Advice please!

I left my husband in April after he accused me again of having an affair.( I have never broken my vows) I have two boys 3 and 5, and they are very close to their father. I didnt want to pull them from thier home and from thier daddy, but I didnt know what else to do so I lef them there. So i left my kids there but I visit almost everyday (atleast 2 to 3 times a week) and I get them everyother weekend. I wanted to work things out, but he has changed so much I now see that I want to dissolve this. He is trying to tell me that he can claim abandenment and can have sole custody. I still give him 85% of pay check to pay bills with and I am always with my boys, can he do that? I have not been ugly wit him but he has sent me nasty messages and I have saved all of them. I dont want this to get messy but we need to sell the house and come to terms on custody, but I cant afford a lawyer, not right now im paying him all the money I have...what do I do?

The fact that you left them because you didn't like being accused of infidelity (as opposed to leaving for job training, or leaving because you are ill and needed intensive care out of state, for example) does not reflect well on you in the eyes of the court.

Your posting contradicts itself---you say you see them "every day" (there are seven days in a week) then you say you see them two or three times a week and weekends. So, literally, you aren't "with them all the time". You left---the way that looks in the eyes of the court isn't dressed up in ambiguous terms. (NOTE: This is not a reflection on you personally---it is merely expressing to you the way courts generally look upon the party that moves out <i.e. leaves/abandons/surrenders the children to the other parent>).

I think the best thing for you to do is move back in ( removing your husbands 'abandonment' angle and leveling the playing field so to speak) and learn to get by until a hearing can be called to award temporary custody. If you are not in the home and he is in the home with the children, and you go to court for temporary custody until the actual hearing, you can bet the judge will award custody to the father.

Unless the home is dangerous ( and in that case, the children shouldn't be there either), you haven't any legal grounds to get your feelings hurt and abandon your children, even if it is to their father. You say you didn't want to take them away from their father and their home, but you had no problem taking their mother away from them? That makes no sense.

If you want to retain a chance at getting custody, you must get in the home---or it is easy for the court to rule for the father. Of course, at that time, the judge will order YOU to pay support, ( and I commend you for doing so already).

It breaks my heart to think of the confusion your children must feel at mommy being gone. My children -- I too have a five year old, are struggling to understand their fathers recent death. In my opinion, being called any name in the book isn't worth the heartache those children feel knowing Mommy left them ( regardless of how "good" the reason seems to her at the time).

Unless you are in the home at the time of the hearing, your husband most likely will get custody and you will pay child support. If you want your kids, you have to get back in the game. And that means living WITH them. I cannot imagine convincing a judge you HAD to leave them because you were accused of being an unfaithful woman. I feel that he, like me, won't see the correlation between being called unfaithful, and upending your children's lives by taking their mother away from them.

Good luck to all of you.

I said almost everyday...sometimes he does not let me into the house. Yes my kids are confused but its better than the enviorment they were in before.

I have no idea how this could be the case. I simply cannot fathom two adults who had enough in common to cohabitate and create two children being unable to grow up enough to keep their family under the same roof. And, as a mom of seven, I cannot imagine hating their father enough to abandon THEM. There is nothing in the world he could have said or done while he was alive to make ME leave MY children. I just do not see the correlation.

In any regard, I do not need to see it. And, it appears you missed the point of my posting. Even though you left, he has no right to stop you from coming into the house---you were never evicted , given thirty day notice, etc. I don't know how long ago it was you left, but if enough time has passed, I don't suppose he has to let you in since it is his house ( if it is not deeded to you, or your name isn't on the lease, etc). I don't suppose you can come and go indefinitely for years, still considering it your own.

I suspect everyone you encounter, including your divorce attorney will ask you to explain why you abandoned the kids because your husband called you an unpleasant name.

I hope you have an answer---not for me---I don't need one. But for him----and more importantly, for you.

If he has no problem with you getting them every other weekend, what is the problem with letting you back in?

Also, akin to Grace's point, it will also look to the husband as if he were right all along. You may have given him fuel for the fire. I hope you can find a lawyer with the right kind of fire extinguisher.