"Possession is 9/10ths of the law"

mdotm0904

...scared the crap out of me when a lawyer I talked to told me that yesterday. I now know that even IF my ex decides to stop being a major douche lord, and decides he wants to take an active role in this little girl's life (& not walk away because I refuse to give her his last name). I still plan to file for physical custody & get some visitation established on paper. To know that without an order in place if I let her visit with him unsupervised for the day/weekend & he decides he doesn't want to give her back, HE DOESN'T HAVE TO!!! AND he's not even a citizen of this country (he just has a green card) he could take her back to Africa with him if he wanted to and it'd be HELL trying to get her back...if ever. It breaks my heart that the legal system is the route that I have to take but he's so unstable & unpredictable and I have to do whatever it takes to protect both myself & my baby girl.

Nobody i know has ever had to go through anything like this, so sometimes I feel pretty alone. My mom & family are all completely supportive of whatever I choose to do, but still...it's a lonely feeling. Glad there's boards like this....thanks for letting me ramble