Reply to Ex suddendly requesting 50/50 custody

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[quote=Anonymous]My ex and I were in a bad marriage since pregnancy. We have a 2-year old. Since pregnancy my ex always said that our child will live with me and that he wanted visitation. We separated six months ago. We have worked so far on an informal visitation schedule. Our child lives with me and I have allowed my ex to see our child as much as he wants. For the six months of separation he has only requested every other Saturday and pick up from daycare once or twice per week. Only one overnight has taken place. Ex is the type of guy who never has enough freedom and time for himself and his endless hobbies and activities. Co-parenting was working well. However, our separation grew very bitter due to other issues, such as another woman involved as we tried to reconcile, etc.

In preparation for our divorce, my lawyer advised to file directly a child custody and child support complaint. I did not know that we could have gone through mediation first. I went with my lawyer's advise on this. My lawyer said he filed directly to gain jurisdiction over ex, who is in the United States with a temporary work visa. It was unclear for a while whether ex was moving back to his country due to his immigration situation. I am hopping that we can settle an agreement without a judge, so we are working towards that. The problem is that ex is very bitter and resentful towards me. All of a sudden, after the filing, ex is requesting 50/50 custody with alternating weeks. Not only that but he wants to ramp up the visitation schedule from what I mentioned before to 50/50 in a matter of two or three weeks. They had their first overnight this past weekend. Our child has never been away from me. We have lived on/off with the father and now that we have been separated for six months we had the visitation schedule that I mentioned previously. While we lived together with our child (5 months), ex did a fair amount of baby sitting. However, throughout our marriage, ex was notorious for being overly optimistic and taking up on commitments he later on could not keep. I worry that ex does not fully grasp the level of responsibility that he is requesting. The fact that he never before showed interest in 50/50 custody before filing seems fishy to me. Ex has mentioned child support considerations in his request. Also, he is resentful towards me and feel that he is trying to hurt me this way since he knows I was looking for sole physical custody with visitation for him. I don't mind that our child spends more time with his dad, but I worry about the factors involved in the decision and I don't think it's necessarily the best for a 2 year old two be split equally in two ways. I don't even know if ex will be able to stay in the US for an extended period due to his visa issues.

What would you do? We live in DC, so presumption for shared custody seems to be the norm. I anticipate and don't mind that we share legal custody.[/quote]

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