How hard is it to alter custody agreement in regards to days of the week with each parent?

mobilejen · August 2013

My husband & his ex have had 50-50 custody since their divorce. It has been alternating where he has the kids for 2 days, she has them for two days & whoever has them for the weekend has them for 3 days on their weekend. This started at the mother's insistence because the kids were fairly young when they were divorced. It was written this way into the MSA. The kids are now 6 & 8 and my husband wants to switch to a week on week off schedule. Mom is pretty bad about remembering to send home work folders, keeps all of our nice clothes & returns the kids in stained & too small clothes. The kids biggest complaint is that they don't like all of the back & forth. He emailed her requesting a change & she refused saying that the only way she would agree to a change is if she had them every M-F and he had them every other weekend, i.e. he greatly reduces his custody hours. Definitely not an option.

The next step is for him to file a motion requesting that the judge order a change in the arrangement. Does anyone know whether they are likely to do this? Ex-wife is a lawyer & likes to use her knowledge of the law to force my husband (who makes less money & has voluntarily waived child support) to have to hire an attorney whenever they have a disagreement. I just don't want to end up spending another $10,000 in legal fees if it's not a reasonable request. I do think that it would benefit the children, with a more consistent schedule, less days where we don't have their homework & less interactions between the parents, who do not get along. He wants to try to use the free legal services through the county & do the paper work himself, but ex will likely go on a motion filing party to cost him money. Please let me know if this is a reasonable request. We are having a baby in Nov. and would love to have a more consistent schedule with the kids.

fellesferie · August 2013

A few things:

- The changes you want are reasonable, but that doesn't mean a court would grant them. Just because YH wants to switch doesn't mean she has to do it. Her desire NOT to switch weighs just as much as his desire TO switch. What the kids want is mostly immaterial; you can't change custody arrangements based on their wishes.

- The 8-yo is old enough to take responsibility for his own homework and clothes. You can also talk to the teacher and try to come up with a solution for homework issues. Losing/forgetting homework happens sometimes, so you want to have a system for this. For the 6-yo, only send him to his mom's in her clothes or cheap play clothes.

- If she is an attorney, I don't think you can really blame her for using the legal system at every opportunity. When XH and I split, he didn't want to pay for an attorney and then got pissed because my attorney wasn't looking out for his best interests. Be realistic here. YH should want to have representation especially because she is an attorney.

- You guys should discuss taking CS if it would be ordered in your situation. You have 50/50 so I get why you waived it, but I am generally not in favor of waiving CS whenever it would be applicable.

I'm not unsympathetic here. I understand how frustrating some of this is, and I also understand feeling like you have an inherent disadvantage when it comes to going to court. But nothing that you have posted here makes me think your requests would absolutely be granted. So I would make that your Plan B and have your Plan A focus on other (cheaper) solutions.

mobilejen · August 2013

8 year old is good about trying to bring back our clothes, but Mom seems to do laundry about once a month, which makes it hard for him to wear our clothes back. Also, we try not to bring the kids into these battles, but it's getting expensive. We've only ever left the homework out once & it was just one page that failed to make it into the folder. We have the kids be responsible for putting their folders back in to their backpack & then one of us always double checks the backpacks to be sure they have the folder in there. Unfortunately, he does not seem to do this at the other house. We have already emailed the new teacher regarding the homework issues.

The kids Mom should be paying him about $600/mo child support, according to his lawyer. I completely agree that she should be paying it. We can actually get that fairly easily, using the county system. It's a straightforward process with a calculator that determines the amount. My husband just doesn't want to give her more opportunity to bad mouth him to the kids. I.e. Daddy's taking all of Mommy's money, so we can't afford this... Yes, she has been court ordered to not make negative comments about him to the kid, but it's difficult to enforce. Having a lawyer last time cost him nearly & $15,000 and that was just enforcing everything that she had previously agreed to & then refused to sign off on. My husband makes about $50,000/year and lawyers here start at about $350/hr. If we have to go the higher a lawyer route again, I will be paying for it & we will damn sure be going after the child support.

I get what you're saying about trying to go the more affordable route. He plans to go to the county legal services as soon as he can get the time off work (it's an all day process) to first see if they think the judge will be open to it. The judge was quite fed up with her & her antics during the last go round. I think they will go back to the same judge for any follow-up issues, but not sure.

danac2010 · August 2013

I know here we see the same judge for anything concerning the child, unless of course she retires or changes districts, but it's the same court always. If you can't agree can you see about getting a mediator or something like that to help mediate the custody. We are having to do that now because of everything we have gone through. BM's lawyer just says no and doesn't even discuss it with BM and BM refuses to talk to DH so we got a court mediator to help with the temporary custody until we go to court early next year. If we agree to the arrangement the mediator comes up with all they have to do is sign the papers and the judge signs off, if we don't agree we go to court. Not sure if this is an option but you might look into it.

