Custody Matters #1

DoD Ep. 5: Will It Be A Custody Battle?

I have to apologize for the break in newsletters. My excuses are Covid, bedbugs in Paris and jetlag from coming back from Paris (with Covid and bedbug bites). But I’m back!

I wasn’t planning on getting into kids and custody right away because it is such a deep, complicated issue, but that was stupid because custody of our kids is paramount when we are divorcing.

All the stock photos of “custody battle” are tragic, so here’s The Witcher’s (unbroken) Family of Surprise instead.

I wrote about Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas’s divorce in the last newsletter and I could smell the custody issues behind the surprise divorce filing. Sophie’s lawyers then filed a lawsuit demanding Joe hand over their daughters’ passports and let them leave for England, where the couple had agreed the family would permanently settle.

Joe, who seems to be methodically making his way through the post-separation abuse handbook, has done exactly what any cowardly control freak does when it comes to divorce and the kids:

• He filed for divorce without informing Sophie. She found out in the media when the rest of us did.

• He immediately badmouthed her (to the world), portraying her as a “bad mom” in the tabloids.

• He obviously had this in the works for a few months, getting their daughters back from England to the US before he secretly filed for divorce. This was to ensure he could file for divorce and custody in the US and solidify his “good dad/bad mom” narrative.

• He’s hiding behind a Florida court order that says the children can’t be relocated, even though two parents can jointly override a court custody order. While Joe requested this order, he’s pretending his hands are tied. Which has since proved to be false because their daughters are in New York now and both Joe and Sophie have agreed to keep the girls there. (So that Florida court order Joe had to follow just fell by the wayside, huh?)

Sophie and Joe are now trying to work out their divorce and custody matters in a 4-day mediation. I truly hope this works out for them because I do not wish family court on any woman, especially not a foreign mother with binational kids.

That is a road paved in the hell depths by voracious lemures overseen by Beelzebub.

Not that I have strong feelings about it.

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So You Think You’re In A Custody Battle?

Fighting over custody is the most horrific part of a divorce. If you can avoid it, please, please do. No matter who “wins”—and especially if it gets dragged out for years in court—the cost to yourself, your children and your bank account will have you jolting up nightly at 3 am, wondering if it was worth it. Sometimes, you don’t have a choice. If you’re divorcing a narcissist, s/he will not let your children go. They are too valuable as weapons, hostages and leverage. This sounds harsh, but it goes back to last week’s newsletter: Know who you’re divorcing.

If you suspect you’ll be fighting over your kids, I’m sorry to say you probably will be.

These are some preliminary steps you must take if you think custody will be decided by family court and you want to be the custodial parent. For parents who want to move with their children—out of state or out of the country—it will be difficult, though not impossible. I will share all I know about this in many future newsletters.

In the meantime…

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6 Steps To Take Pre-Custody Battle