Carrie had been hearing from her military husband less and less over the past two weeks. He’d flown out to training camp while Carrie patiently waited for him. It was near Valentine’s Day, and she was in the middle of putting together a care package when she came across a photo on her Facebook timeline. It was of him having dinner with another couple, but there was another woman sitting beside him, with her arm around it. There were two checks. First of all, why was her husband out for dinner when he said he was in training camp? Second of all, Carrie googled the name of the woman who had her arm around her husband; she was a convicted felon.
Carrie immediately texted her husband and asked him what was going on. He did not reply for two days, until she received a call from her husband informing her that they had no future together and that he had been cheating on her.
Carrie called her best friend Nancy and broke down. “HE SAID THAT HE JUST MET HER TWO WEEKS AGO AND THAT THEY’VE BEEN CHEATING TOGETHER. HE SAID I WAS NOT FOR HIM, THAT I WAS NEVER THE ONE FOR HIM.
How could he do this to her?
Nancy: “Carrie, listen, I’m here for you. We’re going to get through this.”
Carrie: “I have been the perfect military wife for the past five years and he decided to throw it all away for a hardcore druggie he just met?! He knew this was going to happen! Why was I so stupid?! How could I have not seen this coming? Why?!”
Nancy: “We are going to get through this. Don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault. He is a terrible human being and that has nothing to do with you.”
Unfortunately, every year in the U.S., thousands of people find themselves blindsided, lied to, and cheated on in broken marriages that result in divorces. Carrie, like any devoted spouse, had built her life around her husband and their young daughter. She was a wife who was committed in every sense of the word and did everything she could to support her husband’s career while raising their child, as if she were a single mother for 200 days out of the year. But now, it looked like Carrie was going to become a single mother for real. There was no way she would let her husband have sole custody of her daughter. How could he? His schedule would never allow him to be around and she feared that he would leave them in the care of the law-breaking home-wrecker.
Carrie looked at a photo of her daughter when she was a toddler and wept even harder.
Luckily, her friend Nancy remained calm and stayed on the phone with her for the rest of the night while researching the best options for Carrie to legally separate from her soon-to-be ex-husband while gaining custody of her daughter.
It turns out that there are four main types of custody: sole custody, joint custody, shared custody, and split custody. In that case, she needed to find Carrie a custody attorney who would be able to fight for sole custody. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a custody attorney acts as an advocate by presenting evidence to convince the court to grant their client child custody. She came across Shuff Law Firm, family attorney based in Santa Ana. She was delighted to read their reviews from couples who had found the right legal representation through marital separation, making the process smooth and amicable rather than drawn out and tortuous. She assured Carrie that everything was going to be okay.
Shuff Law Firm
2634, 2107 N Broadway #301, Santa Ana, CA 92706, United States