My wife and I are in the process of divorcing. She has supervised parenting time at a visitation center because of her habitual drug use and her exposing our children to her abusive boyfriend. The visitation center is closed so she has not had her weekly visit since this pandemic really got under way. I have offered to let her FaceTime with the girls but she has zero interest and has blown them off each time we set something up.

I understand that the court-monitored drug testing has temporarily stopped so I’m sure she is using again.

I am a physician assistant working in a hospital. I am incredibly concerned about my girls. My mom is here taking care of them while I am at work and I am taking every precaution I can including wearing gloves and a mask in the house when I am home. I can’t convey how worried I am for the girls should something happen to me. Their mother is not safe and cannot get custody.  

Is there anything I can do to protect them without putting myself in contempt of the financial restraining order? She is the beneficiary of my retirement but is only the trustee of my life insurance trust — the girls are the beneficiaries and her name is not on the deed to the house.

First, I want to thank you for your hard work during this time — those of us not on the front lines are very appreciative of you who are.

As for protecting your daughters, you need to hire an estate planning attorney ASAP. While you can’t change the beneficiary of your retirement account, you can do other estate planning to minimize what she might receive. I am not an estate planner but, as I understand it, she would still be entitled to a statutory spousal share of the assets in your estate if you are still married at the time of your death. But you can put your assets into a trust naming yourself as trustee and naming another trusted adult as successor trustee with the children as ultimate beneficiaries. This would limit what she gets and reserve most of your assets for the kids.

You also need to appoint a guardian for your daughters. Typically, when one parent dies, the other automatically gets custody. Given the situation you have described, you need to protect your daughters, so also name a successor guardian just in case. Your wife might fight your chosen guardians for custody of the girls so whoever you nominate should understand they may be in for a fight.

You should change the trustee of your life insurance trust too. And, include specific terms written your trusts to allow the trustee to pay the legal fees for your chosen guardian in the event your wife challenges custody — that way you ensure the children have a fighting chance to be protected if mom continues to use and to avoid the foster care system.