Anonymous wrote:Is the 60/40 target because that’s the point where he thinks he won’t owe child support?

Oftentimes the parent with primary physical custody has the right of refusal for legal decisions (full legal custody). I would suspect his angle for 60/40 is for full legal custody, and to remove decision making power from the ill parent. If this is the case, I think it would be better for your friend to suggest 50/50 and shared legal custody with the ill parent. Given the professional findings in her favor, the status quo with her care, and that it is a treatable mental illness, there really would have to be a significant change in circumstances to warrant a petition to the court for a modification.

My DH got primary physical custody. His ex had every other weekend. Four weeks during the summer. It happens. But he should be prepared for a really expensive, emotionally exhausting fight. It was absolutely awful. She contacted my DH’s employer and tried to have his security clearance pulled. She accused me of sexual abuse. I was a teacher at the time. Finally, after 14 months of hell, she admitted she fabricated the story. She attacked my biological children as well. Custody battles are usually brutal.

It was worth it 1000X over. My stepkids are now healthy, happy successful adults. But we all still have scars from that painful time.

The only dad that I know who got more than 50% was given full legal and physical custody. Mom has six weeks of visitation per year (scheduled as either Christmas break or spring break AND Thanksgiving week, plus 2 2-week visitations during the summer), no input for medical, mental health, education, etc.

1. She abandoned the family and disappeared for over 6 months before telling anyone where she was. She only reached out to get money from the father. No legal separation (she never filed, and he wanted reconciliation for the children).
2. She was SAHM and had been investigated for neglect (allowing kids under 8 to wander away into dangerous situations, police called by whoever found the child(ren)) three times, and he was able to furnish the police report to the court. All investigations resulted in better attention for up to a year, but dad had to work and could document that all three happened while he was working.
3. When she finally filed for custody, she was living with someone, and 2 of the kids reported drug use for her/partner/party guests while they were in the house visiting. Eldest was offered alcohol, then called her grandparents to come get both tweens.
4. He had texts in which her parents reached out to him for money to feed the kids while they were supposed to be visiting her. Texts showed that grandparents had the kids over 90% of the visit, and she wasn’t providing any monetary support to them. Subsequent visits involved her picking them up at the halfway point, then dropping all but the eldest at her parents’ house on the way back, reversing on the way back to the halfway point for hand off.
5. Her sister sent pictures of each place she rented. None were in good condition, none had two or more bedrooms, and she usually didn’t have enough mattresses, let alone bed frames.
6. He had texts showing that she was allowing kids to eat just candy, chips and soda, to make up for not being allowed them with their father. (Reality was that they were rare treats, not forbidden completely.)
7. GAL talked to the kids who were very verbose about watching tv all day while mom was at work, when they were actually with her. Naturally, they complained about dad’s rules. GAL reached out to me for documentation (no opinions), and I provided samples the kids had written for school about each parent.
8. No documented mental health (mom). Kids’ medical only happened with dad, and mom never went to appointments, even when she was with the family.
9. Kicker was that mom filed for child support, but didn’t have any kids... That was in addition to the alimony that dad had already accepted as inescapable.

GAL recommended dad get full custody, supervised visitation. Her parents and sister recommended he get full custody, no visitation. Judge didn’t feel he could require supervised visitation, as she had never hurt the children, but felt that limited time was in the children’s best interests, due to the overwhelming evidence of neglect and poor choices. It took a LOT of documentation, and a good deal of it was in her words. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been given so much.

Unless you have a boatload or documentation of neglect and/or abuse of the children, most judges will treat spousal abuse as unlikely to extend to the children. They can’t make arbitrary decisions to assign more custody to one parent than another. They have to have a compelling reason.

Anonymous wrote:78% custody to avoid eating disorders had me laughing out loud in public. Sweetheart... that is not how it works when therapists and court-appointed advocates are involved. No reputable psychiatrist is going to say 22% unsupervised contact with the purportedly Munchausen by proxy parent is in the “safe zone” if they think harm is likely. That’s someone running the numbers for child support purposes.

I don't know...a friend got 80% because her ex is an alcoholic and drug user with multiple DUIs. He has 20% time (unsupervised), a breathalyzer ignition, and any time she reports that she suspects he is using he has some really short window of time to report for a drug test. Sometimes courts are willing to put up with risk in order to promote the relationship between child and parent.

