Managing work travel, custody and divorce

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like when child support, or the absence of child support, is based on the % custody, then a parent who regularly refuses their time should pay the other parent for covering that time.

I don't know that that's a thing that can be written into a custody arrangement, but I feel like it should be. I have a relative who paid child support based on 50/50 custody because they had the higher income, but the other parent didn't ever take the kids. That's ridiculous from my perspective.

I think this as well. Like, if you take the kids on his time, he should have to pay you some sort of babysitter fee.
Asking for 50 50 when you know you can't do it is just an attempt to escape paying full child support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can put anything into a parenting plan. Some things are unenforceable, like restrictions on introducing SOs, but a notification period for changing the schedule sounds totally reasonable - although keep in mind it could apply to you too, and give you less flexibility.

So instead of a rigid notification period, I suggest that you add whatever you need functionally to cover for his absences in terms of childcare. Something like “parent who misses planned parenting time for reasons other than illness or emergency must pay for reasonable child care costs.”

that's too vague. I would do an hourly daytime rate, an over night, and put in a. clause where it adjusts for inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do your tweens want to be with him as part of their weekly routine? Staying 50%? Mine asked for 50/50 but the day of trial gave up all custody. He was never much of a parent and the kids knew it and did not want to stay with him. He may be asking for it thinking he won’t have to part with money. My kids were also tweens.

No, they don’t even want to see him and have to be forced to comply with the current visitation. He doesn’t keep food in the house and they don’t have anything to do over there; he sends work emails while they basically wait to be driven back to my house. They try to save their homework for visitation so they have something to do, so they’re at least productive.

But I don’t expect that he would fold at the last minute for the sake of what they wanted, and they are too young to get much of a say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you, that’s helpful. They are in middle school but with no after care and no bus service. The way it works now is that I pick them up and take them to various activities or bring them home. If I were working, that obviously wouldn’t work and I would need an afternoon nanny/driver until my workday ends. I think I need to negotiate the ongoing cost of a nanny/driver into our settlement, particularly since I don’t think he has thought through how he would care for them on school days on his time. He usually wraps up the work day around 6ish but once in a while has the flexibility to finish his day around 2 or 3, so he imagines his schedule as very flexible. But I don’t think he realizes that he would need to sustain that on a daily basis for 5 days at a time. And he certainly hasn’t thought through summer and their morning sports practices or anything like that.

It’s tough because I think I’m going to be negotiating with his magical thinking based on an ideal non-travel day. He doesn’t have a grasp of the reality of daily caregiving.

If this is what you end up doing, make sure that the cost responsibility is split in proportion to your incomes.
You could also split based on usage, but if you'll be working full-time, usage will probably be equal or close to it.... That is, unless you have a close friend, neighborhood carpool or a family member that can help out on your weeks (which is true in my situation). If that might be the case, consider the pro rata usage condition.

Based on our current imputed income calculations (and this is just projections), child support/expense calculations will be based on him making 20x my income. So hopefully that would bring my share of a nanny/driver down quite significantly if I can negotiate that down. Otherwise my income once I am working full-time again will be less than what a full-time nanny or driver would earn so an allocation of that expense based on usage would be challenging for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do your tweens want to be with him as part of their weekly routine? Staying 50%? Mine asked for 50/50 but the day of trial gave up all custody. He was never much of a parent and the kids knew it and did not want to stay with him. He may be asking for it thinking he won’t have to part with money. My kids were also tweens.

No, they don’t even want to see him and have to be forced to comply with the current visitation. He doesn’t keep food in the house and they don’t have anything to do over there; he sends work emails while they basically wait to be driven back to my house. They try to save their homework for visitation so they have something to do, so they’re at least productive.

But I don’t expect that he would fold at the last minute for the sake of what they wanted, and they are too young to get much of a say.

You may want to get a really good GAL involved and therapy for kids. Ex only gave up because GAL talked to kids and the therapist and they had a pattern of refusing to get into the car and he couldn’t physically force them. They were only 11. He gave it all up for a sweeter monetary deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do your tweens want to be with him as part of their weekly routine? Staying 50%? Mine asked for 50/50 but the day of trial gave up all custody. He was never much of a parent and the kids knew it and did not want to stay with him. He may be asking for it thinking he won’t have to part with money. My kids were also tweens.

