My fiancé has 2 children. Their mother who recently got out of prison(for the 2nd time) has them right now. We have agreed to do every other week with the children. CPS was involved (they have not been communicating with us at all)the mother and grandmother(who said they gave her guardian ship over them) said the case was closed and that my fiancé had to still have supervised visitations. Why I don't know since the children were removed from their mothers home. If we have the children in our possession can we go down and file for custody and not give them back until after we hear from a judge. We have asked for proof of the grandmother having temp custody and cps and the grandma both have not provided this information.What or how do we get the ball rolling??

my fiance has 2 children. their mother who recently got out of prison(for the 2nd time) has them right now. we have agreed to do every other week with the children. CPS was involved (they have not been communicating with us at all)the mother and grandmother(who said they gave her gaurdian ship over them) said the case was closed and that my fiance had to still have supervised visitations. Why i dont know since the children were removed from their mothers home. If we have the children in our possesion can we go down and file for custody and not give them back until after we hear from a judge. we have asked for proof of the grandmother having temp custody and cps and the grandma both have not provided this information.What or how do we get the ball rolling????????


First, there is no "we" here. You have no legal rights and are a legal stranger to the children unless/until you are married. This is "his" legal battle.

Who has custody of the children? You say the mother and grandmother ("who said they gave her guardianship of them") - who is "they" and who is "her"?

No, you cannot keep the children and then file for custody. Your boyfriend can be arrested if he does not follow the Orders of the Court as they exist today.

Your boyfriend needs to go to Family Court (or whichever handles these matters in your area) and file for revised visititation AND custody. He then would have to PROVE that the mother and/or grandmother are unfit. He will also need to PROVE that whatever reason there was which required his time to be supervised no longer exists, and he can have unsupervised visitation without harming the children in any way.

As I said, you have no legal standing here. Your request for legal custody would be viewed the same as a stranger's request for visitation.

It's your boyfriend's battle. At this point.

my fiance has 2 children. their mother who recently got out of prison(for the 2nd time) has them right now. we have agreed to do every other week with the children. CPS was involved (they have not been communicating with us at all)the mother and grandmother(who said they gave her gaurdian ship over them) said the case was closed and that my fiance had to still have supervised visitations. Why i dont know since the children were removed from their mothers home. If we have the children in our possesion can we go down and file for custody and not give them back until after we hear from a judge. we have asked for proof of the grandmother having temp custody and cps and the grandma both have not provided this information.What or how do we get the ball rolling????????

CPS is under no obligation to share information with the parent who is not being investigated - in fact, the worker can get into trouble for violating privacy laws if s/he discloses anything to the person not being investigated. I know this from experience when my stepchildren's mother was being investigated and they refused to tell my husband anything.

You say you "don't know why" your fiancé is required to have supervised visitation with the children since "[they] were removed from their mothers home." The answer to that is very simple: your fiancé was not considered a fit parent in some form and the courts ordered that his visitation be supervised. Just because the mother got into trouble doesn't suddenly mean that your fiancé is Parent Of The Year; whatever he did to bring on supervised visitation is still being considered by the courts as serious enough to keep the restriction.

The strategy of filing for custody and not returning the children until you are ordered to do so is very dangerous. Your fiancé is already on supervised visitation and I can all but guarantee that pulling a scheme like this will cause him to lose visitation entirely.

The only thing your fiancé can do is file for custody and state his reasons he feels the children would be better off being placed with him than with their mother. Please be aware that the current visitation schedule is going to play heavily into the mother's favor - I don't know what the history is but the courts don't just toss around supervised visitation for the heck of it. He did something severe and the courts are going to be extremely hesitant to place the children with him at this point.

... If we have the children in our possesion can we go down and file for custody and not give them back until after we hear from a judge. ...

Unless you are an evil spirit, you don't "possess" people, children or not.

I don't see in your opening post that there is a court order in effect. Whether you would get in legal trouble for not giving them back depends, to begin with, on the answer to that question.

Assuming there is a court order, of course, the answers you already got, would be correct: don't file for custody and then simply refuse to give the children back to their mother.

CPS and court records are available through the open records act. CPS will not make it easy. They will probably redact the records a lot so that it won't be helpful. Check the court files.

Your fiancé does know why he has supervised visitation. Not because he is "UNFIT" but because the court felt the need to protect the children. He may not want to tell you why or may not fully understand or may not agree. Judges get it wrong some times. They generally would prefer to have mistakes that are more protective of kids when in doubt.

Documentation is key. He will need to prove his position and it may take a while.

As fiancé, you have little to say in all of this. Judges have openly admonished girlfriends and fiancés who appeared too involved. Even as wife, your input will be limited. However, most courts will consider you in the mix since you will in reality become part of the mix. You will either help your fiance's case by your responsibe and loving demeanor or hurt him if you are not a good element in the mix.

Custody, especially with CPS involvement, can be long and expensive. Get a good lawyer.

CPS and court records are available through the open records act. CPS will not make it easy. They will probably redact the records a lot so that it wont be helpful. Check the court files.

Your fiance does know why he has supervised visitation. Not because he is "UNFIT" but because the court felt the need to protect the children. He may not want to tell you why or may not fully understand or may not agree. Judges get it wrong some times. They generally would prefer to have mistakes that are more protective of kids when in doubt.

Documentation is key. He will need to prove his position and it may take a while.