The child’s representative thinks Mom should get 60%....that’s going to be hard to overcome. If the Mom is capable of taking care of the kid then it’s going to be 50/50. Did your friend leave the kid alone with his STBXW? If so, pretty hard to now see she can’t be trusted. The situations I have seen where more custody have been awarded is literally where the Mom never left her kids alone with their Dad because of mental illness, abuse, etc.

78% custody to avoid eating disorders had me laughing out loud in public. Sweetheart... that is not how it works when therapists and court-appointed advocates are involved. No reputable psychiatrist is going to say 22% unsupervised contact with the purportedly Munchausen by proxy parent is in the “safe zone” if they think harm is likely. That’s someone running the numbers for child support purposes.

The only man I know who got full custody did so with the support of his ex-wife's parents. She was an awful mess.

Oh, wait: there was another case where the ex-wife abandoned the kids to move in with her affair partner. This wasn't contested, though.

My brother eventually got full custody but it took almost a decade, multiple trips to court, a ton of $, and a decade of damage to his kids before the court would make a change.

Officially during that decade his wife had full custody as that was what she was given back at the time of the divorce even though he was the primary parent. She pulled a lot of really dirty stuff at the time. Unofficially once the divorce and initial custody was done, he still had them most of the time because she didn't actual want custody, she wanted the child support payments and she was too proud to let go of custody due to what people would think of her as a women who didn't have custody.

The only reason he was able to eventually get it changed was because the kids had gotten old enough to be very vocal about where they wanted to live and who they wanted making decisions about their lives. They were frequently refusing to even go their mother's house. he knew he could get in a ton of trouble as he didn't have custody.

It was a brutal battle for all of them. The court did those kids a massive disservice by keeping them with their mother, only because she was female, when their father was by far the only caring, competent parent they had. They have a ton of trauma and psychological damage from everything that happened.

Once my brother got full custody, he was able to get the kids into therapy and in time he worked hard to get them to reestablish a relationship with their mother. it was supervised for awhile and then as they got older, they led the contact. They are now adults and they have a decent relationship with her.

Nah, this guy is going 60/40 bc of child support. Otherwise he’d go for full with visits every other weekend. It’s NEVER about anything else.

Anonymous wrote:Sole legal is critical if she is trying to get the kid diagnosed with diseases. That can do a lot of damage

If she has a lot of health issues, she could have passed them down to the child.

That's pretty horrible to try to take away mom's rights. 50/50 and if something happens then go in for a change of custody. He's wasting his money that could be better off spent on other things. Is he having an affair?

I know a few dads who have primary/more than 50/50 custody but they all got it by agreement and not from the courts.

Sole legal is critical if she is trying to get the kid diagnosed with diseases. That can do a lot of damage

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the 60/40 target because that’s the point where he thinks he won’t owe child support?

OP here. No he is afraid his STBXW will have harmful effects on his child. They were in counseling for a while about it and she wasn't able to make any changes (i.e. curb her compulsive spending, stop sleeping all weekend, stop trying to get child diagnosed with rare diseases etc.). Despite years of being on mood stabilizers and in therapy she got a therapist to write a report saying she has no mental illness. A court appointed pysch recommended my friend get 78% custody lest the kid develop an eating disorder etc. The attorney for the child suggested her get 60% or more. The STBXW got fired from her job two weeks after my friend filed for divorce and is now trying to say she's a SAHM. My friend is spending a ton of money and I'm just nervous for him.

I hope you’re not dating this guy.

He should be going for broke and asking for sole legal and physical with visitation for mom. If this is all true that is.

OP here, nope. I’m an old friend. He’s also asking for sole legal. I can’t share more without being too identifying but it’s true. She is back working now that her unemployment ran out but at a major pay cut.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the 60/40 target because that’s the point where he thinks he won’t owe child support?

OP here. No he is afraid his STBXW will have harmful effects on his child. They were in counseling for a while about it and she wasn't able to make any changes (i.e. curb her compulsive spending, stop sleeping all weekend, stop trying to get child diagnosed with rare diseases etc.). Despite years of being on mood stabilizers and in therapy she got a therapist to write a report saying she has no mental illness. A court appointed pysch recommended my friend get 78% custody lest the kid develop an eating disorder etc. The attorney for the child suggested her get 60% or more. The STBXW got fired from her job two weeks after my friend filed for divorce and is now trying to say she's a SAHM. My friend is spending a ton of money and I'm just nervous for him.

I hope you’re not dating this guy.

He should be going for broke and asking for sole legal and physical with visitation for mom. If this is all true that is.