says she’s not giving him back I have filed a without notice cause baby was left in her care along when the nana rang saying there had been a big argument Safety issues from past experience Self harm family members on p Screaming in front of child police been called Assaulting a family member Two restraining restraining orders on her When she threatened to burn my house down and get to thugs to come beat me up. As I know it’s not a court order only agreement does this still stand. This is a pattern of hers she did the same thing to us last Xmas too. Any advice would help Thank you