I will try and make this as short as possible but would like some advise regarding a customer agreement my wife has with her ex husband regarding their children.

Approximately 8 years ago, my then wife and I went through a long a drawn out process to work out a custody deal in the Jefferson County court here in Colorado. The magistrate who oversaw the case gave one week, one week off of custody to each parent. My wife and I have the 2 kids (14 year old girl, 10 year old boy) 1 week, then my wife's ex-husband has them for a week. There is a third child (15 year old girl) who has chosen to live with her father and grandmother due to some psychological manipulation on behalf of the father and grandmother which my wife and I cannot control.  Back story on the ex husband is that he lives with his mother in the mountains and was ordered to counseling which he never did. He was also ordered to make sure one of the children (who lives with them full time)  saw a therapist which he never oversaw. He ordered the ex husband to oversee the therapy of one of the children because he made significantly less money than my wife and I do and he had the kids on CHP so the court ordered therapy was to be foc. He was also ordered to pay my wife's attorneys fees but never did. My wife and I never pursued it for sake of the kids.

Throughout the entire time, we have had dozens upon dozens of incidents with my wife's ex husband regarding him badmouthing her to the children (which he cannot do per court ordered documents), situations of us finding out he has been drinking and driving with all kids in the vehicle and in general just putting the kids in harmful psychological situations. One of the girls who lives with us half the time has chosen as of yesterday to come live with us full time due to what she calls psychological torture on behalf of her father and grandmother. She is of the age now in the courts eyes that she can technically make her own choice of where she wants to live if it comes down to it. My wife's fear now is that the psychological abuse and even more badmouthing of my wife with start to occur on the 10 year old boy now that the father and grandmother are losing control of the kids. My wife is considering going after full custody of the 10 year old boy and I support her 100%. I have a great relationship with my step kids however I also don't want them to feel like resenting their mother because they took legal action against their father even though in my opinion it's completely warranted.

My wife and I had an attorney throughout the legal proceedings during the divorce and custody battle but her attorney was tragically killed in a skydiving incident. I suppose we could go back to the attorneys who her lawyer worked for and I am sure they would have all the case notes from her history but am looking for any advise on weather it's possible for us to obtain full custody of her kids.

Thank you in advance.

In my opinion, it sounds like it may be possible to get custody.  However, it is not as clear cut of a case as it may seem.  The biggest issue that I can see is that many of the items that you are listing as justifying the change of custody (psychological torture, badmouthing the other parent, etc.) are the types of items that are very difficult to prove in court because generally it is something that is based upon hearsay since I doubt that they have done any of this in front of you or your wife.  This really complicates things in terms of being able to bring that info up in front of a judge.  The kids may be able to do it, but that is problematic because it may require them to testify.  In addition, some of the psychological stuff may require an expert to prove and it doesn't sound like there is currently someone that can step in that role.  It will help that the middle daughter is saying that she wants to live with mom.

First, good luck and second:  My ex and I were ordered to go through psychological screening due to her allegations against me.  Incest type behavior on my part.  The "master" at court ordered the testing.  You may benefit from a similar ruling.  From what you stated previously they are in violation of several parts of the agreement.

Thank you both and thank you civprod for the advise.

My wife and I are planning on hiring the court appointed psychologist who oversaw the case before to evaluate the children and if need be, my wife and myself and other members of our family to see if it's in the best interest if we have sole custody. If they do, then I assume we could go to court and have a judge review all the information including the previous ruling which has never been followed by my wife's ex husband and I would hope he/she would grant full custody to us based on it being in the best interest of the kids.

I am going to reach out to our former attorneys and also see if they think this is a suitable approach at this point. If we absolutely had to, we could retain their services again but I would prefer to shy away from spending $10K if we could do most of the leg work on our own.

If you get legal full custody, it does not stop visitation, and will not end the denigration of your family.  

1.  That said, if you get custody, what does the child gain from it?   That is the most important question.
2.  If you get custody, what do you gain from it?
3.  Is it worth the legal costs you will suffer?

What is your motive?

Might it be better to control what you can- you- and put the effort into being the best role model possible.



Been there, done all that.  Cost me $80,000.   Then she started Round 2, which I'm "winning" and she is going to lose a lot of ground- and I've spent $20,000 in two months.    What I can say is allegations made by responsible adults over time do win trust, while allegations by a nutjob eventually make the nutjob parent look like a real idiot.   That, of course, will be taken into consideration, perhaps unstated consideration, depending on the law guardian and the judge.    

BUT without concrete evidence of seriously dangerous behavior (e.g., DUI conviction, abuse, etc.) I don't see where much will change for anyone.  

I'm not a lawyer, I just pay one.

We do not want to stop visitation. My wife and I realize its still important for the children to have their biological father in their lives but we are hoping if something changes and his time is now limited, it will change his behavior. My thoughts are it probably wont work but we have to try. We also just found out he has been drinking and driving with the children in the car on almost a daily basis and we already have it on record with the local social services group in his county that they warned him to stop.