My ex husband wants to bequeath his parental rights to his sister in the event of his death. Is this legal? Will I be bound by the same obligation under the divorce decree to provide her with visitation?
It is not clear, and perhaps not likely that your ex-husband can bequeth his parental rights to anyone if you, the mother are alive, when he passes away. That being said, if you really want to find out you have to have a family lawyer in your state review the divorce settlement agreement (perhaps there was some indication of how rights, visitation, etc. should be addressed that will reflect on this), and state law. If there are issues as to your ability or appropriateness to be the guardian for minor children of you and your ex-husband, his naming a sister as a guardian in lieu of you might have some chance of being heard. Unless he is terminally ill now, you really don't have an actual issue. However, if you really have concerns there might be steps you can take to shore up your position. Talk to a family lawyer.
There is another non-legal issue (and understand, you gave us very little information). If your ex-husband, the father of your children dies, is it really a bad thing that his family spend time with them? What is really best for the children? If their father dies while they are young, a strong relationship with his family (regardless of what you might think of them) might be helpful to them. If this all happens, perhaps the best adviser to see is a therapist/psychiatrist that can guide you on how to best help the children thorugh the tragedy.
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