My wife and I got married/divorced in Tennessee. We have three kids together, all boys, 9, 8, and 4. We got divorced July 2008. She signed over custody to me, the father, so I have physical custody and we have shared legal custody. In October 2008 I decided to move to Florida with my job. I had my lawyer sent her a letter stating my decision giving her time to fight it. Well, she didn't. She said it was because she didn't have the money too and I had he backed against a wall. Either way, she didn't fight it and I moved.

Now here it is May 2009. She hasn't paid any childsupport since the divorce. She has seen the boys three times because I brought them to her to visit. She kept them for a week each time, although most of it the kids we passed to my mother and other people to watch. My ex just got notified of child support here in Florida looking to collect on my behalf. Now all of the sudden she is saying she wants custody back of the boys. She is telling me I need to have the child support reduced or she wants custody of them.

Now my question is... given she is their mother, will she get custody if she takes me back to court now? The boys are doing good here in Florida, registered in school here, in baseball and karate, etc. I am also remarried, so we have a combined household of 9. My wife gets them to their doctors and therpaists and does all their work with them. They finally have stability, which their mother could never give them. Their mother is even dating a man in prison who she says she will marry when he gets out... any help would be great... what are a ftahers chances for keeping custody in Tennessee, and given I live in Florida now, would court be here or there, would I need a TN lawyer or a FL lawyer? Or do I have no chance at all if the mother wants them back?

There is no predicting what a judge will do, but my gut says she isn't going to succeed. ESPECIALLY if you can prove that she said she wants the support reduced or she will apply for custody. If you can prove that, I think you stand an excellent chance of retaining custody.

The only thing is you will probably have to fight this out in TN. As long as she remained there, then jurisdiction remains there.

I assume, by the way, that you got court approval to move. Its possible that the court approval and her not fighting it will allow you to move jurisdiction to FL.

The simple answer is probably not. Just because she is the mother does not give her special rights and a court is reluctant to change custody if there is not solid compelling reason to... and her wanting it is not particularly compelling.

If you have been in FL for over 6 months, go to the court now and ensure they have jurisdiction. That will make sure the fight happens in FL. It should, since that's where the children reside. However, if the marriage and custody occurred in TN, they might retain it for now. Call the court... they will be able to guide you.

Don't worry too much... forced custody changes like this don't often happen.

The first things is whether you got permission from the court to move to FL? If not, then TN probably still has jurisdiction. I am not sure it matters whether you have been in FL over 6 months if you didn't get permission to move in the first place.

Secondly, I am a father that went through a similar situation and live in FL. I was never married though so when we separated we made our visitation schedule 50/50 of which she rarely adhered to. Eventually, she stopped picking my boys up on her scheduled days and her bad habits took over her life. She would see them here and there every few months or so until she got out of rehab (pregnant I might add). She took them steadily each week for a while but then her bad habits consumed her again she actually took off to TN for about 6 months. The only reason she came back is because I filed for custody. I now have physical custody and she has supervised visitation for 4 hours each week, which again, she rarely takes. She hasn't seen or even spoken to my boys since the beginning of November. No birthday presents, nothing for christmas, no contact at all. She recently got married to a man that is just going to do more harm than good and had another child. Her cell phone is shut off and we have no new number. She has no place to live so the courts can't even find her to put her into contempt for non-payment of child support. It is a mess! We heard that she actually got one if not both of her younger children taken away by DCF. I truly believe that the court system will not just hand over custody the mother just because she is the mother; not anymore. Things have changed and I was nervous about the same stuff when I went for custody. Judges want what is best for the children and it seems like you are providing that for yours. If what you are doing is working for them, I don't believe judges like pulling them out of that environment. Keep up the excellent work!

Again one never knows what some judges will do, any trip to the court can always turn bad. But since she does not visist, did not fight against your move, and does not pay child support.

I will ask why you have not turned it over to child support enforcment, Tennesse loves to put people in jail for not paying