Sticky Situation

[OnyxCougar]

I have a friend named Kelle, who has been my bestfriend for many years now. She's in a pickle and we need some advice.

I got a phone call from Kelle last night. She lives in Croatia with the man she wants to marry. She's been waiting for divorce papers from her husband, Greg, for almost a year. Well, he finally filed, and she got them in the mail.

He is filing for sole legal and physical custody of their baby, Dylan (age 3). She doesn’t mind the sole physical custody thing, she IS in Croatia after all, but she does want joint legal custody, so she doesn’t lose all rights to him. Greg also filed for Child Support, at $115 a month. Since Kelle is not a citizen of Croatia, she can’t work, therefore she has no income. If these papers go through, she’ll get nailed for failing to pay child support, which means it's going to be very difficult to get her man Hrvoje into the US once the divorce is a done deal.

The divorce was filed in Kingman, AZ. This is across the country from me. My father, however, lives there. She has 30 days to respond to the divorce papers. There is no way she can make it to the US before October/November timeframe. There is no way she can get a Croatian attorney to represent her, it is way too expensive. Just to notarize 3 pages of the divorce is 450 Kuna, the equivalent of a month of groceries. She doesn’t know what to do.

She needs answers, and since I’m not in Kingman, and didn't have all this crap to worry about with my divorce, I don't know what to tell her.

If she misses the court date, and it’s a done deal, she’s still coming back to the US in October/November. She’ll stay here in NC near me and work on getting Hrvoje over here once she’s got an apartment and a job. Once Hrvoje is here and they are married, he will get his green card and be able to work, they can work on getting the kids (her other 2 older kids are with her mother in Vegas) back.

She just doesn’t want to go the long route if she can get just those two items in the decree changed before they become part of the decree. We just aren’t sure what the easiest, cheapest way to go is.

Any ideas you could give are greatly appreciated. If you need more info, I'll be happy to give it.