If you are undergoing an angry divorce or ending of another relationship involving children, you may consider filing for sole custody so that you don’t have to share parenting with your ex. Before making the decision to pursue full custody, you need to consider the financial and emotional aspects involved.

There are two types of sole custody. Sole legal custody involves one parent having all decision-making authority for the child. Generally, this is the type of custody that may be generically referred to as sole custody. Sole physical custody means that the child will live with one parent with the other parent usually receiving visitation.

Courts favor a form of custody known as joint legal custody. This means that both parents are able to jointly make decisions on behalf of the child. The other type of joint custody is joint physical custody which involves the child living half of the time with one parent and half of the time with the other parent. The main reason why courts usually award joint legal custody is due to the presumption that both parents should be involved in the child’s life. Noncustodial parents who get to parent their children tend to remain more involved that those that do not have joint legal custody.

Before a court will grant sole custody, there needs to be evidence that the other parent is unfit. Usually the noncustodial parent is granted visitation, and there are requirements for the other parent to provide information on the child’s life such as education, medical and religious concerns. Unless the other parent does not want to remain involved with the child, it is quite hard to convince a court to not allow a parent to see his or her child, even if there has been documented abuse to the child. A parent who is found to be unfit may be granted supervised visitation and given a court order to attend a treatment program with the eventual goal of increasing visitation and parental participation if the parent complies with the court’s orders.

No custody case is ironclad. The court will base the custody decision on the best interests of the children. Unfortunately, the judge may not see the situation as you do.

Certain situations will make an award of sole legal custody more likely, though not guaranteed. Child abuse or neglect is a possible case where the judge is more likely to make a full custody award. Since the practice of one parent making false abuse accusations in custody battles has became more prevalent, you will need solid proof of abuse. Some judges have been known to give custody to the abuser, believing that the other parent was making unfounded accusations.

If your ex is in jail, this may be seen as a reason to grant sole custody to you, especially if the jail term is long. Substance abuse or other mental health issues could also result in a full custody award for the other parent.

Domestic violence can sometimes cause the court to grant custody to the abused parent. But, judges may not consider a history of violence to be reason to deny legal custody if the children were not affected by the violence.

If your ex does not see the children, you may be able to get full custody. Often, exes appear out of nowhere when they find out about the court action. If the ex says that he or she wants to remain involved, it’s not likely that legal custody will be granted to the other parent.

Consider what going for sole custody is going to cost you. Financially, the bills could easily run into the five-figure range. The stress of a prolonged court fight is extreme and could permanently damage your health. Your children may be put in the middle and used as pawns to spy on you and perpetuate the ex’s agenda. You may even be threatened or harmed physically by the ex or one of his or her friends. Kidnapping or other harm to the children beyond emotional abuse could take place.

Joint legal custody does not necessarily mean that you will have to tolerate your ex’s antics. Sometimes, decision making is split between the parents by category so both parents don’t have to agree on any courses of action. A parenting coordinator could be assigned to your case to serve as a mediator, so you don’t have to directly confront your ex.

Before starting a custody battle, consider your options carefully. Discuss your chances of winning with your attorney along with what options would be available for helping you share legal custody with the other parent without major harm to you. You may decide a custody fight is not worth the potential ramifications.



Thanks to Annie Parron for contributing this article to our Divorce blog:

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Can you answer Ask’s question about Divorce?:

If you get a divorce from a parent, how would you go about the procedure? Do both parties have to agree to the terms. I am considering divorcing my father for legal proposes, ie if something were to happen to me I do not want him to benefit from it.
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I have to get an annulment do to false info I received from my “Ex”. His attorney never filed the final judgement for the divorce my ex started. It has been 8 years since it was start and believing it was final I remarried about 3 years later. Just to find out this weekend that I am still married to my ex.
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I have been married 24 years and I’m currently in the beginning stages of a divorce. My husband was the one paying all the billls cause I’m a full-time student. Now since we’re divorcing, I need to find a job so I can try and pay my bills on time. I just want to know is there anything else I can do in the mean time. Cause I also have to get my own place and most likely, where ever I want to live, they will want to do a credit check. Any information will be greatly appreciated

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When you go through a divorce one of the things you’ll have to deal with is alimony and knowing how much to pay. This can be a stressful time for the husband and the wife but understand that in most cases the court decides how much our money should be paid. Usually they go with a standard of 25% of your income but remember it can very state to state. It is important that if you have children you make sure they feel comfortable with visiting the other parent. You never want to put them in the middle of you and your wife going through a divorce because it can cause them much harm.

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It can be very stressful if you have recently gotten worse and are in the process of settling all finances. In most cases the person who makes the most money will have to pay alimony to the other spouse. Of course it does depend on which state you live in because some states do not have alimony they only have child support. If you live in a state that has both alimony and child support you may be required to pay both of these. Usually the alimony payments only last until the other spouse gets remarried.

How to: Get Divorce Help

Remember it can be hard going through a divorce so make sure that you try to get through it as quick as possible. And most cases whoever makes the most money may be required to pay alimony payments to the other spouse. Usually this amount is around 25% of the gross income of that spouse. The payments are only required until that spouse receiving alimony gets remarried.



Thanks to Bryan Burbank for contributing this article to our Divorce blog:

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