To fight 5050 custody?

As can be seen from this thread many women welcome 50/50 custody. It helps their careers and gives them more down time. Others women don't want 50/50 because they can't imagine being separated from their children for half the time.

IME many women who don’t want 50:50 are because either dad is extremely shit and selfish or else there was domestic violence in the relationship. It’s usually a combination of both. I never had a father and my DC has a sorry excuse for a father. I feel like I let him down. DC is now a teenager and his father still can’t be called a competent, reasonable. I am not even sure if his father loves him. His father seems to use DC as a prop to make him look good. It’s bizarre. If DC and his dad had odd falling out you would say let them get on with it but after years of DC being unhappy with even EOW then something had to change.
For me it’s not about being separated from DC it’s about giving DC a stable, loving home in order to minimise the damage his father does.

Is it fair that dads get 50/50 when separated even though it was the mum doing the majority whilst they were together?? Just saying......

All decent people consider the children first and foremost. It is often really hard to know what to do for the best

I wonder would you give a children a veto on their parents' divorce? If it was in the children's best interests for their parents not to divorce would you compel their parents to stay married?

If he's a good father and if he wants 50:50 then I think you should go with that. They will adjust and you will too. Work with him to give your children the best family you can.

I think it really depends on how involved each parent is. I was a 50/50 child and it worked well as my DDad was a good parent. He remarried and I got on with my stepmom too. It also helped that my parents remained civil and friendly, so there were no conflicts (or at least none that I have noticed as a child).

It would be a completely different story if he was a shit dad or married someone who despised me though.

Making children live 50/50 between two homes = in their best interests
Adults living 50/50 between two homes = bonkers

It shows where the priorities lie for these posters, and it isn't with the children.

I always wondered how this would work practically for the lower earning spouse, if there was a massive difference in earnings.

If one was on 6 figures a year and the other barely above minimum wage, there would be no maintenance paid with 50/50 and a massive disparity between lifestyles surely?

For example, in my area house prices and rents are insanely high, so even if you had 100k to put down on a property, if you earned minimum wage, you 100% could not afford to buy anything. But on 6 figures, you could easily get a mortgage on a fairly decent home.

So the no maintenance perk of 50/50 benefits the higher earner, as the lower earner even on union credit could barely afford to get by and any money from selling the property would mean they couldn't even claim union credit until their savings had dwindled being spent on luxuries like rent and food!

So the child would get a disney like experience in one house, which the poorer parent would be unable to replicate, which I'm sure would potentially lead to very complex feelings about it from the childs perspective.

You can say it's bonkers but I found it worked very well for my family. It's definitely not for everyone, fair enough, but it's a reasonable short to medium term solution for some - not 'bonkers'.
Long term would be hard I think (we did 4 years as kids then off to uni) but who knows, maybe it would work for some as a long term project.

I liked it as it combines 50:50 for parents without making children move house constantly

@BrieAndChilli
inwas told that blurs boundaries and is massively confusing for children

The evolution is slow, but Fathers are doing more child care every year and any Mner will tell you that they should always do half.

My experience of the courts is that 50/50 is now a serious option. That wasn't the case even 10 years ago and many of the older Mners are thinking of life in the past when a father would usually only very rarely get significant custody.

I agree somewhat with an earlier poster who it depends on the Judge, an increasing number of whom are women. They will have had busy, demanding professional lives and are well used to juggling child care. Some will have outsourced much of their child-care to full time nannies but many will have had husbands/ partners who stepped up to the child care plate.

My other thought is to avoid court if you sensibly can. In the past the Divorce was largely the woman's friend and she was advised to go there and take him to the cleaners. Often that would happen. It is less common now as society has changed and women want different things post Divorce. As can be seen from this thread many women welcome 50/50 custody. It helps their careers and gives them more down time. Others women don't want 50/50 because they can't imagine being separated from their children for half the time.

For a temporary period of time following the break up it’s often necessary, of course. But not in the longer term.

Yeah I know someone that did this for a while. The kids stayed at home every night and the parents did a week on and a week off, moving between the house and their parents/relatives houses when they didn't have the kids.

