Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

I have a 2 wk old daughter. Her father & I were only together a short time before we moved in together. Shortly after I found out I was pregnant her father (Derric) stopped taking care of himself completely. He wasnt showering (I had to tell him quite a few times to take a shower bc his lack of hygiene was making me nauseous bc of the smell) or brushing his teeth, shaving, washing his clothes & he also stopped cleaning up after himself. He also became very introverted & wouldnt communicate with me about anything. I became so uncomfortable I started sleeping on the couch & when I told him that things just were not going to work between us, he told me to hit him & it would make me feel better bc I said I was done talking about trying to work things out.

I ended up moving out of the apt we shared & going back to my parents house when I was 2 months pregnant. His parents called me & started talking to me about the baby & at the time Derric & I had talked about our options like adoption. His parents tried to convince me to sign my parental rights over to them & I told them that I wasnt going to do that. I decided that I wanted to keep my child & his parents kept reminding me that they would take her if I wanted them to. I had also told his mother that I would call her & let her know what happened at my prenatal appts & let her know what was going on w/ the baby but I didnt want to talk to her every day since my pregnancy didnt change on a day to day basis. But she decided to harass me & call me about 6 times a day. It got so bad I ended up changing my number so that she could no longer call me. She ended up following me to my job & trying to get me to talk to her there. When I refused to talk to her my boss sent her away & I called Derric & told him that I didnt want his mother contacting me or coming up to my job again. Then a couple days later Derrics step dad called my work & pretended to be a process server trying to find out when I worked so that he could come talk to me. When I told my dad about this he ended up calling the step dad & meeting up with him to tell him to leave me alone. The step dad ended up telling my dad that they were trying to contact me bc they didnt want me to have an abortion/give the baby away. I had already told them that I legally couldnt have an abortion bc I was too far along & I couldnt give the baby up for adoption w/o Derrics consent. My dad came home & I told him I no longer wanted to communicate w/ Derrics parents & that I would be civil with Derric enough to tell him what happened at my prenatal appts. That worked for a little while until Derric started calling & texting me at all hours of the night saying that I took everything from him when he left & that I made him depressed & how he has no one to help him get through this. He also kept saying things like "I cant trust you" & "how do i know youre telling the truth about doctors appts". When he didnt stop saying things like that I told him "If youre asking to come with me to the doctors appts the answer is no." & he hung up on me. I called him back & left him a message stating that I would continue doing what I had been doing & call him when I had doctors appts but other than that I didnt want to hear from him at all bc of the disrespect he showed me. He sent me a message back saying he was done being the nice guy & that I thought I was in control & that I wasnt going to be anymore.

Later that night when i didnt message him back he texted me around 2 am & said that he wanted me to call him bc he didnt want to leave things like that. When I didnt respond he started saying things like "thanks for causing me pain & heartache, etc."

I continued to message him when i had doctors appts but didnt hear from him until about a week before my daughter was born. He contacted me through facebook & I told him if he wanted to communicate with me I would only talk to him through the phone/text messages so that I would have record of what was said. He never contacted me bc he had changed his phone number so that I wouldnt know it. I found this out after my daughter was born bc he texted me asking if she was born. I told him she was & that when we got home I would allow him a short 30-60 min visit until we got visitation & child support set up & that I wanted my father present. When he came over to visit, she was asleep but he held her & we talked about the delilvery & his health history so I could give it to her doctor. Before he left I tried to wake her up by changing her diaper so that he could see her eyes. While I was changing her diaper I noticed that he was staring at her vagina instead of her face. This made me uncomfortable bc I know that he had been sexually abused as a child & also bc his roomate had told me that he found incestual porn on his playstion 3. Derric also calls his younger brother his son which I also found really strange. He is an alcoholic & has punched holes in the wall at the apt. How do I get primary/sole custody allowing him supervised visitation or is it even likely that I will get that?


Asked on 8/05/11, 10:13 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Thomas Daley KoonsFuller PC

Based on all you've said, you will get primary. So the next hurdle is how to get supervised visits. I think you can ask the court for supervision but make his mom and/or dad the supervisor until the child is 3. At that point, you have a different case.

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Answered on 9/12/11, 5:00 am


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