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My boyfriend and I lived together for twelve years. We have one nine year old daughter. He is a manipulative and abusive alcoholic, also a prominent businessman with a large salary. we brole up in December of last year, he moved his new girlfriend in shortly afterward. He filed child custody papers on me, then said he would cancel them if we could agree to do this out of court. I agreed, but he never canceled the mediations, and I missed it. Therefore, he was able to get temporary residential custody because I was a no show parent. I immediately got a lawyer and new hearing is scheduled for Oct. 30. I am having nightmares over this...will he be able to keep my daughter? I have many witnesses to testify about his abusive behavior. However, he is holding a recent OUI charge over my head as proof of my being an unfit mother.

In the end each of you will have the child part of the time.
He will have to show you are an unfit parent to to get her all of the time. With a recent OUI, the court would probably tell you o stop drinking when the child is with you and give you another chance.

Do your best to try to prove what he did to you was misleading... like that he promised you he would drop the paperwork and he didn't. Make SURE you bring this to the judge's attention, as this is VERY conniving and most judge's will NOT like this AT ALL.

It would be best to bring any type of paperwork with you, to back up your claim that your ex lied to you to get custody. This is serious and i really feel for you. Temporary orders almost always become permanent so you're most likely looking at a situation where you will have every other weekend visitation.

An OUI does not make you a bad parent. Make sure that this is brought to the attention of the court, that you are doing waht it takes to get on the right footing... for example... parenting classes... AA meetings... anything and EVERYTHING.

That, coupled with your insistence that you never would have NOT shown up if you would have known how this worked, and that he lied to you... AND that he is abusive and you have witnesses to attest to the matter.

I would have them write out affidavits, every single person, BUT YOU ALSO MUST HAVE THEM PRESENT to either be Deposed ahead of time - get a DEPOSITION from them if they can't be at court on the actual court date.

If you are at a lower income level, call PINE TREE LEGAL immediately. They can point you in the right direction.