Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois

Legally restricting visitation to keep girlfriend away

Under Illinois law, your ex is entitled to reasonable visitation �unless the court finds, after a hearing, that visitation would endanger seriously the child�s physical, mental, moral or emotional health.� 750 ILCS 5/607

You are not seeking to terminate visitation, only to restrict it (to times when the girlfriend is not present). Even so, this same standard applies to restricting visitation (i.e., "The court may modify an order granting or denying visitation rights of a parent whenever modification would serve the best interest of the child; but the court shall not restrict a parent's visitation rights unless it finds that the visitation would endanger seriously the child's physical, mental, moral or emotional health." Thus, to keep the girlfriend away from your child while he is visiting his father, you will need to file a petition against your ex to restrict his visitation, and then prove (by a preponderance of evidence) at a hearing, that having the girlfriend around �would endanger seriously the child�s physical, mental, moral or emotional health.�

I don�t know the facts. I cannot possibly judge whether you could meet the standard of �serious endangerment� by showing that �they have too many problems when they are together.� If you file your petition and proceed to hearing, but fail to make your case of �serious endangerment�, you�ll have to deal with the resulting strained relationship with your ex, including anger and alienation, and the girlfriend will still be there.

Re: Visitation

I suppose you could ask to have a court re-visit the custody/visitation arrangement. You would have to argue that your child being with your ex-husband and his girlfriend is not in the best interests of the child. It would depend on what kind of problems they are having.