Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

I'm sorry you've had so many problems with your husband, but I'm glad you at least have your mom's support and steady employment and housing--those factors both help make your life a lot easier and should make getting good custody terms easier as well. You'll need to file a divorce petition, along with what's called a SAPCR ("Suit Affecting Parent-Child Relationship"), which will ask the court to decide custody, visitation and support, as well as determine various parental rights and responsibilities such as who can take your daughter to the doctor, decide her religious training, decide where she'll go to school, etc. The next step will be finding him to get him served or to file a waiver of service. If you can't do that, the situation will get more complicated and expensive, because if there's any possible way to do it, the court's going to require he get notice. Given that your daughter's well-being is involved, you really do need to have an attorney to help you figure all this out. The rules and law are more complicated than most people think, and one little misstep that you don't even know you're making can mean that you lose important rights for no good reason. Good luck--I hope this all works out well for you and your daughter.