Svea deserves to be raised by both of her parents:

This outreach comes at a place where I’ve exhausted every other avenue, and the crushing debt of legal fees, while I work through family court in pursuit of joint custody of our daughter, hangs like an ever leadening Albatross around my neck, and heart.

Over the course of two years, I have intentionally kept the circumstances of my legal situation off of social media; it doesn’t belong here. This makes this all the more harder to do. Respect for confidentiality means that I share only a glimpse of my circumstances, and what brought me here, while outstretching my weary heart, as though it were a hand, for help.

I am the petitioner pursuing joint custody of our daughter, and first sought assistance from the court in July of 2022. At that time I was convinced that our case would not end up in court, and that our daughter’s parents would be able to work together with the help of court to draft a parenting plan that prefaced equal quality shared time with our lovely daughter. Instead, I have now been-for more than a year-locked into a trial to prevent a move way order requested to relocate our daughter out of state, in addition to a countersuit to my petition that asks the court for me to abdicate my rights to joint custody as a loving father.

Our daughter lives with me three days a week, and has since April of 2022 (before then, we lived together 100% of the time), when her parents began living in separate homes. There is a chance you have seen posts on my Facebook page where I’ve tried to share my unyielding adoration and pride of her development, my own as a father, and ours together as a family. There are no scenarios that play out where I cannot continue to co-raise my daughter without the thought devastating me, as well as her. She deserves both of her parents, and our case makes no argument regarding the character and commitment of either of her parents to her.

To be clear, the dispute so far established in court, does not -and is impossible to-involve allegations or evidence of any kind that would suggest that either of our daughter’s parents are anything other than loving, caring, present, and responsible. This simple omission, one would naturally think, would make our case easier, or simplier, but it hasn’t. Its endurance and state of un-resolve in court, and the toll this unnecessary conflict has had on me, has been made all the more acutely emotionally and financially exhausting and confusing as a consequence. Nobody wins in court.

In the past year, I have had to borrow $10,000 from my step-mother, who is retired and lives on a fixed income, who essentially drained her savings to help.

I live with that everyday; the fact that she believes in me and my care and love for our daughter so much is weighed down by the sacrifice my step-mother has made, and the cost of her investment to her.

In the same amount of time, I’ve to also scraped an additional $4,000 from my own income and savings to fund the case.

There is nothing left in either of our coffers to cover the remaining $10,000 I owe my attorney before I return to court next month, and I don’t know what to do.

I have no one else to turn to. Additional and unreasonable financial sanctions to my income remain interim until our case is concluded.

I have a respectable full-time job and income, replete with medical benefits for our daughter and myself. Alone, they should be enough to provide for her. And yet, I do not qualify for such hefty a loan from my bank, and swelling attorney fees mean that that support I earn is very much at risk for the costs of a trial that should not have to happen. I am so far into it, and so driven to protect my daughter’s time and care with me that I am plotting into a dark with a kind of blind faith that:

the light is just around the corner;

bad things don’t happen to good people;

and this will all finally conclude with the happiest ending for Svea: equal shared quality time with both of her parents.

Between here and there, I cannot see anything else, and fear fills my heart with each step I further take into that dark, knowing:

I do not have the financial resources needed to keep going and the risk of losing my attorney because I cannot afford him is all too real; the work we’ve done becoming unaccessible so close to my time in court; and knowing all the while that there is no other path for me to proceed upon that would not also devastatingly pierce my own dedication and humanity as a father.

Additionally, our case has now been deferred four times on the day of trail, communicating a debt to me of $1000 each of those days, since my attorney was on the clock, though no progress forward was made.

I know we’re all facing personal and financial challenges in our own life, and I don’t know how to ask for anything, save for taking the leap in understanding that it’s okay to ask.

If you can help, even with a little, a small coal will be added to reenforce the fire I’m trying to keep lit, with the hope that with enough small coals, this dark can be made illuminated enough that our daughter and I can finally find our way home, together.

If you've read it this far and can’t go further, know that your care in this moment has already done something positive, and even that small gesture matters.

I can share my outstanding bill, and my attorney’s latest concern regarding my debt and his representation, upon request.

Thank you.