No, they don’t even want to see him and have to be forced to comply with the current visitation. He doesn’t keep food in the house and they don’t have anything to do over there; he sends work emails while they basically wait to be driven back to my house. They try to save their homework for visitation so they have something to do, so they’re at least productive.

But I don’t expect that he would fold at the last minute for the sake of what they wanted, and they are too young to get much of a say.

You may want to get a really good GAL involved and therapy for kids. Ex only gave up because GAL talked to kids and the therapist and they had a pattern of refusing to get into the car and he couldn’t physically force them. They were only 11. He gave it all up for a sweeter monetary deal.

I have an excellent therapist, but unfortunately DH hired a private custody evaluator. It will be a while before we get the recommendation but they seem very enamored with DH and his provider role. A GAL is the next option if the recommendation is really unrealistic and we have to go to court.

I don’t recommend that anyone go down this kind of legal path if they have the choice. I did not.

[Anonymous]

If HE hired the private evaluator without consulting you, you absolutely do not have to agree to be interviewed or to allowing HIS evaluator to interview your children. DO NOT participate under any circumstance. Put your objection to this private evaluation in writing ASAP!!!

WHAT ON EARTH do you mean by “it will be awhile before we get the recommendation” ?!?
Who gives a flying f what a shill paid for by your stbx thinks is best for your kids.

[Anonymous]

Op, what state are you in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do your tweens want to be with him as part of their weekly routine? Staying 50%? Mine asked for 50/50 but the day of trial gave up all custody. He was never much of a parent and the kids knew it and did not want to stay with him. He may be asking for it thinking he won’t have to part with money. My kids were also tweens.

No, they don’t even want to see him and have to be forced to comply with the current visitation. He doesn’t keep food in the house and they don’t have anything to do over there; he sends work emails while they basically wait to be driven back to my house. They try to save their homework for visitation so they have something to do, so they’re at least productive.

But I don’t expect that he would fold at the last minute for the sake of what they wanted, and they are too young to get much of a say.

You may want to get a really good GAL involved and therapy for kids. Ex only gave up because GAL talked to kids and the therapist and they had a pattern of refusing to get into the car and he couldn’t physically force them. They were only 11. He gave it all up for a sweeter monetary deal.

I have an excellent therapist, but unfortunately DH hired a private custody evaluator. It will be a while before we get the recommendation but they seem very enamored with DH and his provider role. A GAL is the next option if the recommendation is really unrealistic and we have to go to court.

I don’t recommend that anyone go down this kind of legal path if they have the choice. I did not.

You may have a good therapist, but he clearly has a better lawyer than you do. I would start doing some consults with the known pit-bull lawyers in your county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If HE hired the private evaluator without consulting you, you absolutely do not have to agree to be interviewed or to allowing HIS evaluator to interview your children. DO NOT participate under any circumstance. Put your objection to this private evaluation in writing ASAP!!!

WHAT ON EARTH do you mean by “it will be awhile before we get the recommendation” ?!?
Who gives a flying f what a shill paid for by your stbx thinks is best for your kids.

Agreed. Do you even have a legally binding temporary visitation agreement? I did not agree with the court evaluator and hired, in agreement with ex and his attorney, a GAL. We split the costs. The GAL saw things vastly differently.

[Anonymous]

I’d go to trial and let a judge decide. He won’t get 50/50 with those work travel demands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If HE hired the private evaluator without consulting you, you absolutely do not have to agree to be interviewed or to allowing HIS evaluator to interview your children. DO NOT participate under any circumstance. Put your objection to this private evaluation in writing ASAP!!!

WHAT ON EARTH do you mean by “it will be awhile before we get the recommendation” ?!?
Who gives a flying f what a shill paid for by your stbx thinks is best for your kids.

It’s not that simple. Yes, he hired them, but yes, I also had to agree.

