I met my wife on a singles dating adventure trip in the Oregon wilderness. In every sense of the word, it was a whirlwind romance. From the time we met until the time we married, only about three months past. All our friends said that we were being foolish, but we were determined to prove them wrong. I wish I had listened to them. It turns out they were right.
Getting divorced, especially after having children, is a really difficult transition period for anyone. The kids compound things because neither parent really wants to hurt them. The problem is that parental custody and parents rights are always an issue in divorce. In this particular case, the parental rights battle got pretty nasty. My wife seemed determined to make sure that I had as few parents rights as possible when she was divorcing me. Not only did she wants child custody, but she also wanted to take away child visitation. Although she had no grounds for terminating parental rights, she wanted to reduce them as much as possible.
I thought that she was being quite nasty and vindictive about the parents rights issues. In my opinion, the children needed both parents, and both parents had a right to be with the children. Her desire to keep the parents rights all for herself seemed foolish and unfair to me. It seemed like a greedy shortsighted way of looking at things, brought about by the fact that she was emotionally disturbed by having to go through the divorce. I knew that she would regret her decision in another six months, but by then we would have already had a brutal parents rights fight that might have left one or the other of us with reduced legal rights with regard to the children. I had no choice, and I hired a fathers rights lawyer.
I am glad that I hired someone to take care of my parents rights. You may not believe it, but with regards to child custody battles, mothers definitely have the upper hand in the courts today. Because most of the courts believe that the child belongs with the mother more than with the father, it is hard for a father to get the parents rights that he needs. Because we were both active and involved parents before the divorce, the judge granted both of us extensive parents rights. It was the best thing for the children and for us.
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