I am a stay at home mom. I have 3 children. 7,6,2. I live in…

I see. If you take the children and move to another province, or in fact to another jurisdiction within Ontario, then you husband could go to court for an order that the children be returned to his care. In fact, if you move out of the province then he could bring an emergency motion without notice to you.

So I don't recommend moving out of the province.

Instead, you need to see lawyer to make a plan about separating, and deciding whether your husband will leave the home or you will while you're negotiating a settlement.

You need to start gathering evidence about your husband, like emails and talking to third parties to see if they'd be willing to do affidavits on your behalf about what they have witnessed.

If you husband is abusive, you can take the children to a shelter or call the police. But you shouldn't take them out of your community without a court order allowing you to do so.

Does that make sense? Any question or comment?

Also, start being very careful about your information. You want to erase from your computer's history your visit to this site, for example. You don't want your husband finding out what you are doing in this regard.

If you move to another province as a family and stay there for 3 or 6 months, you should be fine because then they children's "normal residence" will be in that other province. However, your husband could return to Ontario and claim that the move as a family was essentially fraudulent and that the children's normal residence should still be in Ontario.

Of course, that's not guaranteed to succeed. It will depend on exactly how long the children have been relocated for and whether father has any decent plan of care for the children should they be returned.

Getting an actual divorce is the least of your worries, so don't be concerned about that for the moment.

In my experience, very few matters that go to court are resolved by a 50/50 shared custody order unless the parents want it.

If your ultimate plan is to have the children in a different province then moving there first is more likely to lead to you staying there with the children, at least.

Is that a better answer?

That's a long term plan. And if you move out there, having him build a new house there, and then try to throw him out then he'll certainly have some ammunition against him in court. Whether you are able to keep the house at all will depend on the financial situation of your family. To get an idea of that, you'll need to see a lawyer for a consultation and for advice upon which you can rely.

If he leaves the new home out east and returns to Ontario, he'd need to return to your original jurisdiction to apply to court there to see if that court would order the children returned.

Your plan has a high risk of making you look like the bad guy if this goes to court. That's what my gut tells me.

Please, see a lawyer near you for a consult and a go-over of the financial considerations.

Anything else?

Being mortgage free is certainly good, but that doesn't by definition increase the value of your net family property.

Your husband's lawyer could certainly try to make it look malicious, as if you got your husband to move, build a house, then you keep the kids and throw him out.

It's a consideration.

Anything else?

You're welcome.

If we're finished, may I ask you to rate please? Ratings are how I get credit from the site for helping its customers. I'd appreciate it.

Good luck

Ulysses

Good question. There's no "legal age" when children have the right to decide. But as the child gets older, more mature, and more headstrong of course, then the court will take into account what the child wants as expressed through a neutral third party like a counsellor or social worker or lawyer appointed to the child by the court.

I'm on my province's Children's Lawyer panel. I've had clients at age five tell me "I want to live with dad because mom's boyfriend hits us" which the court would treat seriously. I've had clients at age 14 tell me "I want to live with dad because he's got a PS4, a pool, a hot girlfriend, and dad lets me stay up as late as I want". That client's views and preferences have little to do with what's in the child's best interests, so the court won't give that evidence a lot of weight.

By the time children are 15 or so, it's hard to make them live with one parent when they want to live with the other. If they are firm enough to "vote with their feet" then court can't do much about it.

But starting at age 10 or so the court is interested in the child's views and preferences.

Does that make sense?

You can record anything you like on your own phone and in your own house. The question is whether it will be admissible in court. If the video shows anything really concerning, then it likely will.

Start trying to steer the phone calls into text conversations, you can easily save those and there's no argument that he had an expectation of privacy in a text exchange.

Thanks for the rating and the bonus, that's very generous.

Ulysses