Unjust custody situation

[Helloworldz87]

What would you do? Long story short. Move in with husband and his family. Naive. Didn't know how controlling they were going to get. Get pregnant early on in the relationship. My father promises to sell his vintage car if we ever need it. Later renegs it. Won't explain why. Gaslights me. After the baby is born. Get Post natal depression. Husband's parents kick us out. Husband loses his job xand I couldn't get work. My parents go overseas for months. My parents eventually get back. My in laws use the legal system against me and file for custody of my daughter. Husband begs me back. Many empty promises of getting custody of my daughter back. Move in with him (without in laws) Many empty promises of getting our daughter back. Marriage becomes financially, emotionally and physically abusive. Move back in with my parents and baby. I feel like such a fool. But don't get any answers as to why my father screwed us over? Apparently if CPS was involved in my daughter case, this would've never happened.

OK, so let me bullet point things

1. You moved out and left your baby behind with in laws, making them the primary caregivers, with what sounds like very few days having her to begin with. Why did you leave her behind?

1. Your dad changed his mind about selling a car to financially support you while you were with your abusive husband and in a position where the money would likely have been pointless.

1. You couldn't find work but your husband did but you still lost the house as you couldn't afford it - so logically you have to realise the car would have just delayed the inevitable.

1. You couldn't get your daughter back (after how long?) apparently because of false drug allegations, PND, and a schizo diagnosis which you never got a second opinion on but dispute. The courts granted full custody to your in laws even though you also had your husband as a responsible adult. I feel like there's more to this bit tbh.

1. You went on to have a second baby with your husband, whom you have custody of.

1. Your awful father now houses you and your second child but you hate him because he hasn't given you a grand apology for not selling the car

1. You have contact with your daughter but it's limited and she's not very engaged with you

You need to stop looking for 'answers' to everything and laying blame at everyone else's feet.

Our of curiosity what do you do during your contact with your daughter? Is it fun for her or is it an interrogation? Instead of trying to get anything out of her you need to build a relationship and learn to speak to her in a way which encourages her to open up to you. But realistically, you are not the one who raised her and children can be very loyal to those who raise them so she is unlikely to start speaking ill of the in laws so there's no point quizzing her hoping to get snippets of negatives in her life to aid your cause.

Work on yourself, your mental health, get a second opinion on the schizo diagnosis, get therapy to help you let go of your anger, and work to build at least a fun relationship with your daughter for now.

Easier said than done. When it's not your family and marriage destroyed

Im not in any way questioning the validity of what you're saying happened, but i think part of the problem is that most parents' couldn't fathom not simply taking their child when they moved out of the In-laws house. I think I read a thread of yours quite a long time ago. DC staying with in-laws was just supposed to be a short term thing, but your DP got more abusive once you moved out and the inlaws refused to let you take your child. The thing is most parents would just have taken their child anyway, why wouldn't they. Unless it was court ordered they couldn't have legally stoped you at the time. Why didn't you take her with you? There's a reason for this, maybe its the same reason you're fixated on the car and the unfairness.

As I said we had an agreement that they would increase the days we had with her. My in laws never did. I didn't know what to do. My husband wouldn't do anything. My parents were overseas. There's no handbook/ website for such a problem. I don't interrogate my daughter and I don't ask her about my in laws. I talk to her about school, friends and her interests.

I didn't know what to do. There was no one to ask

OP part of a court assessment on visitation and custody will be about how focussed you are as a parent on her wellbeing and what’s best for her.

if you are still caught up in the past relationship with Ex-ILs, EXH, your father etc it will act against you. To the court none of that is relevant to your daughters well being or having a safe and happy childhood.

For her and your sake you have to let it go.

What’s more important, trying everything to regain custody of your daughter or the anger about the past?

The courts aren’t going to take kindly to you bringing up the past, especially as historically you allowed your in laws to become the primary caregivers.

So if you truly want to regain custody, you are going to have to find a way to push the anger to one side for the sake of the relationship with your dd. It won’t be long before she’s a teenager and she may make the decision to cut you off completely. Time is not on your side if you want to repair this.

Why did you need someone to ask? I knew this and if I didn't Id Id google all sorts until I found the answer. I'm not trying to have a go or make you feel worse, but I don't know anyone even as a teen who would have needed to be told they could take their child and I think the reason you needed to be told might relate to the reason you can't let this go and play a central role in what happened here.

Your obsession with fairness reminds me of my Autistic brother. Some of the way you're reacting to questions reminds me of him too in other ways. He struggled at school and has bugger all common sense. He doesn't know a lot of things that adults just do. He doesn't pick things up unless they're explained very clearly and specifically. Again Im not suggesting this is the case for you, but something is behind the way you acted then and the way you're acting now. Its beyond just being naive. Replies like these make no sense in the context. It isn't something adults need to be told.

And there is the issue! Other people don't need to ask someone else how to look after their child - especially when the question is should I take my child withe when I move house or not! It's madness and shows that you don't have the common sense needed to keep a child safe.
Agree with PPs there is much more to this for you to loose residency and frankly you need to start taking accountability and stop blaming everyone else.
You cannot demand money from your parents when you are an adult who thinks they are old enough to have a child. 10 years on any you still live with your 'awful' father and don't have a job. You could have spent 10 years setting up a new home, getting a job, proving yourself as a great parent for your daughter! Instead you seem to have convinced yourself you are hard done by the world. Stop blaming everyone else and start moving forward

Your Dad is not the one to blame here

He put a roof over your head when you left your husband

The whole situation with your husband and his family sound toxic and you're better off away from them. I hope you get your daughter back though

You've clearly been through a horrible time and in an abusive relationship.

