Concerned. **Parenting**

My abusive ex got out in jail almost two years ago from trying to fatally hurt me(I don’t want to get into details). I’ve been talking to his mom because we came up with a plan so the kids could still talk to their dad since I put a restraining order on him. I wanted to make sure I was legally protected if anything were to happen. Now I’m getting concerned.

We have two kids together but he never had a chance to sign the birth certificate so technically he has no rights to them. But we also had gotten a dna test done so he could get put on child support. Which I feel like that granted rights to him but not 100% sure. A quick google search says it doesn’t grant any rights but how accurate really is that? You know.

Well recently his mom has been talking to me about him trying to get full rights for the kids whenever he gets out and that makes me super nervous. As he’s wanting to try to make things workout between the both of us and also has this idea of us to get married. Batshit crazy right? He’s been acting all goodie tissues towards the kids when talking over the phone and to me anyways it feels like he’s trying to build a good rep and relationship with the kids just so the judge will grant him some kind of rights. I overheard him on the phone one day saying when the kids turn 10 years old he’s going to take me to court and determine if the kids would rather live with him or me.

I don’t plan on marrying him but I did hear his mom say something along the lines of “you don’t need to be married to determine who the kids wanna live with”. It’s starting to scare me. To me it’s sounding like he’s trying to take the kids away from me. I obviously don’t want that to happen… I’m thinking about stopping let the kids go to their grandmas too because from what people have been telling me is that she hates me but yet loves on the kids even though they’re half of me. She smiles and everything but I just can’t be around someone who’s going to be fake towards me… let alone if she’s plotting with her son to take the kids away from me.

Does anyone have any experience with something similar? Or anything to ease my mind? I’m in Ohio if that helps.