While legally you can refuse to participate in a custody evaluation, the consequence is typically that the opposing party will go straight to scheduling a hearing for custody. And depending on the jurisdiction, refusing to participate in an evaluation will be deemed by a judge to be non-cooperative and will impact custody outcomes. Or the judge could then appoint a court-mandated evaluator, which triggers a very different process.

You have to know your county and their expectations; mine is in a mediation-required state and focuses very much on “cooperation”, and if I had not signed off on the evaluation I would have been screwed. That’s why my STBX’s attorney deployed it as a tactic.

But…the judge does not have to accept the custody evaluator’s recommendation. It’s not legally binding, it’s just used as a tool for leverage during custody hearings. So now my focus is on ensuring that we have sufficient documentation of both the flawed evaluation process and my STbX’s actual behavior to make sure the judge has an accurate perspective to determine what is in the bests interests of our children.

[Anonymous]

PS to clarify: if the judge had appointed a court-mandated custody evaluator, their recommendation would be binding. Down to the minute they decided exchanges should happen and the holiday schedule they choose. Which is why that was to be avoided at all costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone mandated a notification period or protocol for work travel in their divorce settlement?

I’m currently in divorce proceedings initiated by a spouse who travels frequently for work and on an unpredictable schedule. In other words, it’s not like he is gone M-Th every week or every first week of the month. His travel can be anywhere from an overnight trip mid-week to a 10 day trip overseas that requires weekend flights on either end.

During our marriage, he was often slow to tell me about work travel. During divorce, the discovery process has revealed that many of his “last-minute” trips were confirmed months before. For example, trips were booked for 2-3 months that would include weekends away or impact our visitation schedule, but he told me only days before that “a trip had come up”, necessitating rescheduling kids’ time with him or them not seeing him at all that week.

This pattern of communication and travel planning has obviously impacted our kids’ schedules and ability to plan time with him, as well as my ability to plan my work schedule.

To complicate things, STBX is asking for 50/50 custody but right now only makes time for the kids ~1 day/weekend if he is in town. I’ve been informed that if we go to trial it’s possible that he would be granted 50/50 regardless of his current travel patterns and that modification might only happen after he repeatedly failed to uphold his end of that arrangement, which could take months or years. I would like to pre-empt that if I can since I am trying to become financially independent and rebuild my career to support my family on one income.

Does anyone have experience building in a legal framework to mandate communication and advance planning around travel? Obviously it’s something my attorney is working on with me but I would appreciate hearing real-world examples of how people deal with this. I can’t be the only one in this situation but it feels like I am.

Actually, it sounds to me like you angling to maximize child support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone mandated a notification period or protocol for work travel in their divorce settlement?

I’m currently in divorce proceedings initiated by a spouse who travels frequently for work and on an unpredictable schedule. In other words, it’s not like he is gone M-Th every week or every first week of the month. His travel can be anywhere from an overnight trip mid-week to a 10 day trip overseas that requires weekend flights on either end.

During our marriage, he was often slow to tell me about work travel. During divorce, the discovery process has revealed that many of his “last-minute” trips were confirmed months before. For example, trips were booked for 2-3 months that would include weekends away or impact our visitation schedule, but he told me only days before that “a trip had come up”, necessitating rescheduling kids’ time with him or them not seeing him at all that week.

This pattern of communication and travel planning has obviously impacted our kids’ schedules and ability to plan time with him, as well as my ability to plan my work schedule.

To complicate things, STBX is asking for 50/50 custody but right now only makes time for the kids ~1 day/weekend if he is in town. I’ve been informed that if we go to trial it’s possible that he would be granted 50/50 regardless of his current travel patterns and that modification might only happen after he repeatedly failed to uphold his end of that arrangement, which could take months or years. I would like to pre-empt that if I can since I am trying to become financially independent and rebuild my career to support my family on one income.

Does anyone have experience building in a legal framework to mandate communication and advance planning around travel? Obviously it’s something my attorney is working on with me but I would appreciate hearing real-world examples of how people deal with this. I can’t be the only one in this situation but it feels like I am.

Actually, it sounds to me like you angling to maximize child support.

That’s not how child support works.