The short version:
Support calculators show that I should pay more spousal support if my ex and I share custody of our daughter than if she lives primarily with my ex. Why is that the case?
The long version:
My ex is a student with zero income, and was while we were together as well. We were common law for roughly four years and had a daughter in 2015. I've been providing informal child and spousal support since our separation in 2018, but we don't yet have a formal separation agreement. We're currently working on that.
At the moment, our daughter lives with my ex roughly 60% of the time and with me 40%. I want to move towards 50/50, but when I change the "lives with" field from "spouse" to "shared" on mysupportcalculator.ca (and this result seems to be the same for other software, including the software my lawyer uses), my spousal support payments increase by about 15%. Why is this the case? And why do child support payments not change at all? I would have assumed that a more equal custody arrangement would mean that my payments would decrease. I can sort of understand why they wouldn't decrease, but I have no idea why they would increase.
Support calculators show that I should pay more spousal support if my ex and I share custody of our daughter than if she lives primarily with my ex. Why is that the case?
The long version:
My ex is a student with zero income, and was while we were together as well. We were common law for roughly four years and had a daughter in 2015. I've been providing informal child and spousal support since our separation in 2018, but we don't yet have a formal separation agreement. We're currently working on that.
At the moment, our daughter lives with my ex roughly 60% of the time and with me 40%. I want to move towards 50/50, but when I change the "lives with" field from "spouse" to "shared" on mysupportcalculator.ca (and this result seems to be the same for other software, including the software my lawyer uses), my spousal support payments increase by about 15%. Why is this the case? And why do child support payments not change at all? I would have assumed that a more equal custody arrangement would mean that my payments would decrease. I can sort of understand why they wouldn't decrease, but I have no idea why they would increase.
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