Ultimately I have failed with my attempt at blogging so I'll take another stab at it today...
The first question always asked when people learn that I'm a divorced dad is "do you get to see your daughter often?". The answer to that question is yes. I promise that I'm not trying to pass judgement on anyone else out there through the course of this post.
Ladies and gentlemen please keep in mind that "joint custody" and "time sharing" are two completely different things. Time sharing indicates how much time you get, and custody indicates who make parental decisions like what school, doctor, sports or legal decisions made on behalf of the child.
Through the course of my divorce process, like most people, the time sharing process was the most hotly debated. I gave up almost everything to increase the amount of time that I was able to have with my daughter. Ultimately I ended up walking away from my house, my dogs, and most of my valuables in order to achieve a 50/50 time sharing split. If you're curious about how we set it up it looks something like this:
Week 1: Mon-Mom Tues-Mom Wed-Dad Thurs-Dad Fri-Dad Sat-Dad Sun-Dad
Week 2: Mon-Mom Tues-Mom Wed-Dad Thurs-Dad Fri-Mom Sat-Mom Sun-Mom
We thought that this situation might work better for us and our daughter due as opposed to the more traditional week on week off that some couples do.
Years ago it seemed that the national trend regarding time sharing was extremely biased towards the mother, with most dads, if they were lucky, being given every wednesday and every other weekend. Several men that I know who were divorced a decade or two ago only were awarded every other weekend.
Time sharing was a crucial fight for me, and I'm probably in a different situation than a lot of people, but in the same boat as many others. My ex-wife is not from the city were we currently live, hell neither am I, but due to my work I'm stuck here. Through the divorce she had indicated several times that she wanted to take our daughter and move closer to family. If she has a legitimate cause to leave there isn't much that I can do to prevent her from doing so outside of legal action. But when I have 50/50 time sharing with my daughter it certainly improves my chances of preventing her taking my daughter across the nation. Keep that in mind when you are going through your own process.
I don't pass any judgement on parents who don't feel that they can handle a 50/50 time share, or dads who feel that their children are probably better off spending more time with their mother. I get it, everyone has their own parenting styles. And lets be honest, there are lots of moms and dads out there who just shouldn't be left with a child in their care.
If you want to be active with your kids and develop a very strong relationship with your kids post divorce, I strongly suggest that you shoot for as much time as you can get with them. Just make sure that you're being reasonable. Don't go after more time when you don't have that time to devote to your kids. That could backfire and you could be taken back to court by your ex in the future with her demanding a larger time share.
Also, the time sharing arrangement should be about your relationship with your kids, not the financial aspect of meeting a certain threshold to decrease your child support. I know parents who have sought more time just to meet that threshold for the decrease in child support payments as well as mothers who have fought against their husband having more access to their children to keep the payments as high as possible. If the financial aspect is your primary concern you should probably just give the other person sole custody of your children because your priorities are pretty screwed up.
Always remember during the discussion that this is about the kids, honestly nothing else matters. It should be every parents goal to make sure that their child is cared for and loved in a safe, happy environment. Make sure that you offer that to your child. Your child is NOT a weapon or a bargaining chip.
