I was married for 7 years and we separated around October 2010 and after making some initial arrangements I moved out of the matrimonial home on January 1, 2011. My ex makes 60K per year, and myself 20K but I opted initially to forgo having the ex pay child support as a peace offering and to keep stress levels low, even though it does cause me some stress. I have since up'd my income to about 30K per year. The ex also sold the matrimonial home, with my permission and a mediated agreement, and still owes me the proceeds. More on that a little further down.
My ex and I agreed that I'd have the kids (2 & 4 year old) from Sunday at noon until Wednesday at which point they were dropped off at daycare/school and that started the day I moved out - except for the first two months where we were little more flexible to ease the transition for the kids. This arrangement has been fine, except that my ex believes that I don't meet the threshold for shared custody (i.e. I don't meet the 40% threshold, even though I think I do) and can arbitrarily decided when I can see the kids - ie. change pickup and drop off times. I have been pretty firm in sticking to the status quo and there has been no change yet, but there is a lot of pressure from the ex to get the times changed. This has just started to happen.
Our mediator has agreed with me, that 3 nights is shared. My ex has started counting hours and thinks that when I drop the kids off at school / daycare it automatically becomes her time. Also, we, as a family, would visit my parents twice a month on Sunday evenings and now my ex has retroactively decided that the time at my parents is "shared time", again inching the hours closer to less than 40%. Also, anytime we make arrangements for work (i.e. I had to travel twice last year and dropped of the kids on the Tuesday night, so now the ex is counting those nights, even though I've repaid the favour at least three times).
One of the issues is that because the ex isn't paying child support, we agreed that when we visited my parents we'd just meet there (travel time), which now seems to count for her time. The original goal was to save me a bit of money on transportation costs as I live about 25 minutes from the ex and it would require me to back track.
Obviously this sucks because I wanted these Sunday's as time where my ex and I could spend with the kids and the kids could enjoy having both parents in a comfortable environment. But now I can't risk the ex convincing a judge that based on nitpicking of the hours, they have full custody so now it is just me and the kids visiting.
Now as I said earlier I haven't collected child support, but with the ex developing a plan it looks like there will be an attempt to get retro-active child support from me. The problem is that the ex went on a spending spree after we separated and has basically used up all the money (new house, new car, new furniture, TV, iPhone, etc.). Also, in our mediation agreement there was some ambiguous phrases that made my ex believe that I'd be paying child support. Not really true, as from the start I believed that I had shared custody and the ex would be paying. Additionally, I gave my ex the $100 childcare tax credit to help with daycare costs (2yr old goes on Wed/Thu/Fri and stays home with me Mon/Tues). Yes, I'm the lower income earner, but I reasoned that $100 per month is a small price to pay for peace and quiet as well as avoiding lawyers. Not so I guess.....
So here's my question: do judges typically count hours to determine custody or can they look at the big picture (i.e. I have 3 nights, get my son ready for school 3 days per week, share my family, no child support to pay for daycare, etc.)? Does 3 nights truly count as shared?
Additionally, I'm thinking that it might be a good idea if I had the kids every other Saturday night (starting at 5:30PM) (basically 4 night / 3 night split) but the ex doesn't want to budge on time as that would ensure we have shared custody. How hard would it be to get a judge to agree to the alternating Saturday nights?
I think a lot of this is from "friends" giving the ex uneducated advice causing a decent separation to go to hell. But it could also be the more one gives the more the other takes.
My ex and I agreed that I'd have the kids (2 & 4 year old) from Sunday at noon until Wednesday at which point they were dropped off at daycare/school and that started the day I moved out - except for the first two months where we were little more flexible to ease the transition for the kids. This arrangement has been fine, except that my ex believes that I don't meet the threshold for shared custody (i.e. I don't meet the 40% threshold, even though I think I do) and can arbitrarily decided when I can see the kids - ie. change pickup and drop off times. I have been pretty firm in sticking to the status quo and there has been no change yet, but there is a lot of pressure from the ex to get the times changed. This has just started to happen.
Our mediator has agreed with me, that 3 nights is shared. My ex has started counting hours and thinks that when I drop the kids off at school / daycare it automatically becomes her time. Also, we, as a family, would visit my parents twice a month on Sunday evenings and now my ex has retroactively decided that the time at my parents is "shared time", again inching the hours closer to less than 40%. Also, anytime we make arrangements for work (i.e. I had to travel twice last year and dropped of the kids on the Tuesday night, so now the ex is counting those nights, even though I've repaid the favour at least three times).
One of the issues is that because the ex isn't paying child support, we agreed that when we visited my parents we'd just meet there (travel time), which now seems to count for her time. The original goal was to save me a bit of money on transportation costs as I live about 25 minutes from the ex and it would require me to back track.
Obviously this sucks because I wanted these Sunday's as time where my ex and I could spend with the kids and the kids could enjoy having both parents in a comfortable environment. But now I can't risk the ex convincing a judge that based on nitpicking of the hours, they have full custody so now it is just me and the kids visiting.
Now as I said earlier I haven't collected child support, but with the ex developing a plan it looks like there will be an attempt to get retro-active child support from me. The problem is that the ex went on a spending spree after we separated and has basically used up all the money (new house, new car, new furniture, TV, iPhone, etc.). Also, in our mediation agreement there was some ambiguous phrases that made my ex believe that I'd be paying child support. Not really true, as from the start I believed that I had shared custody and the ex would be paying. Additionally, I gave my ex the $100 childcare tax credit to help with daycare costs (2yr old goes on Wed/Thu/Fri and stays home with me Mon/Tues). Yes, I'm the lower income earner, but I reasoned that $100 per month is a small price to pay for peace and quiet as well as avoiding lawyers. Not so I guess.....
So here's my question: do judges typically count hours to determine custody or can they look at the big picture (i.e. I have 3 nights, get my son ready for school 3 days per week, share my family, no child support to pay for daycare, etc.)? Does 3 nights truly count as shared?
Additionally, I'm thinking that it might be a good idea if I had the kids every other Saturday night (starting at 5:30PM) (basically 4 night / 3 night split) but the ex doesn't want to budge on time as that would ensure we have shared custody. How hard would it be to get a judge to agree to the alternating Saturday nights?
I think a lot of this is from "friends" giving the ex uneducated advice causing a decent separation to go to hell. But it could also be the more one gives the more the other takes.
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