As fiance, you have little to say in all of this. Judges have openly admonished girlfriends and fiances who appeared too involved. Even as wife, your input will be limited. However, most courts will consider you in the mix since you will in reality become part of the mix. You will either help your fiance's case by your responsibe and loving demeanor or hurt him if you are not a good element in the mix.

Custody, especially with CPS involvement, can be long and expensive. Get a good lawyer.


This is a legal board. "We" take great pride in our answers. Many of "us" are educated in the law, practice law, have great research skills.

I am not aware of ANY Court which considers a fiance's involvement because "... you will in reality become part of the mix." Until it's legal there IS NO reality. As far as "admonishing" fiancés and girlfriends (and wives) I have heard them denied the right to speak. I've never heard anyone "admonished."

Not all States have an "open records act." I have no idea if OP is in a State which does or does not have an "open records act."

The info given to OP has been 100% correct.

I am aware I have no legal anything over the kids,except that both my fiancé and the children's mother have signed a paper giving me rights to have them treated for medical, and dealing with any school things. This was notorized and is a leagal document. I didn't mean to come off as if I did have legal anything over them sorry for that confusion.since I have posted this we found out the case has been closed (for a while now), no judge EVER signed any papers saying he had to have supervised visitations. This is just what the grand mother has told us. The mother of the children (whom I have built a great relationship with ) was told by cps that my fiancé and herself now have custody back of their children. Apparently the grandmother was just trying to pull something over on them. Thank you all so very much for getting back so quickly, all of this still makes very little sense to me. I ve never had to deal with this kind of stuff before.And thank god for that. I have kept a journal of every visit we have had with them, and my concernse . A cps worker in my county and a lawyer all said that it would stand up in court. I don't know but the thing is we have worked out a deal with the mother and I told my fiancé that he should in deed go down and file for joint coustdy that way he still has his rights in case she gets mad at him for whatever and not allow him to see them again. This is about the well being of the children and not what fits the parents best. Again Thank you very much!

I am aware I have no legal anything over the kids,except that both my fiancé and the children's mother have signed a paper giving me rights to have them treated for medical, and dealing with any school things. This was notorized and is a leagal document. I didn't mean to come off as if I did have legal anything over them sorry for that confusion.since I have posted this we found out the case has been closed (for a while now), no judge EVER signed any papers saying he had to have supervised visitations. This is just what the grand mother has told us. The mother of the children (whom I have built a great relationship with ) was told by cps that my fiancé and herself now have custody back of their children. Apparently the grandmother was just trying to pull something over on them. Thank you all so very much for getting back so quickly, all of this still makes very little sense to me. I ve never had to deal with this kind of stuff before.And thank god for that. I have kept a journal of every visit we have had with them, and my concernse . A cps worker in my county and a lawyer all said that it would stand up in court. I don't know but the thing is we have worked out a deal with the mother and I told my fiancé that he should in deed go down and file for joint coustdy that way he still has his rights in case she gets mad at him for whatever and not allow him to see them again. This is about the well being of the children and not what fits the parents best.And by the way I was only asking because we were told we could do this and it didn't sound right to me. Again Thank you very much!

i am aware i have no legal anything over the kids,except that both my fiance and the childrens mother have signed a paper giving me rights to have them treated for medical, and dealing with any school things. This was notorized and is a leagal document. i didnt mean to come off as if i did have legal anything over them sorry for that confusion.since i have posted this we found out the case has been closed (for a while now), no judge EVER signed any papers saying he had to have supervised visitations. this is just what the grand mother has told us. The mother of the children (whom i have built a great relationship with ) was told by cps that my fiance and herself now have custody back of their children. Apparently the grandmother was just trying to pull something over on them. Thank you all so very much for getting back so quickly, all of this still makes very little sense to me. i ve never had to deal with this kind of stuff before.And thank god for that. i have kept a journal of every visit we have had with them, and my concernse . a cps worker in my county and a lawyer all saidthat it would stand up in court. idk but the thing is we have worked out a deal with the mother and i told my fiance that he should in deed go down and file for joint coustdy that way he still has his rights in case she gets mad at him for whatever and not allow him to see them again. This is about the well being of the children and not what fits the parents best.And btw i was only asking because we were told we could do this and it didnt sound right to me. Again Thank you very much!

Is your fiancé established as the children's legal father? Were he and the mother ever married? Did he sign a paternity acknowledgment? Is he listed on the birth certificates as the father?

My guess to all the above is "no" otherwise CPS would have known he was the legal father and it wouldn't have been an issue for him to get custody of the children. Until he is established as the legal father, he technically has no rights to the children because there's no proof that these children are even his.

both my fiance and the childrens mother have signed a paper giving me rights to have them treated for medical, and dealing with any school things. This was notorized and is a leagal document.

No, this is probably NOT a legal document. Only a court can award guardianship or custody of a child. So if this document has not been ratified by a judge, it is unlikely to be legal.



but the thing is we have worked out a deal with the mother and i told my fiance that he should in deed go down and file for joint coustdy that way he still has his rights in case she gets mad at him for whatever and not allow him to see them again. This is about the well being of the children and not what fits the parents best.And btw i was only asking because we were told we could do this and it didnt sound right to me. Again Thank you very much!

Again only a court can award custody. So you don't just work out something with the mother. You go to court and get a judge to issue a legal order for custody. Otherwise the mother can renege on the agreement at any time. To have peace of mind you need to make any arrangements legal.