Relocating With Children

Location: Louisiana USA

I’d like to start with I truly need some help and this is a last resort recommended by my therapist.

I’m desperate for recommendations on what to do, ideas, input, really… anything. And if someone needs more info, I will gladly provide it. Just please help me.

I have 2 kids. 1 is special needs (mentally handicapped). No custody agreement, child support, etc. has ever been filed.

I am not married to the father, but we have been on and off for 8 years. He has a history of drug abuse (no arrests, but proof of addiction, detox, rehab, relapse available). We lived in Ohio for 6 years with our 2 kids who he is legally recognized as the father of bases of affidavits in Ohio we signed at their birth in the hospital.

I have no arrest history, drug history, even as a minor. I’ve never even been in handcuffs and haven’t had a traffic ticket in 10 years.

We moved to Louisiana a little more than a year ago. We live in a not so great area with very poor resources available for our disabled child. I can’t afford to move out, nor is there even a safe place available nearby, and I can’t move far away in the same state, as I would have to take my disabled child out of the one therapy center here he was finally able to get in to.

I’m a victim of coercion abuse. I’m isolated from everyone I know, I have no control of finances, I live with him in his mother’s house, and I am not allowed to do anything without his permission.

I have tried calling local women’s shelters, but they said they literally can’t help me because they can’t accommodate disabled toddlers. I’m also in a very very rural area. I even called the national hotline for domestic abuse and they said if I’m in the house with him and I’m not physically being abused, they can’t help me.

I tried filing relocation, but he and his mother got a very expensive lawyer and they basically bankrupt me out of moving forward before we even had our court date. I spent every penny I had. My dad passed away in the middle of it, and he even said in an affidavit that I abandoned my kids for a week when I went to my own father’s funeral. My children haven’t been back to Ohio to see my family in over a year now and my family is not allowed to come visit and stay with us.

He promised me he would keep the house in Ohio he owned, that we lived in together, so I always had a place to stay with our handicap child, since he does require specific things. He ended up selling without me knowing right when 6 months hit.

How can I get back to Ohio with my kids? Even my non disabled daughter wants to go home. They said I can’t leave because I’ve been here over 6 months and the kids are considered domicile here. I have a good job, I can (and have) supported them on my own in the past when he has relapsed. I want to go home so badly. His attorney made me sign an agreement that I can’t leave without him knowing or else I’m court ordered to bring them back and I automatically lose any custody rights at all.

My attorney at the time said if I file for a protection order, then I have to leave the house and that leaves me homeless with my 2 kids and still not able to leave the state. And if I try to “pull this again”, as he says, he’s going to move forward with evicting me.

This isn’t just about me going home. My kids need better and deserve better. I regularly have homeless people knocking on my door and I can’t even take my kids to the park because it’s “dangerous”.

I am begging for information on options. I tried to do the right thing and not just leave with the kids. I wish I would’ve just done that, but I can’t go back now.