Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

If I were you, I would not wait another minute to file for divorce. You ought to do so ASAP, which can be done while you are deployed, so long as you have access to a fax machine or e-mail and a scanner. You'll want to do so in order to prevent jurisdiction from shifting to Ohio from Washington due to your wife's move there.

It's not an issue as to the dissolution, but for custody purposes, there is something called the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act ("UCCJEA") that most states have adopted as part of their laws in some form or another. The idea is to minimize the number of fights over jurisdiction and just allow the parties to get down to brass tax, namely, figuring out what to do about custody, as opposed to first arguing over which state's court has jurisdiction to even hear the matter.

The other thing you can accomplish is to get the process started because it will be at least a couple of weeks before a hearing can be held to establish temporary custody orders (these are called "parenting plans" in Washington) that would even allow you to see your daughter.

If you just show up in Cleveland and your wife refuses to allow you to see your daughter, when one of you inevitably calls the cops, they show up, ask if there is an order giving you the right to see your child, and if when you say there is no such order, they tell you that they are sorry, there is nothing they can do, but that when you come back with a valid court order, they will be happy to enforce it if your wife still refuses to allow you to see your child.

If you would like to talk to me about this before you return, feel free to call me or e-mail (you can obtain my contact information by clicking on my name, highlighted in blue, below) and I am happy to go over the basics of your case at no cost for the initial consultation and then you can make a more informed decision about how you would like to proceed.