Hi Thomas, Did she abandon the house and take the kids with her? That's abandonment and will not play out well for her in court. I wrote one of my columns on Beliefnet years ago about how the divorce system is not equipped to deal with people with mental health challenges. They really need to address that and they need to have actual consequences for men and women who lie about custody and money issues. There's little to know consequences now because the lies work for them. For instance, if they made it so that people who lied and hid money would have to pay more to their spouse if caught then it might discourage it. Likewise, custody should be stricter if a spouse lies about how another spouse is treating their children, etc.