Am I Right To Be Losing Confidence In My Lawyer Or Am I Just Sensitive And Biased

Reddit, I’m turning you to help me manage expectations and emotions as I work through a child custody case of my 3 year old.

Back story: My ex and I got together when I was 18 and he was 31. I was home for the summer in between years in college, and I met him through friends. I had never been in a relationship and he had a dark and twisty back story. I thought it was love and I stayed in my hometown with him instead of returning to school, and we were together for four years beginning in 2019. During those four years, I was emotionally and at times physically abused (pinning on walls, grabbing arms, yanking along, one open hand slap). We were on again/off again. I wasn’t perfect in that relationship and each time we were off, I explored connections outside of our relationship. I would come clean and our relationship and power dynamic got worse and worse. I got pregnant two years in. I left him when our child turned one, in 2023.

I know it matters less how we were together and more how we show up as parents. So here’s the main point:

When I left him, our child spent many overnights with him as we tried to figure out what the new normal should look like. Sometimes our child would spend four overnights there in a week. Now that was short lived, roughly two months, before he realized I wasn’t coming back and got volatile and angry. He broke his phone in a drunken rage and went dark for several weeks. He promised suicide and told me he didn’t want our child. When we reconnected and he said wanted to see our child, I lent him my work phone so that he could contact in case of emergency, but his overall parenting time tapered back a lot. It never really got back to the point that it was in the first couple months after our split. I started to doubt his judgement with our young child and was concerned with the amount he was drinking. The coparenting relationship continued to deteriorate and he was a strict every other weekend dad.

In March 2024, he called me during an overnight in a panic. He told me he had our freshly two year old child on the counter stop of the kitchen. Our child was standing and walked over onto the store that he had just turned off. Our child stepped on the hot stove eye and sustained a severe 2nd degree burn on the bottom of the foot. I rushed over and took our child to the ER myself. During our child’s healing period, dad did not get any overnights. That lasted about a month. In August 2024, he had our child at a local splash pad. He was on the perimeter “trying to stay dry” when our toddler, again two at the time, was ran down by a teenager and face planted into the brink concrete. Our child’s front teeth were pushed into the gum line and there was a bleeding laceration. He again called me panicked and told me he was going to take our child home and put our child to bed. I rushed to his house. He became angry with me that I wanted to take our child to the ER. At the ER, upon several hours of care and observation, he became angry at me again at my intent to take our child home with me. He would not hand our child over to me and we required a police escort to leave.

That’s when the custody process began. He served me and petitioned me for 50/50 in September 2024. Since then, we have passed three court dates and he refuses to corporate with discovery. I originally proposed a 80/20 split, but through counsel with my lawyer, have conceded to a nearly 60/40 split in formal proposals. He has rejected all. He has submitted no proposals. In mediation, he would not move from 50/50. Recently, his now ex girlfriend and himself were involved in a domestic dispute. Our child was in his home when this occurred. She sent me pictures of the markings he left on her, confirmed his excessive drinking, and moved out. The overnights stopped during the weeks following, but nearly 6 week out, my lawyer is counseling that overnights should resume. Our next court date was scheduled to take place in about three weeks, but again we are continuing.

To this point, my lawyer has consistently said that 50/50 is the risk. My lawyer feels that this behavior is bad but questions if it will move the judge to a 80/20 settlement in my favor. I trust my lawyer and respect the knowledge there, but I can’t help but feel like the pattern of safety concerns SHOULD mean more than they do. I have moved in my stance and feel that I’ve formally offered more time than he deserves or that I feel is in the best interest of our child.

Today my lawyer told me that if representing my ex, they would be pushing for 50/50. That is rattling in my head. I don’t know if the point they were trying to make is “I fight for my clients” or “you don’t have a fight here.”

As time goes on, my lawyer has become less and less responsive. And less invested from what it seems. I ask questions that go unanswered and send discovery back to edit that hasn’t been answered.

My custody battle has gone on nearly a year at this point. It is unnerving. It is expensive. I don’t know what outcome I can expect.

Am I being sensitive, jaded from our relationship and not looking at the whole picture? Do the injuries and exposure to toxicity not matter as much as I think they should in juvenile custody court? What can I do to help my case?

Location: Lexington, Kentucky