Parental Rights Battle

So, currently, being deployed is about the best time for sh*t to hit the fans, as it always does.

My 'wife', I say it in ' ' because she left me three years ago, and I haven't seen her, or my daughter since then, as she moves around way too often and lived across the country and never bothered to contact me with the same phone number or address, moved to California a couple of months ago, to move into an apartment.

As a prior foster child, the state has a program set up for her to give her low income housing for less than what it's actually worth. She moved in with my mother for a couple of weeks waiting for the final steps to complete, and be notified it's time to move in.

Within two weeks of being there, she had pissed off my step father so badly that he kicked her out, now not trying to be a monster leaving her on the streets with two kids, he gave her a few hundred dollars to get a hotel room until it was time to move in. She had ignored not only my daughter, but her ex boyfriends daughter's cries, everytime, and would go outside to smoke and text message people until they quieted down or fell asleep. I don't blame him for kicking her out, she never was a good mother to begin with.

Well anyways, she moved into the apartment, and her boyfriend moved in with her. Where she met this guy is beyond me, she claims to have known him for several years from high school and the such. He's a 'recovering heroin user', and she also had her ex-boyfriend, and father to her other daughter, living in with them at the time, who's also a recovering drug addict. (she knows how to pick them)

When 'ex-boyfriend/dad' didn't show up for his rehab class, the case workers showed up to check on him, and found him in a chair, in the apartment, barely awake, and not responding to any sounds or movements. The apartment was trashed, dirty diapers in every room, trash in every room, cigarette butts everywhere, and change littering the floor. Needless to say the case workers were a bit miffed. Then they saw my wife's boyfriend walk out of the bathroom covering his arm, and go outside to smoke, and join my wife.

The case workers looked around some more and found my daughter and the other girl alone in the bathtub, unattended, and my daughter trying to crawl up the open window, on the second floor. And signs of drug tools lying around and empty prescription bottles. They asked my wife if she had any, and everyone else. My wife opened her purse and had several prescription bottles in her purse, with none of the prescribed to her.

The Police were notified quickly and arrived to take the children away, and arrest my wife's boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend for violation of probation and endangering a minor, it turns out her boyfriend was shooting up in the bathroom next to my daughter.

The kids were taken to a foster care facility and my wife, and her two men, were all charged with child neglect, the guys were also charged with use of controlled substances, and violation of paroles since they both had records.

The court case went down a couple of weeks ago, granting my mother temporary custody of my daughter while I'm out at sea, and child services said I had six months to establish a relationship with my daughter, as I haven't been in her life aside from paying over a grand of child support a month, or else I lose all parental rights. Same with my wife. But I'm also deployed. So it makes for a very wonderful soap opera, as the non-offending parent is off on the other side of the country with no way to get back, fighting to retain his rights, while the offending parent is within a bike rides distance of the daughter she neglected in the first place.

I'm currently fighting to submit a Humanitarian Reassignment package to get me transferred to the west coast, and back to my home town, so I can be with my daughter, that I haven't seen for almost all of her life now. But of course there are the powers that be, that want to refuse me, saying I have to do my time on this deployment before I get back, saying I'm needed.

Luckily I've found loopholes, but they've pulled out the Sailor and Soldier's Civil Relief Act, which says no court can decide anything against me while I'm gone. But that covers vehicles and property, not human beings, and I refuse to see my daughter as a damned car.

So after losing days upon days of sleep, and the ever stressful environment that is a naval vessel, I've pulled out every rule in the book that says I have to be at least considered and can not be denied because of the 'ships need'. I've got so much to figure out what to do, and how to do it, let alone having the money to fly out from the middle east to Va, and pack my apartment in a day, and drive across country and get there, if I even get approved form my reassignment.

That's all the venting for now. I feel a bit better.

aw GODS makes you wanna cry! How could A Mother be that way with her baby or any one elses! Can yourMom keep her? I'm so angry I could throw up
I'm so sorry! Those poor baby's AW

I'm sorry for you too!

The court gave my mother a minute order, saying she had temporary custody for the time being, six months, from that date, and if I fail to establish the relationship, I and her lose my daughter, and my mother has to give her up.

Can't your mother get legal guardianship? uh Your Mom probably can't adopt her because her "mother" won't agree to it huh?

This is gonna sound like some kind of joke and Im so not.. but if worst came to it might not be so bad to marry a friend. And then she can be your babies Momma.

I had already considered it, but most of my female friends are strippers who come to my shop getting pierced And the only one I would trust, moved back to New York recently.

You may want to consider a hardship discharge but then any kind of discharge could take a while to process. What do you have to do to meet the courts requirements of establishing a relationship?

I've already considered it and am trying to prepare for it, Getting updates on Hepatitus shots and my First Aid and whatnot knocked out and up-to-date again so when I go back to California, if, and if it's because of a discharge, I'll be able to hop into any shop I could choose, and start working immediately with valid references from the east coast.

The court just wants me to be with her, at best live with her. Provide a paternal figure that hasn't been there since she left.

And the discharge, is not my call, it's up to the command, and the decision of the board that decides if I reassign or not.

Aww man, that's all so awful. I'm so sorry and I really hope things work out.

I am really sorry to hear that bro. I wish you the best of luck and I am still waiting on an address or location to send that toco bell... lol

When my mom dropped me off at my dads ship he was getting ready to go out to sea, His commander let him stay and work on the base.

So cant they do anything for you? Can you go to higher powers, it seems really out of the ordinary for the Navy to say no you cant leave to be there for your daughter and sort out the legalities.

The mom never contacting you, have you tried to contact her and see your daughter?

You just have to try harder. Good luck to you.

I have tried, but she's moved around so much that it made it impossible to know where she was, let alone contact her, it wasn't until last week that I had an email address. She never had the same phone number longer than a month or two.

Right now I have a package being submitted within the week to a board that decides whether I go to California and work out of San Diego, or I get out on a hardship discharge.

And it's actually like the military to say no for the most part. I don't have the rank and the authority to try and pull that card when I need to, so I have to follow a long painful process to fight it out.

I wish you the best of luck hopefully the military can see things from your point of view.

For the most part, after a small explanation I look like a shining god compared to my wife on paper. The chain of command has had a few questions, but they've all been simple to answer, and looking at the papers that we've received I don't think it will be an issue for much longer. Now I have to deal with a greedy spiteful wife who wants to play the victim in all of this.