Legal Question in Family Law in New Jersey

Under what circumstances would it be possible to get primary custody of my 1 year old daughter with my husband only allowed supervised visits after separation/ divorce? My husband has several mental illnesses that leave him intermittently negligent of our daughter which scares me to death. I can't leave her awake with him for too long because he can't maintain a safe environment for her because his mind can't process information the way it needs to. I'm constantly finding his unsecured pills left laying around the house despite constantly telling him to stop doing that. He has left her unattended, leaving the room, where she has fallen off furniture, not understanding why she needed hands-on supervision when crawling around on the couch. He has forgotten to feed her, refused to feed her, told lies to her medical specialists regarding how I care for her, trying to get them to change their plan of care to suit his own personal needs. Gave her a soda can where she sliced her finger on the opening and lied to me about what happened. Didn't know how to respond properly to her bleeding. I eventually had to take her to urgent care when bleeding didn't stop, and he decided to stay at a bar. Left her home sleeping only to be supervised by her 12 year old incompetent sister, which is something I told him to never do while I was at work, so he could go the store to buy a smoothie. He has BPD, OCD, ADD, PTSD, GAD. He has been divorced twice before me and has a daughter from his 1st marriage. His ex has primary custody with no visitation order in place. She chooses to let their daughter stay every other weekend if her daughter chooses, but they divorced when she was 4 and old enough to talk. However, I have witnessed his neglect of his 1st daughter as well (not feeding her, ignoring her, driving her around without a booster seat/seatbelt or in the front seat under the age of 8), and had to step in to intervene. He even started leaving her alone at home starting at 10 years old. This just supports why I don't trust sending my baby to be solely in his care for days at a time. He has been emotionally abusing me our whole 5.5 years of marriage, pushed me while 7 months pregnant (not reported to police), and punched a hole in the wall in a rage. I want to leave but my fear is leaving and not being able to protect my daughter afterwards because he has never actually abused her. What are my options?


Asked on 6/20/20, 4:39 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jef Henninger, Esq Law Offices of Jef Henninger, Esq.

Your best option is to hire a very aggressive divorce attorney. Put your case together and file a motion at the same time you file for divorce. You have to really lay out your case from the start and prepare for a long battle.

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Answered on 6/20/20, 5:13 pm


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