court date is around the corner

[Painter]

Angel, I would advise very strongly against this. I have over a decade's experience with divorced families and custody cases, and I can pretty much guarantee you that the judge will not give you 100% custody unless you have medical proof that she abused the children systematically and brutally, and the police was called repeatedly.

Have you discussed with your L exactly how custody is decided in your state? Many states have legal custody and physical custody as two separate concepts and it's important to know the difference.

The judge will want for the children to have access to both parents. It's about the children and what's best for them. Asking for 100% custody will make the judge look at you as vindictive and that you don't value the children's relationship with their mother.

The judge isn't going to believe she was abusive to the children either, because you never did anything about it while you were together. I understand why, but the judge isn't going to.

The offer of every 1, 3 and 5 weeks is an extremely good offer! I think you should jump on it and not let your anger and pride get in the way of achieving what you want. It means the children would spend more time with you than with her. You would have them over half the time and most likely have more legal say than her over them.

As young as they are, the judge may very well just give you every other weekend. Once you go into court, you give up all power over your situation and a stranger will decide. Once it's decided, you can't just appeal or want to take the offer. It will be too late unless something substantial changes.

Again, I will strongly urge you to take the offer of 1, 3, 5 weeks. It's excellent and you would have primary custody. Then, if you feel she is abusive to the children, you go step by step through the process of proving it. That is the only way you can protect your daughter. You can't gamble with this, seriously.

And make sure her accusations against you and the subsequent offers are documented. It makes her accusations worthless - she offers primary custody to someone she just wanted supervised visitation for? That's ridiculous.

But you still won't get 100% custody in court.