Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Dad let kids live with their mom because she was terminal...now in remission?

My boyfriend was granted custody of his 2 kids in 1998 due to her abandoning them. In June, 2002 during her weekend visitation, the children's mother told them she'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was due to go to jail for not paying child support, and he dropped the arrears to keep her out. Her and the kids begged him to let them live with her for her last months, and he let them go, with an agreement (between the parents) that there would be no child support...he would take the kids and buy them whatever they needed. 3 years later, she is in remission and taking him to court for custody and child support. She has never had stable employment, and is now living off of support from the state. He has done everything he could do to allow the children to know their mother before she passed, and now that she's in remission, she's dragging them through court again. He offered to sit down with her and a lawyer to settle on an amount he could pay her each month, and agree on a schedule for visitation, but she won't do it. His daughter hasn't been to our house for visitation in about a year and a half...scared of her mother dying. Since she's had them for the last 3 years, is it likely they'll grant her custody/child support?


Asked on 11/14/05, 3:50 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

Re: Dad let kids live with their mom because she was terminal...now in remission?

Custody, visitation, child support. Each of these matters by itself can be complicated enough but in combination their reasonable resolution can often prove challenging even for experienced family law practitioners. It would appear that your boyfriend has been offering to sit for discussions on these matters without a key person beside him at the table. I'm referring, of course, to the lawyer of which you've made no mention nor whom your boyfriend may have not yet hired to represent him,(thinking, perhaps, that he can handle these matters on his own without the benefit of counsel). Quite wrong, I'm afraid.

Without an attorney on and at his side, I would surmise that your boyfriend has little chance of emerging from the this domestic litigation with

anything approaching (from his perspective)a satisfactory settlement of these various issues.

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Answered on 11/14/05, 8:15 pm


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