Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: Court ordered visitations

You are not penalized by the court for failing to visit your kids on rare occaisions. (However, your kids will not understand, nor forgive you. They want and need their father.) Missing visitation can hurt you if it is frequent, it may be construed as abandonment. If you abandon your children you may lose all visitation rights - but may still be required to pay support.

You and your ex have a legal duty to keep each other informed of each other's address and phone. If you don't have her address or phone how can you stay in touch with the children or locate them for visits?

Any changes in visitation should be worked out by agreement or otherwise go back to court for a hearing on visitation. For out of state parents there are some basic general rules, depending on the age of the children.

The best solution is for you to move close to the kids so that you can be in their lives as much as possible. They never agreed to a divorce and are the real victims. They are entitled and need a mother and father. Since you and the ex can't get along, at least make the accomodations so that the kids don't suffer from your mistakes as a married couple. The kids should be your first priority. Note that there is no substitute for time. There is a well known but false belief that quality makes up for quantity. B.S.