Reply to How does a judge decide custody when all the factors to be considered seem equal?

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Reply to "How does a judge decide custody when all the factors to be considered seem equal?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At age 5, the kid is or soon will be starting school and probably needs one home base.

The parent with no job and no health care should focus on those things,  not taking custody.  [/quote]
She is not going to get full custody, it's probably going to continue at the status quo 50/50 ,  there may be rofr ordered at some time length perhaps for 8 or 12 hours.[/quote]

The question OP is asking is about legal custody. He says he is pretty sure the 50/50 schedule isn’t going to change either way.

We got in the weeds talking about ROFR.

OP wants to know, given the facts he’s presented, who a judge will grant legal custody to which is the ability to unilaterally make medical and education decisions. In OP’s state it can’t be joint legal custody unless both parties agree, and Mom won’t agree. [/quote]

He said right in the first post, that the mom wants to reduce his time to every other weekend.

We've only gotten the dad's side of the story here, and while I think he probably has a case, I do see some red flags on both sides.[/quote]

She wants to, but she’s not going to. 50/50 parenting time isn’t going to change.

What’s up in the air is matter of legal custody which in OP’s state is completely separate from parenting time. [/quote]
Right. Based on stuff that Dad has said, I think he has a stronger case but like I said, I do see red flags from him as well as the mom so, I think the judge may end up ordering stuff that neither of them are super happy with.[/quote]

OP here. What are my red flags? It would be genuinely helpful for me to know.

Re: the ROFR thing. It's not that I don't want my ex spending as much time as she can with our child, it's the coordination and communication that ROFR would require since I do need a few hours of childcare quite frequently due to my work schedule.

Say she can't make pickup one day. At my work, I'm seeing patients back to back all day with no cell service and no guarantee to get a message through to me. So she'd need to reach out to the only people I have on standby for childcare, my mom and my girlfriend. Neither of them will deal with her because of her disrespect towards them. She's said horrible things to my mother, harassed my girlfriend with Facebook messages trying to convince my girlfriend to be friends with her, accosted my girlfriend with a forced conversation at the courthouse lobby after a hearing, shouted out the car window at her, talked about all of us on social media, etc. They have her blocked and will not have face to face interactions with her on advice of my counsel.

So then she'd need to arrange her own childcare during my time and then I have to talk to my ex and figure out where my kid is and go get them from wherever. We have a high conflict situation obviously and communicating with her is a drain on my mental health and I don't want it in my life. Maybe that's selfish, but I have been a better, more present parent since I started putting up firm boundaries. It is so much more consistent and less stress for everyone (especially the child, who is a wreck during every single goodbye with my ex) if my girlfriend or my mom picks up our child from preschool to come home and get started on the afternoon/evening routine until I get home a few hours later. ROFR introduces potential for so much chaos that our child does not need in their life.

Another reason I don't want ROFR is because my ex will try to use it to prevent my mom from spending time with our child. My mom was our full time nanny from the time our child was 12 weeks old until our separation almost two years later. They have an extremely close bond and my ex can't stand that I arrange for a sleepover at Grandma's house pretty much every weekend during my parenting time (so--two, sometimes three sleepovers a month). My ex now hates my mom and hates that our child is so bonded to her. I will not agree to a parenting plan that will give my ex any room to interfere with that because I know it's not in our child's best interest to lose my mom's presence in her life.

I'm happy to pay appropriate child support. What I'm not happy to do is be the only parenting working and pay child support calculated based on her having zero income. I would like her income to to be calculated at her potential income, as at her last job she made very close to what I make but she has made no effort to get a similar job.

If my ex had more stability, I would even be willing to consider her having majority parenting time with me having more of an every other weekend type schedule since our child will be starting school next year. But at this time, she has been jobless for a year, has apparently zero income (per her support declaration document filled out a week ago), and is now living in a room with our child because I assume she could no longer afford rent their house. I'm pretty sure me getting more parenting time is not on the table either, so the best I can do is maintain the 50/50 status quo. At this time I don't think it's a great idea for her to have more parenting time as she should focus on getting consistent employment. [/quote]

Sounds like you aren't that available as a parent if your girlfriend and mom are that heavily involved.  You sound like a nightmare.[/quote]

Interesting. I hadn’t considered that working a 36 hour work week could be perceived as “not that available” but I will have to keep that in mind in court. [/quote]

Then, what else is going on if you cannot get your child after work.  Use after care or a babysitter.[/quote]

Nothing else is going on. Preschool is open until 5:30. I work until 6:30. So my girlfriend typically grabs her at 4:00 pm to take her home (where the three of us live together) to hang out for a little bit. Or less often, my mom. I disagree that it would be better to hire a babysitter to do this instead. [/quote]

You should offer the time to mom first.[/quote]

Says who? That’s good for no one except mom. It’s not good for the preschooler. [/quote]

Of course it’s better for the child to be with the mother! Wtf [/quote]

Its always better for a child to be with a parent over a girlfriend or boyfriend.[/quote]

No it’s not. If as a parent you make it your mission to ensure your child spends no 1:1 time with your ex’s new partner, that is an extremely vindictive and damaging and uncooperative approach and uses the child to punish the parent. And as has been explained over and over in this thread, OP’s ex wants to used right of first refusal as a way to disrupt a stable day.  The ex has zero legal entitlement to ROFR for short time periods. [/quote]

Typically, it is better for the child to be with the biological parents. Time with the ex's new partner is not an important factor (I have a very amicable relationship with my ex, and time with his g/f is something I and my dc care nothing about). However in this case, it might be best for ROFR to be set up with a longer timeframe (like, 8 hours) because according to OP, the child gets upset at frequent exchanges. But, remember, ROFR works both ways, so mom can't leave dc with New Man, Friend/w teen, or whomever either-which is also probably best for the dd.

It's really about what is in the child's best interest, not OP's, not mom's, certainly not the g/f's. [/quote]

But there’s a reason that ROFR is not an automatic part of court ordered custody agreements: because the idea is that the parents cannot get along and need to split parenting. Generally each parent gets to decide what to do on their own custody time and that includes things like after-care and babysitting. Having to talk to an ex every time you have to use childcare on your own time vastly increases the friction points, transitions for the kid, and increases the chances for conflict. Without extenuating circumstances like a very young baby or a parent that regularly uses babysitters all day, it’s a bad idea. Particularly if the care (as here) is necessary for job reasons and needs to be stable. [/quote]

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