You also seem to blame everyone else and don't take any responsibility for yourself.

As I said before there isn't a day that goes by, where I haven't blamed myself for being naive. It's called parental alienation look it up. That's why I don't have much of a relationship with her.
So you still take absolutely no ownership of anything? You've only had things done to you and its everyone else's fault?

Yes, this is what I was going to say.
You are describing a situation which was very difficult for you to navigate and you are (justifiably) angry as you have had no support. I can actually quite believe what you say about the manipulations of your in-laws at a point when you were very vulnerable.
But - and I know it is hard - what matters to any court is what does it look like going forward. These are two separate things.

What matters to the court is how things are now. You have your second child living with you. How do the siblings get along? Then there are the questions of your older DD’s best interests - continuity of home life and schooling (after all, it is not her fault what happened with your marriage and family, all she knows is that she has lived with her grandparents to age 10), the right to have a relationship with you and her sibling - how to balance these two things in the best way, and of course, your oldest DD’s wishes.

It sounds like a very difficult situation, but gently, it sounds like you need to try to come to terms with the past and focus on what things look like going forward.

Op how did you access the support you now have. What happened that you just stumbled across the right sort of support you need.

For 10 years, you didn’t have any or the right support. But now you have it, which great. But it didn’t just knock on your door.

What’s the likelihood of you being able to find work now?

Can I ask what your primary objective is now? To get an apology from your father or to put some effort into being a mother to your daughter?

You're an adult. He doesn't have to care about you pr how badly you screw up. You shouldn't have gotten pregnant. You shouldn't have done a lot of it.
He wasn't there smooshing you together like Barbie dolls was he.

Until you can grow up and actually mature enough to stop blaming others your daughter is better off staying where she is.

So why did he lie for? Since he was so against lying and there was always one rule for him and one rule for everyone else?

My primary objective would be my daughter

So why did he lie for? Since he was so against lying and there was always one rule for him and one rule for everyone else

FFS, who cares at this point. As explained ad nauseam by every poster so far, this has nothing to do with getting more time with your DD, getting your DD back or any other way of moving forward. The kicker is you still live with him 10 years later, seemingly unable to house yourself, work, or independently provide for the child you do have.

I think people can now see what a court saw at the time. Everyone familiar with the Australian family court system knows it would have been an extremely high bar to completely remove a child from, not one, but both parents. Your posts have provided a likely insight into why they made the decisions they did.

Also, in no Australian State is there no equivalent of CPS, of course there is. Your claim that there is not, is false. Every State has had this for as long as I have been alive and I’m probably old enough to be your mum. Ditto, your claim there is no website or internet for this sort of thing 🤯. Again, yes, yes there is. A quick Google would sort that out for you. Just because your parents went away on holidays and didn’t do this for you (Googling, and contacting CPS equivalent in your State/Territory, or contacting Legal Aid) does not mean these services did not/do not exist. Again, I think this plays into understanding why the courts made the decision they did. Honestly, I wouldn’t go back to court now. I imagine that blathering on about your father and a car (especially as you still seem to need to live with your father for some reason), would likely be the cherry on top for them advising you never seeing your child again. And again, you won’t see or understand why.

Yes I'm autistic and was only diagnosed very recently

I don’t understand why you were allowing them to dictate to you when you can see your child. Or why when you moved out you didn’t just take her. She is your child. At that point they had no rights to keep her there. They only got custody cause you left her with them in their care.

I didn't say that CPS doesn't exist. They weren't involved in my case though

So you know how to access a diagnosis.

What was the first step in that? You can pursue one for the diagnosis you say is wrong.

And how come you mentions you suspect your husband is autistic but never mentioned your own diagnosis until now.

This is why people didn’t believe ‘I had my daughter removed because I had PND and they lied about drug use’

Because there’s so much more going on. People who are and can make great parents. I am one of them. However, it’s really clear you struggle with day to day life. Whether due to your autism, or another diagnosis, or a third or a mix. You have proved that there’s is more to it than people are saying.

You failed to mention that you chose to leave your child with the grandparents. Failed to mention any diagnosis, apart from PND. Which is fine, but you also can’t claim you lost custody of your daughter because of PND and no one can help with part of a story. And people won’t believe it.

As the thread goes on you are dripping more in which is adding to the bigger picture that people were saying exists, except you refuse to acknowledge it.

What’s the actual support you are getting?

What level were you diagnosed with? I dont believe that levels 1 or 2 necessarily reflect differing support needs, but NDIS is much harder to get with a level one diagnosis. If you can get NDIS you could start getting some of the supports you need in place.

There are Australian FB groups for support, you could check out TARA, The Autistic Realm Australia. There's a lot of members who only got diagnosed as adults and some of them have suffered trauma because of that. My son's psychologist said to focus on the hiz emotions when he's hung up on things being fair, he's also Autistic like my brother. Sometimes in life there are no answers and no apologises and no closure, you need to find a way past this for yourself