Well, my wife and I are separated for almost a year. She took my son (2 years old) with her.
I work and live on one side of Australia, she lives and not works on the other. I see my son every 6 months, due to the distance and especially her behavior. Except for these (2) visits I do not have any means of communication with my son (she forbids him to use phone when I call, so I do not call anymore). I let it go like this cos I did not saw any reasonable gain if I had started a legal battle. Now she informed me that she filed for the divorce and telling me that this is just between us and nothing to do about custody.
So my question:
1) Is it really true, I had impression more that everything is in the same pot just maybe slightly delayed ?
2) Do you recommended me to take a lawyer at this stage ? And actually what can I expect that he does ?
3) Does anyone can recommend few in Brisbane area ?
Thanks

Hi bleka,

Let her apply for the divorce and see what the documents say.
As she is on benefits it won't cost her but if you apply it will.

It's a good time to start talking about your child and what you see as far as contact goes for his future and propose a parenting plan.

Your son about three should be allowed to communicate with you over the phone so he knows dad's voice, even if it's just so he knows you are thinking of him. and the law suggests this as well.

The whole process is a bit of rubber stamping really, I refused to sign the papers as contact had not been addressed officially and there were more than one or two lies in her application and affidavit . I supplied a parenting plan that we had been working off and other relevant documents.

This satisfied the judge that children's issue's had been addressed and action was in place to address consent orders.

She stamped it and let us know we had a year to sort finances out and that was it.

I thought the divorce would not be finalized if orders where not in place as there was an application for orders in the system, but this wasn't true.

You do not have to sign the papers if you are not comfortable with any aspect and you can submit information with your response.

It's always good to have your house in order before ending a relationship in my opinion but it doesn't always have the other parties acceptance and therefore it leaves things up in the air a bit.
In saying that there is still time to start court action after the divorce.

D4E, thanks a lot for your detailed answer.

As far as I understood you, if agreement is possible I should go for it .
However, my wife feels that she can use the child 100 % and does not offer any agreement. Actually, it was clear for me that on the long run she can not have forever 100%. I always offered a dialog but was always very impolitely turned down.
She has full support of her family, and I think it makes her very happy, to play that role of the victim, etc.

I am offering her a parental plan 50%-50% on the paper. Because of the distance and in current situation I wont use even 1% . The point is that I might move to live in the same city in the future and I do not want to go through new case.
So my question is how likely is that I can get written court decision that I can have 50 % of time per year with my son ?

How long is a piece of string ?.

There are no guarantees that you will get 50/50 even if you lived next door.

The guidelines used are 50/50 parental responsibility and not 50/50 care.
The other stipulation is " consideration " which means you have to have a good case or an agreement.

Some judges do, some judges don't. Simply put you role the dice but try and load them with a good appreciation of what you are trying to accomplish with the future of your child at it's core.

The judge won't make orders on mights and could do's but may well make the orders to be revised at a later date.

Now in saying that there is also mediation that has to be considered before it should get that far.

There are good reasons why you can not see your son as much as possible but if you considering moving then it would be a mistake to conveyed to the court you are happy with the current situation of mum having 100% and no dialog being entered into for the future arrangements.

The preferance is to check what you do with a legal consultant unless you intend to self represent, but in saying this always check your information through legal help lines and such, because even professional get it wrong, and that I'm not.