I have been married for about one and a half years, reside in Harris
County Tx, and am going through a Divorce. My Wife and I have a 1 year
old who has lived in Texas his entire life, however my wife is a
native of Pennsylvania. She has expressed that after the divorce she
wants to return to PA to be near her family. She has a job here in
Texas and has lived here over 2 years. What might a court allow her to
do in such a situation? Also neither parent has any criminal history
or family violence issues.

Dear mikesteel83-ga;

Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question. As
you?ve probably noted already by our disclaimer below we are not
permitted to provide legal advice in this forum. What we can do
however is point out some published information on legal matters
similar to yours with the caveat that you should consult a licensed
attorney who is knowledgeable in such matters for official ?advice?.

The answer to your question depends in part of what your divorce
decree and custody orders say and whether or not you have a ?joint
custody? situation. The Texas Legal Aid Division seems to address a
question similar to yours here:

?Q. The custodial parent wants to move out of state with my children.
What can I do?

A. If there is no court order regarding your rights, you may want to
immediately consult an attorney and begin court action while Texas
still has authority to make decisions about the children. If there is
a court order already in place, you need to carefully read the custody
part of the court order. Most court orders state which parent has the
right to determine where the child lives and often it will include a
geographic restriction on where the children may live. However, it is
possible the custodial parent would have the right to move without
geographic restriction. If this is the case, you can contact an
attorney to see about modifying that order and preventing the move.?
TXACCESS.ORG
http://www.lanwt.org/txaccess/CHILDVISATATION.asp

As you san see the issue is complex. In some cases the court can block
the move if it determines it will be detrimental to the child.
However, the court walks a fine line here because a substantial
detriment would have to be present in order to avoid violating the
parent?s fundamental rights travel freely and live where they wish. On
the other hand if you could show compelling evidence why the child
should not be taken out of state than this would places the burden of
proof on your ex to show why such a move would be beneficial to the
child as opposed to merely convenient to her.

Here is an excellent source where you might get some free ?official
advice? and answers to some of your questions on the matter from a
Texas Attorney interested in helping fathers maintain their rights to
their children:

FATHERS4KIDS
http://www.fathers4kids.com/html/Home.htm
(A division of Fathers for Equal Rights, Inc., Dallas Texas)

ASK AN ATTORNEY
http://www.fathers4kids.com/html/AskAnAttorney.htm
This section allows you to get your questions answered by one or more
of the 35 attorneys that work with Fathers for Equal Rights. Each
question will be routed to 2 attorneys and will be answered within 1
business day.

I hope you find that my answer exceeds your expectations. If you have
any questions about my research please post a clarification request
prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating and your
final comments and I look forward to working with you again in the
near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



INFORMATION SOURCES

LEGAL AID OF NORTHWEST TEXAS
http://www.lanwt.org/



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Texas

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Father?s Rights

this is not legal advice for Texas, but in your divorce agreement this
should be addressed, to protect yourself your lawyer should file a
motion while you are going threw the divorce proceedings that your
wife may not take the child out of the state untill a judge has
decided what is the best interest of the child, if you do not and she
leaves for PA once she is in PA it will be very hard to get a judge to
issue a order requiring her to return to Texas, in the old days
children went with the mother almost always and she could go back to
her parents but today many judges if shown it would be in the best
interest of the child to be around both parents can issue an order
keeping the child in the state of texas and if she should take the
child away will be in violation of that order, but untill you get some
type of order from the court she is free at anytime to take the child
to PA, it might not be the moral thing to do but legally she could,
then once in PA for a period of time PA would have the say on what the
best interest of the child highly unlikley they would order the child
return to texas unless you get custody so get a lawyer and file a
motion to keep the child in texas, probably need to show that your
support ie close family members will help with the child while you two
work, also if she doesn't have a job lined up in PA that will help
your side