Legal Question in Family Law in California

1. No.

2. If she has put earnings from work during the marriage into the Japan account, then probabyl yes. Not enough facts to tell for sure.

3. Too complicated to explain here in any detail. Short version: There is a program called DissoMaster that calculates who pays child support and how much based on a statutory formula that takes into account relative incomes, amount of time the child(ren) spend with each parent, and a number of other factors.

"main question" It is absolutely impossible to tell what you are entitled to without reviewing all your financial information, and probably conducting some discovery of her separate property financial records. But the real issue in your question is full custody of the kids. Has she molested them? Do you have domestic violence charges against her? Has she been charged with child endangerment or abuse? Is she imprisoned or going to be? Is she going to return to Japan and will not come back even to visit them? If you can't answer "yes" to at least one of those questions, don't count on anything even approaching sole physical custody. There is a strong legal presumption, backed up by decades of sociological and psychological studies and research, that children do best with the most regular and frequent time with both parents as possible. So unless you are prepared and able to refute that, you should have a "Plan B" about the custody split.

Lastly, you are right to be concerned about parental abduction to Japan. It is the refusal of Japan and other countries, e.g., Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China, to sign and abide by the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, that is largely responsible for the requirement that all U.S. citizen children have a passport and a notarized authorization from the non-traveling parent to leave the U.S. on an international flight or cruise with only one parent. So if you are really concerned about her abducting the kids, you need to file for your divorce as soon as possible, and immediately apply for an ex parte order that she surrender any passports she may have for the kids. Once she is served with the petition for divorce she will be under an automatic order not to take the kids out of California, and once she surrenders their passports, if any, she won't be able to violate the order, at least not internationally.

Are you planning on arguing that she is an unfit mother because she uses chopsticks, or because she eats raw fish?

1. No.

2. No, I doubt it.

3. Good luck with that, but don't hold your breath on getting full custody of young kids away from a woman.