Okay, that is a problem. It is not insurmountable and there are a couple of ways to address that. One thing to look into as a starting point, and this is an initial step you can take legally that would help you potentially, is to talk to a lawyer about either a pardon or an expungement or both for your crimes. You may or may not be eligible. It depends on a number of factors that are somewhat beyond the scope of this discussion for today. But that’s a good starting point. If a record is expunged, you don’t have a criminal record. Now, she could potentially still try to bring up the actual incidents that gave rise to the charge, but she’d have to prove what happened.

So that’s one thing. Another good idea if you were actually in court having this argument is, and again, you want to talk to your lawyer about this, this is not a decision to make lightly, but the proverbial mea culpa. Now what that means is basically saying, my mistake. So if it’s something that she can definitely prove and that you know she’s going to bring up, sometimes the best way to handle that is to come clean to the judge and say, “Yeah, I screwed up. I recognize I screwed up. I know that was inappropriate. I’m sorry. Here’s what I’ve done since then to turn from that.” Now that tends to work the best if there’s been a window of time between when whatever it happened and when you go to court, and you’ve actually done things to change your behavior. But at least you can show a court that, “Hey, I’m trying to fix the problem. I understand I screwed up.” And that is effective, not all the time, and it’s more effective as more time goes by. That is a difficult situation to deal with, admittedly.

Now, some other things along with the mea culpa are to show things like, okay, if it’s a drug issue, you went to drug treatment. Show evidence of that. If it’s a mental health issue, show that you’ve been to treatment, or community service hours, if you have evidence of that, evidence of compliance with your probation, if you were on probation, if you go to prison, what programs did you attend and what did you complete? Any of that kind of thing will help you so that you can demonstrate to your family court judge that you are not the same person that got in trouble, that you’ve changed and you recognize you screwed up. And yes, those situations are not insurmountable. They can be addressed and they can be successfully defended. It doesn’t mean you don’t get to have a relationship with your child necessarily.

If you have questions about that, or if you’re dealing with a negative criminal history that’s biting you in the ass in court, you need a good lawyer. And one place you can find a good Oklahoma child custody lawyer is Dads.Law where fathers are not disposable.