Littlejen22 · August 2013

Letting her keep 600 a month so she does not talk WORSE about him is idiotic. I know you likely agree so it is not a flame on you. Get the money or use it as leverage but I would get the money and make kids more responsible. He is old enough for you to tell him to through his dirty jeans in his backpack do you can wash them.

Banana44 · August 2013

We have the same schedule as you and the same problem.

Mom has Mon, Tues, we have Weds, Thurs and every other weekend.

We go every other week during the summer.

My SS is 10 and has begged to stay every other week for the last 3 years (including this year) and his mother refuses,

It is not worth it to us to go to court. Last time we spent nearly $40,000. and I'm not ready to go back just to change the schedule.

My theory is, if SS wants it enough him and his counselor can keep talking to Mom about it.

We also have homework and clothes issues, but as SS has gotten older we have explained that it is his responsibility and he can't blame Mom for everything for the rest of his life.

Things have gotten better with his being responsible over time.

Nineoceans · August 2013

I do not think a judge would agree to this unless both parents agreed. As for the clothes, they should go home in what they came back in and if folders don't come home then the kids get punished, just as if they were in a non bf home and otherwise blew off their homework.

For awhile Bm and her mother were throwing away the brand new pairs of shoes and lunch boxes and folders I would send with SS so shoes stay at our house and he goes home in her shoes just like with clothes and if lunch boxes and folders get thrown away he uses plastic store bags the rest of the year. Not worth stressing over.

fellesferie · August 2013

The 6-yo has some leeway, but I don't think an 8-yo should blame anyone else for any clothes or homework issues. It's true that it's less than ideal when circumstances require an 8-yo to be this responsible, but it's good for him (and good for you!).

Have a laundry day at your house, and make sure he's taught how to do his own. I spent a week with my 8-yo DS over the summer, and now he is perfectly capable of washing, drying, folding, and putting away his own clothes. I still usually do the washing/drying, but he does the rest.

With homework, reward efforts toward personal responsibility. Reward him for getting his homework/folders to your house. Reward him for choosing to do a good job on his homework. I have a sticker chart for DS that has about 75 spots. He gets star stickers for good grades on schoolwork/tests, and doing a good job on his homework. When every spot has a star sticker, he gets a toy/Nintendo game/etc.

I definitely think you should get CS. If BM chooses to badmouth YH, then you talk to the kids in your house. Explain that this is money to help you take care of them. Don't say a single word about BM, just explain it a positive & age appropriate way.

CFjo2010 · August 2013

You have already gotten some really good advice so far, but I want to touch on a couple things:

1. Who cares if BM badmouths YH to the boys? Get the CS that he's entitled to and be done. If your household doesn't need that extra money then put it in a college account for the kids. But I certainly would never turn up my nose at $600.

2. I think 6 might be a bit young for a week on and a week off. I know when K was 6 she struggled with going more than 3 days without seeing us or BM. A lot of it is due to what she is used to, but a week is kind of a long time for kids. Maybe BM would be agreeable to upping each swap by one day (3 days with Dad, 4 days with mom, 4 days with dad, 3 days with mom) and ease them into longer visits.

3. Ultimately when modifying a custody/visitation agreement you need to show that there's been a change of circumstances. So I can imagine a Judge will first ask, "What has changed?". So other than the homework and clothes battle (which ALL BF's go through), what has changed?

We have K about 40% of the time. We never go more than 3 days without seeing her, and DH still struggles to get all of the paperwork and homework from BM. So he stopped trying. I pick it up directly from the teacher on the days I pick K up from school, or else stuff is emailed directly to DH to ensure that he receives it. Having the kids for a full week is only going to resolve that week, but what about the following week?

agibby · August 2013

WE were having the same problem with clothes from our house. BM would keep them, send SS to our house in too small clothing from her house and then extra clothes from her house to wear back. After going round with her about it, we finally said, that's it, he's going back in exactly what he came here in, underwear and all. It's worked out so much better and there's absolutely zero stress about it now.

When DH and BM got divorced, DH was working nihgts so the CO parenting time schedule was written as such. When DH got a first shift position, he and BM decided to go week to week. After about 9 months of that, he asked BM to make it official with the courts. She of couse threw a fit, cryng and yelling and all, and decided that she didn't want to do ti anyomre and that she was "bullied" into it in the first place. ugh, out came the attorneys. Their CO states mediation first so that's what they did and would up agreeing to the week to week they were doing in the first place. There was never any reason for BM not to want to make it official. But, it did change the CS to where now neither pay it, so we figure that was her motivator for fighting to change what had already been in place for so long.

Really, week to week is so much easier for the child. SS knows how long he is here and when he goes back. It's very consistent. There has never, ever been an issue of him wanting to go back to BM while here or any kind of emotional set backs. It makes it easy for vacation so parent's aren't steppoing on each other's parenting time. I really don't see why more people don't just do week to week, except in the case of babies and toddlers of course.

Iff mediation is an option, you can so that without involving attorneys. Good luck!

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How hard is it to alter custody agreement in regards to days of the week with each parent?

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