3087
posted ago by 3-10 ago by 3-10 +3096 / -9

Do you have any clue how hard it is for a father to get primary custody? In my fight for primary, I was arrested. After the 2nd arrest in 2018 the military refused my re-enlistment. My OCS slot was gone too. It took over a year to get the arrest records sealed. I was arrested a 3rd time (exonerated). Courts still sided with my ex. My past career as a teacher was no longer an option (can't leave this state) where it wouldn't be an issue. I retrained myself during the pandemic and started a career as a network engineer.

Court made me wait a couple of years to start court hearings again. I started court again and was again accused of a crime. That time it didn't result in me getting arrested, but I barely managed to keep my job after the sheriff came in force to serve me with a RO.

I spend my entire salary last year to pay for a lawyer, for the RO, child custody case, to fight off Child Protective Services, and pay for investigators for both parties, because I had to pay most of the fees apart from her lawyer costs.

My ex basically skated on smuggling 46.5 pounds of cocaine in 2004, felony theft against the elderly the week I filed for custody, multiple DV charges, and I couldn't get the family court to listen. The Army's background check failed on the drug smuggling. Had I known I would never have even attempted to date her.

Finally, yesterday they found that my ex was not the person who should have primary and granted me primary custody of my daughter. I can't home school her, but I am sending her to a private Christian school till I can afford to go back and request that.

I now can focus on a 2 more certs and should finally be able to jump to a 6 figure income by the end of the year.

My life has been a series of failures, rarely my fault (injury on deployment during a rescue op that went bad, having a 1SG decide he hated me and charge me with UCMJ that I was faking my injury and managed to beat, and getting a Dear John call from my fiance after waking up from surgery), some my fault (getting the mother of my daughter pregnant) but finally I feel like I had a success for once.

My walk with God is a struggle, I feel like I am the bastard son and would never treat my daughter as I feel I have been treated, but I continue to try to walk with Him.

My name isn't Israel, but it should have been: "For I wrestle with God".

I am grateful I can protect my daughter and can raise her right, even though she will still see her mother regularly.

I probably will never find a wife (too much damage from the past) and have more kids, but I hope to raise her to want to get married to a Christian man early in life and to have a lot of children. We need more people who aren't leftists in this country.

Anyways, just wanted to share.

EDIT: Wow, never thought this would take off. I just wanted to share, because it was such a long and difficult battle. Thank you so much for the kind wishes.

2nd EDIT: Some posts are saying I left out the bad things I did to get arrested those times. I did nothing wrong and they were false charges that were ultimately dismissed. In fact the military has me in a database as a victim of DV. Others at the bottom are saying this is all made up for internet points, here is at least one document showing that I really was a victim.

In fact, the guys in my unit called me "Unicorn" because it was so rare for a guy to be labels as a victim of DV.

https://imgur.com/a/anWRGoZ