Does the amount of Child Custody time affect Spousal/Child support numbers?

[hubby]

My friend and I are in a similar predicament regarding seperation / divorce. We were debating whether the amount of time a spouse has the children (50/50 , 70/30 etc) affect the amonut of money to be paid for spousal or child support payments?

He said it did not matter, I however believe it may?

Hubby

[Lindsay]

Hi hubby,

It does make a difference. If you were to have access to your children 50% of the time, your spouse would be responsible for paying child support as well. Normally, each of your child support obligations would be set off against each other, resulting in a payment of the difference from one party to the other. This of course depends on who has the higher income.

If you have the children less than 40% of the time, however, the only child support payor would be you based on your income and how many children are entitled to support.

As discussed in other posts, child support is negotiable and it is possible for a different kind of agreement to be reached between the parties. The Child Support Guidelines are just that, it is not mandatory to follow them.

Spousal support is a whole other issue and must be determined through careful examination of your marriage/relationship with your spouse. I confirm, however, that when determining spousal support, a court would definitely take into consideration the fact that the spousal support payor has a child support obligation as well.

Lindsay

[imarketing0]

That is a good question that I was wondering myself. Thank-you for all the information.