canadianwoman said:
Joint custody does not mean each parent gets the kids for about half the time. It means legal custody where each parent is allowed input into important decisions about the children's live - such as residence, education, health, religion. You can have joint legal custody but with primary residence with one parent and the other getting visitation...
On her custody petition, she specifically wrote "Full custody of daughter given to mother. Enforce 50/50 time split with son." In their separation agreement, it says my husband gets them one week and his ex gets them one week. They've never followed this pattern, my husband has always had them 70% of the time. and now with the move to Canada it's not possible. Since the move she's had them 20% (if we kept going the way we are, by the end of the year it would be closer to 40%). So I'm not sure how she wants to enforce that particular split of time without totally messing up their schooling and social lives. My stepdaughter has to miss a birthday party this weekend because of visitation with her mother, and she's actually really upset. The oldest, my stepson, must have been Googling or something, because he came to us the other day and asked if he'd get a chance to speak to a child assigned lawyer. We said probably and he was like, "Good! I want to!" He's quite anxious to let it be known what kind of mother he has and that he wants to stay with his father.
I mentioned in a previous post that our lawyer looked over the divorce decree and found no actual mention of any specific custody agreement (it's only in the separation agreement). So we're issuing a cross-petition to her custody petition asking that a brand new order be put in place that names my husband as the primary residence and Canada as their place of schooling. In terms of the kid's well-being, their mother's behaviour we have documented and the children's wishes, our lawyer sees this being granted.
canadianwoman said:
...then whichever parent has the bigger income should be paying child support. The court will take into account the fact your husband doesn't have a job yet. Once he does he may have the bigger income. Irrelevant if the kids are with you more than 60 per cent of the time though.
Right. Everything we've read or been told and consulted on specifically says that income isn't taken into account. The way we've come to understand the law is: if one parent is the custodial parent based on time and care of the children, then the other is the non-custodial parent. The non-custodial parent owes child support, regardless of whose income is bigger. This is what you're saying, yes? But, if the magistrate deems it would make the non-custodial parent's life considerably harder by paying child support, it won't be granted. My husband is the custodial parent. We can prove that quite easily. Our lawyer has already issued our cross-petition asking current child support be ended based on these facts, and if the magistrate sees fit, to award my husband with support payments. Given his ex's income, it likely won't be more than $50/month. Which we will agree not to take from her if the magistrate says they're not comfortable forcing a woman on her income to pay support. But we've put it in our petition so that his ex knows it's a possibility. These two suits were made with zero knowledge of the law or what a court looks for when making custody arrangements. This is just letting her know the law is on our side.
The support hearing comes before the custody hearing, so without taking any of the custody arguments into account, the support hearing will be pretty straight forward. We've been told to be confident that, barring his ex making some scene or strange demands that cause a delay, that support will be terminated for his ex this Thursday.
