Our question is simple... We want to know what are the chances that we could get custody of my husbands 2 children.
The story... I will make this simple... She (the ex-wife and current custodial parent)is irresponsible, does not work, moves from man to man to support her and the kids. The kids have spoke of violence with the mothers many boyfriends. The mother also does drugs, although we cannot prove this unless there is a surprise drug test given. The kids come to us every other weekend, sometimes filty and hungry. The mother does not keep us informed as to were she is living nor does communicate anything about what is going on in the kids lives.
We are going to petition the court for custody and will have to do mediation again. I just want to know if we have a real chance at this. I think this would be a much better environment for the kids. The only downfall is that neither one of us make a lot of money for a lawyer and we only have a 2 bedroom apartment.
Please tell me what you think.

If everything you say is true, you can probably successfully take this woman's children away from her.

At the risk of offending you, I want to warn you to think hard about this. You may find that at times the children will be dirty and hungry even in your care. You will need to commit to parenting them for many years. It's not a good idea to just try it out and return them if you find that working and caring for them, too, is hard. I can't tell if they are school age or younger, but if you are both working, one of you will have to be home either all day every day or be able to afford quality child care AND be able to stay home when they are sick. Can you do that without resentment or losing your job? This is a huge undertaking and it's unlikely that either the children or the mother will be happy to have you separate them no matter how unfit you feel she is. Even bad mothers love their children and vice versa. If you like these children, that's a sign that she's not doing as bad a job as you think. Think about this before jumping in to change everything so drastically.

What about offering to help her out by taking the children for an extra night or two now and then to see how it goes? Then if it goes well, you may both agree to equal custody, rather than going from alternate weekends to taking her kids away all at one blow. If you approach this is in the spirit of helping the kids and the mom, it's likely to go better than taking her to court, saying she's a terrible mother, and punishing her by taking her kids away from her.

[QUOTE=asking]If everything you say is true, you can probably successfully take this woman's children away from her.

Well I will tell you this... I am the wife and I have successfully received primary custody and have been raising my 7 year old son. The father, my husband, has a good job where he is home by 3:30 to get my son off the bus eveyday, so that would in turn work for his 2 children who are also school age. I work 4 days a week and we are both off on weekends.
The mother has no interest in trying to get help from us other than holding her hand out for more money. She constantly calls telling us how she needs money, but yet she refuses to work or do anything resourceful to help the situation. She will never tell us anything about what is going on in the kids life and she will not let us know where she is living. She has even went as far as to set up to have my husband drop the kids off at a family members house only to have her father and brother waiting to "jump" him... in front of the kids!! She curses and talked about adult thing in front of the children. She lets them watch very very inappropriate movies. She even has the nerve to try to send some of these movies home with them... now when I say inappropriate... would you let a 4 and 6 year old watch chucky or freddy kruger or alien movies??

Well for your situation I would skip mediation unless you want to waste your time asking for something and it turning into a huge fight. Seek a court order for a parental elavuation and proceed that way. You will be given a greater amount of time to present your case as far as how solid a parent you both are. Also the case against her as far as stability and drug use will be looked into. Keep diaries for each child when they visit with you and be sure to write things down. Do not interigate the children in any way. Fight hard but fight fair. With everything as ammunition then you might stand a good chance. Good Luck.