It didn't last as, as you say, it becomes not a home for the parents, but in a way I think it helped the children come to terms with the fact that their parents had split up.

In the end the Mum met someone else and moved in with him and so the children now do 50:50 and Dad kept the house (buying Mum out) so the kids still have their original home too.

It's most definitely not the usual way of doing things though!

This is utterly bonkers and doesn’t work.

The fact is you can’t go on sharing a house with someone after divorce. I think it means the family home becomes almost a workplace for the parents and not a home, and that does no one any good.

I think this is the problem - if he’s doing nothing like 50:50 of their care, and none of their admin, now, it’s not realistic to just straight to 50:50 after a divorce.

At best, you’d work up to it over time

Thing is OP:

• how does a judge know whether he does no admin and does that make them a bad parent? So someone could be really shouty, not support their child etc. but because they do all the admin that’s ok? I’m playing devils advocate because the criteria can’t be things like that

• secondly it sounds to me like he is capable (as are most adults) as you’ve said he’s fine when you’re not there but a nightmare when you are. This is either enabling or just an unhealthy dynamic you have between you - nothing to do with capability

If you wouldnt want the kids having 2 homes and 5050 then would you offer him the majority share?

If not then what you really mean isnt that you disagree with 5050, you mean that you dont want to have less than 50% custody.

I think what is actually best for the kids is for them to remain in the family home and the parents do 50/50. It does have a name - something to do with birds or nests!

I've heard of people doing that and it's completely bonkers.

It's in no way more settling to have parents flitting in and out than it is kids going to a different house.

Would fall apart as soon as someone got a new partner.

I think what is actually best for the kids is for them to remain in the family home and the parents do 50/50. It does have a name - somthing to do with birds or nests!
Basically the parents either rent a small place for the parent that is not on duty to stay in or both parents have thier own seperate places and then when it is thier time with the kids they stay in the family home.
This manes the kids have everything they need, dont need to worry they have left sports kit or fav teddy at the other parents.

I guess its also financially better than both parents having to maintain a house big enough for the kids?

you would have to get on with the ex though and be certain they woulod also keep up withhousework etc on thier time.

Such cases of friendly terms don't end up in court.

Notamum12345577 This is true in theory of course,However the couple I knew of ,had a high earning wealthy father .Mum was working in a reasonably well paid job.However the Dad here did not contribute at all, or a very small amount here and there . The Mum ended up a lot worse off! IMO the UK courts seem very much to favour wealthy men even now

I lived with my mum during the week and my dad at the weekends and it worked pretty well. I would have hated not to have seen one of them for weeks at a time. I would have preferred to stay at each house longer, one week on one week off preferably but they never asked me.

I don't think there is any one way that is "best" for the kids. I think in an ideal world where we don't actually live, what is "best" is two parents together who love each other etc etc.

Best in a situation with separated parents will differ from child to child, some thrive from having a base, others will want equal time.

I think it can be very hard to separate what is best for your children and what is actually more about you as well.

My opinion didn't matter, but psychologist reports stating that 2 of the 3 DC needed to live primarily with me were enough to convince my exH to drop the 50:50 demands. That and the reality that the DC wouldn't even stay 3 nights with him before absconding or calling me to pick them up...

We had to live through some tough times to get to the 12/2 schedule we have now. But it's working for us, for now.

Step mum here that’s done the whole court saga.

Solicitors will fight for 50/50 because they have their clients interests in mind. Expert witnesses such as child counsellors, etc will tell you that 50/50 isn’t fair on the kids.

Children need a home, they need routine and stability. The one we spoke with didn’t even believe every other Christmas was fair on the children, they should wake up in their “main home” and be allowed to have expectations and traditions.

Personally, I would advise living near each other so that NRP can do EOW and a night or so in the week too. Even if it’s going for tea after school but not sleeping over.

Building a bond isn’t based on how long a child stays with that parent, it’s a about consistency/frequency of seeing them. For example, a child will build a better bond from seeing someone one night a week for a month than having a block of 5 nights once a month. IYSWIM