Liv’s dad has filed for full custody, asking that I only get 8 hours of supervised visitation a month (4 hours every other weekend,) for me to pay him child support, and to pay for all of his attorney fees. He has retained the same lawyer that my previous exh used against me.

Liv is 16 years old. She doesn’t want this. Her dad and I have coparented without lawyers for over a decade. I have agreed to all of his schedule change requests, every single month for the last 2 years, to support and facilitate his long distance, romantic relationship. We have never had issues disagreeing about her educational or medical decisions. She has come to my house after school every single day of her life, even on his days. Her primary residence has always been with me. But this has little to do with coparenting, or even with Liv.

This is in direct retaliation for me being upset (devastated) that he took Gavin’s clothing, allowed someone else to cut them up and make them into teddy bears, and then *gave them away* to whoever he wanted to, without asking me first. All I wanted was to look thru his clothing one last time before they were cut up, which I had been planning to do when all my other children were 18. Every time I have moved in the last decade, I have held those boxes of clothes and told myself, “someday, but not today.” I’ve had a Pinterest board for the project since he died, and always planned to do it myself. I wanted to pick out my favorite outfits for my bear. I wanted to use the outfits my mom made for him, for her bear. Now I’ll never have that opportunity and I have no idea what else was already given away, or to who. He even called my adult children from my previous marriage (that he abandoned) and gave them their bears, stealing that sacred moment from me as well.

I will never forgive how and why this happened. I will never forget the selfishness and cruelty of those involved. I will never understand using your dead son’s memories “they’re just a bunch of gross, moldy clothes…you would’ve forgotten about them anyway” as tools of manipulation. Beyond that, using our daughter’s life, and trying to sever my parental rights, over a FB post that was up for a few hours, is beyond my comprehension. This is only about hiding abuse and protecting people’s images. This is about uprooting your child’s entire life, in an attempt to move them to a different state so you can have everything you want with your long distance partner.

All I can say is…I’m grateful he finally proved he’s exactly the kind of man I always knew he was.

A retainer for a lawyer is approx $3-5k. If you can help, I will be extremely grateful. I’m terrified of going through all this again. I’m already struggling to afford my regular expenses, and had temporarily moved in with my mom for the summer to try to catch up financially. I just put $2k into repairs on my vehicle last month, and was planning to use this month’s pay for the deposit on our new apartment next month, and moving expenses. It isn’t fair, but finances often determine who “wins” in family court, which means single moms can be severely disadvantaged. I don’t even need to say how much I completely loathe having to ask for financial help again. My only silver lining is this is the absolute LAST time a man can use the family court system to abuse my children and me. That’ll be the only thing getting me through the next two years. Thank you for any support you can give us.