50/50 not the norm nationwide

[Anonymous]

50/50 is terrible for kids

[Anonymous]

Your mistake was going without a lawyer esp knowing she had family money to hire a good lawyer.



You now have to find a much better paying job and move closer to the kids.

Trying to move them back to their old district isn't going to work.

Get in evolved in their new schools

Be the go to person for shuttling to activities and appointments even if it's not technically your time be extremely flexible here..

Never ever say anything negative or critical about mom or her boyfriends
..

don't date.


You can arrange for a regular facetime, call etc when they are with mom.



The good news is your kids are extremely close to being of age where their opinion on where they live is heavily weighed your 13-year-old is already there in some places. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is terrible for kids

It's actually healthy for kids to spend time with both parents regularly. It's also presumed in many if not most states. OP didn't say what state they're in, and I feel like some of the story there may be missing.

[Anonymous]

Judge did the right thing. Kids need stability. Stop being a jerk and making it about you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is terrible for kids

It's actually healthy for kids to spend time with both parents regularly. It's also presumed in many if not most states. OP didn't say what state they're in, and I feel like some of the story there may be missing.

Stop misreading the post. Pp is right. 50 50 is very hard. No one said no time but 50 50 means the kid has no permanent home. Would you want to move your life every week or multiple times a week??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Judge did the right thing. Kids need stability. Stop being a jerk and making it about you

Stability isn't promoted by forcing them into new schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not in DC and our divorce recently concluded with ex wife being granted primary residential custody. I don't consume alcohol, I am not an abuser, and I have been fully involved with my kids. We couldn't agree with the choice of school district. We have 2 kids 13 and 10. I wanted the kids to remain in the same diastatic but my ex wife wanted them in a different lower quality school district where she grew up and her family lives. She argued that she needed to be near family and her lawyer made the case for her I guess because the judge sided with them. I did not get a lawyer because I could not afford one without going into debt. She was to get one with family support.

So the assumption on this forum that the courts always opt for 50/50 unless major issues may be through perhaps in VA and other states.

It seems to me that if you are the parent without a lawyer and you aren't willing to go in debt to get one, the other side is going to get their way.

The kids will stay with her during school days and I will have them weekends and the majority of holidays. During the summer we will have them 50/50.

However the fact that the judge felt that simply because she wanted the kids in the district of her choice, it was the best interest of the children makes it hard to believe that it wasn't a biased decision.

At what age can kids opt to be with one parent mostly? When my son turns 16 can he choose to stay with me instead?

No cheating, no alcohol abuse, no financial neglect. I know some people will quick to use one of these as the reason that it was the right decision. The marriage felt apart because she repeatedly refused to seek individual therapy for being bipolar and as a result was unable to regulate her emotions throughout our marriage.

That is practically 50/50.

Sounds like the discrepancy was you wanted to live in the same neighborhood as before and she wanted to be close to extended family for help.

Plus your kids are almost both middle school and may have gotten a say.

Did you really go to court or did you mediate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is terrible for kids

Agree. So disruptive and destabilizing.

Doing the school week at one place is better than all tha 4-4-2-2 krap.

And weekends at that age are for homework, sports, socializing with friends.

[Anonymous]

What’s the default in Texas?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is terrible for kids

Then stay married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is terrible for kids

Agree. So disruptive and destabilizing.

Doing the school week at one place is better than all tha 4-4-2-2 krap.

And weekends at that age are for homework, sports, socializing with friends.

Not really as it depends on the kids schedule and needs. If you think one home is important then let them live with the other parent and you visit b

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is terrible for kids

Agree. So disruptive and destabilizing.

Doing the school week at one place is better than all tha 4-4-2-2 krap.

And weekends at that age are for homework, sports, socializing with friends.

+1

My DD’s BFF (14) is in a situation like this- she switches homes every day or every other day and she hates it. Loves both of her parents and has a good setup in both homes (from what I can tell) but it is so stressful for her. She complains to DD about it all the time. Her dad lives near school (and the girl has been in this district since K) but mom lives 30-40min away. Not sure why. She has to wake up extremely early for the commute to school when she is at her mom’s and social life is more limited when she is staying there because of the drive. Also lots of angst about leaving xyz (clothes and personal items, textbook etc) at this or that house. I often wonder why she doesn’t at least stay at her dad’s Mon-Thur or something to make things easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is terrible for kids

Agree. So disruptive and destabilizing.

Doing the school week at one place is better than all tha 4-4-2-2 krap.

And weekends at that age are for homework, sports, socializing with friends.

+1

Seems like if dad did drop off at school on Mon and then pickup on Fri, he is only missing seeing the kids 3 full days and mom misses 2 full days. Given kids are around more on the weekends, that seems pretty 50-50 to me, TBH. If some flexibility was worked in on both sides for things that are important to the parents/kids even in “non custody times” seems it would work pretty well IMO. If everyone can be mature about it anyway. My kids’ friends (tweens and young teen) with divorced parents seem to have a lot of flexibility. My DS’s good friend stays with his mom most of the time during the week but we see his dad picking him up from sports practice during the week etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason the judge let her move the kids to a new school district is because she's moving closer to extended family, who will help her as a newly single mother.

This is a silly reason as she's not exactly a single mother as there is a father involved who can share responsibility. Reality is the court is bias to mom's via child support and giving mom full custody or more than 50-50 is about her income.

But the judge did not award full custody. They have as close to a 50-50 split as you can get when the parents live in different school districts. OP has the kids every single weekend plus the majority of the holidays and 50% of the summer. Sounds like the judge worked really hard to come up with a plan that ensured the kids were doign to spend as much time with OP as with his ex. He has them for full days on weekend and holidays. On school days she won't even be with them most of the day. I don't see how you can argue that the custody award is particularly biased.

OP is upset about the kids being moved to the school district his ex chose and I get that -- I wouldn't be happy about that either. But she also fought harder for it. She got a lawyer and made an argument in court about WHY the kids should be in the other district based on family support. Did OP make an argument? What was it? OP could have at a minimum hired a lawyer to stand up for him in court and articulate the argument. He chose not to. That's going to bias the judge because they can only make a decision based on what arguments are presented.

If OP think this only happens to men in family court he is wrong. I clerked for a family court judge for 2 years. I saw many awards go in the dad's favor because he showed up to court with an attorney or a better attorney who made a better argument. It sucks because yes you need to understand the system and how to make the argument in a way the judge can justify in their decision. I also worked for a free legal clinic for a time and this is something we did with people who came in -- helped them understand how to frame their arguments in a way that gave the judge a *legal* reason to rule in their favor. Laypeople often go into court and think it's about convincing the judge who is the best person or parent or trying to litigate their entire marriage. None of that is useful to the judge and if you do it the judge is likely to get frustrated because it's a waste of their time. Only certain facts and arguments are relevant to their decision and you have to know how to just present those in a dispassionate way that makes it clear you are cooperative and focused on the child's interests. Unfortunately this is much easier for a lawyer to do. So people with lawyers are always better off in an adversarial family court hearing unless the facts are very obviously against them. Usually both sides have facts in their favor though and it's not obvious who is in the right.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the judge thought the parent who cared enough to have a lawyer was more invested in the children’s well being than the one who didn’t?