Q. My wife and I have a vacation home in the Berkshires where we used to spend every summer. The last two summers we have rented it out, so we haven’t sold it yet. We relocated to Mexico during the pandemic and live in a very safe gated community. Our children are thriving.

A year ago my wife began an affair and we separated. I left our home and rented another home a few blocks away. Our children spend half time with her and half time with me. She is now pregnant with this man’s child and wants to give birth in Massachusetts, so the child is a US citizen. She insists on using our vacation home this summer and wants our children to spend the summer there with her.

I think her relationship is unhealthy for her and our children due to his substance use and am concerned if I let the children spend the summer in Massachusetts, she will not bring them back. What are my options?

A. Your concerns are valid. She may be looking for a way out of that relationship. Given the state of immigration right now, unless he is also a US citizen, he may not be able to come here which would essentially give her sole legal and physical custody of that child. Your older children are likely to be collateral damage in her short-sighted plans.

In Massachusetts, children need to have lived here for six months before our courts have jurisdiction to make orders regarding custody. I recommend you not let them come here unless you first obtain a custody judgment in Mexico stating that you have equal legal and physical custody of the children and that both their habitual residence and home state is Mexico. You should include a detailed summer parenting plan which can include longer chunks of time to permit her to bring the children to Massachusetts (i.e. you have the month of June, she has the month of July).  Include a date certain on which you will travel to Massachusetts to transport your children back to Mexico – at least a week before the start of the new school year.

Then require that she register that judgment in Massachusetts before the children come here for the summer. This significantly reduces what she can do to prevent their return to Mexico at the end of the summer.

Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com