How common is it for the father to get custody?

[HellloBambinos]

Asking for a friend of mine although it is all still quite hypothetical at the moment. He is fairly sure his wife is going to want to leave him quite soon as they had some problems before lockdown and things have got worse rather than better.

They have two school aged DC and he has said if she does leave him he wants at least 50% custody. But that people have told him courts prefer kids to have a ‘main’ home so he wants that to be with him.

For what it’s worth they’ve always been a very equal couple in terms of childcare responsibilities but he does more pick ups and drop offs as he is public sector so quite flexible.

He’s asked me if I know any families where the Dad has got custody but I genuinely. I’ve only really known situations where it’s made more sense for the Mum to have main custody as she works part time anyway or similar. So could anyone tell me how common it is and would he have a chance?

Both great parents btw so no safety issues or anything.

I'd say that in the majority of cases where the mother has done a good job and doesn't have an addiction and isn't abusive there will be a very close relationship and bond between the mother and child and to try to disrupt this is cruel.

I don't think mothers and fathers are equal. I think they are different. Both relationships are important but they are not the same.

I think we like to pretend they are the same because we want them to be. They aren't. The very first and most important relationship a child makes is with it's mother.

50/50 could be pretty good. If he's dead set on the idea that one of them has to be the primary carer and they are both good parents then his children will be better off if it's their mother.

My brother got full custody. He had to really fight for it though. His ex wife's solicitor constantly tried to prove that they shouldn't live with the dad and they need to be with their mother.
Ex wife is a fucking nutcase and abusive to them. The court saw through her lies (there were many of them) some actually disgusting lies. Vile vile woman.

I'm sure it's been said many times. Residency should be decided on what is best for the children.
My DH and his ex shared residency. Never went to court, no maintenance once they had settled the capital in the house (DH stayed in family home and paid out ex).
Most families I know have similar, informal, arrangements. The only father I know that has full residency has been to court multiple times. Not his choice, but access was difficult and his ex is often unwell. Court decided child better off with Dad.

I don't know anyone doing 50/50 of kids aged under 10. The mums have them most of the time and the dads are a day a week, EOW and half school hols.

So is this 'friend' a new boyfriend by any chance? If so I would be wary. To decide he's going to take the children off her on the basis that he currently does more schools pickup? If he starts with this and she hires a better lawyer he could find himself with a problem.

Why do that when he can amicably agree with her if he behaves decently? All the divorces I know where there's lots of contact (eow, a night or two during the week, talking to kids to or from school on other days) work because the parents agreed it together. It makes life so much easier. For the children too as there will be times when it's good for both to be there and present a united front.

Fenella they do ask children of a certain age to write statements. My brothers kids had to.

@Howaboutanewname

Yes, absolutely awful to want to be able to keep a roof over yours and your child’s head after separation. Something increasingly difficult to achieve with house and rental prices.

You missed the point here- I said that’s their reason for wanting to be the main carer, for their financial gain or more to the point, what they might lose if they agree to 50:50

I think the question that needs answering first is how many dad's WANT 50/50 or majority of care. I would put that figure at a very low amount.

Kids aren’t property to be shared. I feel so sorry for kids who have 50/50 split, I’d have hated that. I knew 3 siblings at school who had 2 weeks at mum’s and 2 at dad’s. They never seemed settled and to me arrangements like that are more for the parent than the child.

The OP could be the dad. He could have just spent the weekend abusing his wife

Wtaf? That's got to win an olympic medal for the biggest jump to a (totally offensive on multiple levels) conclusion I have ever seen

@BumpBundle

A solicitor will do that to get their client residency with the child(ren). Often a mother will begin by saying how much they don't want to go 50/50 because they'll miss their child so much and their child will miss them and their husband doesn't know how to do the voices properly on their favourite bedtime book or always cuts their sandwiches the wrong way (and obviously not focus on the fact that the other parent is the only one who can brush their hair without them crying or knows their secret handshake). That will convince the lawyer that the child should be with the mother more but the lawyer will know that the mother doing voices or cutting sandwiches will not convince a court. So, they will look into the legal reasons why a court will give preference to the mother. Often that will be things like abuse, drugs, criminal conviction etc. The father can do a drugs test and produce his criminal record very easily - it is much harder to disprove accusations of abuse. It is also very easy to create "evidence" of abuse from things that are entirely innocent. I had one case where the child, aged seven, had drawn a picture of his father and had used a red pencil for the face. The lawyer for the mother provided that as evidence that the children perceived him as an angry person. On another case, the mother asked the children to produce a list of everything they liked and disliked about their father - and then produced only the negatives to the court. I've heard family lawyers that I've worked with advise clients to get their children to write statements to the court after their bedtime because it's easier to get them to say what's "necessary", I've also heard them say that they should get the statements written if they've just been disciplined by the father or just received a gift from the mother, to say phrases like "if you come and live with mummy after the divorce then you can have your own bedroom - would you like to live with mummy if you can have your own bedroom?".
These practices just don't seem to occur with fathers. Perhaps men are less emotive with their lawyers, perhaps less manipulative - I honestly don't know. But this behaviour is a massive reason why I chose not to qualify as a family solicitor - the whole thing is beyond corrupt, and what's dangerous is that after all that manipulation, the mother gets primary residency and the lawyer and mother both walk away thinking that they've done the right thing

Oh my goodness that is so harrowing to read. I am still astounded those tactics would be used against the father (usually) so the court ruled in the mothers favour.

Crikey, that says far more about her imo. Someone wiling to manipulate the system like that in order to get their own way (regardless whether it’s beneficial to the children or not) is absolutely awful.

People are so corrupt for their own selfish gain but to hear it first hand, it’s just shocking

@KnobJockey how many dads are given that choice?

50/50 should always be the way if can be done.

Feckless fathers should be arrested and jailed for non payments and mothers should lose their payments if they stop father accessing their children . I bet that stops all this control issue.

@EmbarrassedUser

Kids aren’t property to be shared. I feel so sorry for kids who have 50/50 split, I’d have hated that. I knew 3 siblings at school who had 2 weeks at mum’s and 2 at dad’s. They never seemed settled and to me arrangements like that are more for the parent than the child.

Actually, my dc were the ones who pushed for a 50/50 split between two homes. When exh and I first separated I had the dc 5 nights one week, 4 nights the next. They were begging to have equal time with their df but because of his work it wasn't feasible. Only once he and his new dp moved in together was he able to have them for equal amounts of time as the DP was able to help with school pick ups and drop offs etc.

It's strange - half the people on this thread appear to be human beings with morals who think that what I've said about my experiences working in family law are abhorrent. The other half are crazy people who think mothers have some divine right to control their child(ren)'s relationship with the family and would likely not object to shooting the father immediately after the divorce proceedings. I think those people demonstrate exactly how prevalent the residency cases I was referring to are.

@MattBerrysHair Don't waste your breath arguing here. This women had friends at school who she's made assumptions about so she clearly knows exactly what she's talking about.

What you describe sounds like a situation where they would end up with 50:50, from your brief outline, although obviously we can’t judge from just a short mn post.

Couple doing equal childcare at the moment, dad does a lot of school runs already etc. Classic 50:50 candidate I’d have thought, unlesss the couple doesn’t want that or for some reason it’s not for the best, I.e. the interests of the children.

Is there any particular reason he is not trying to fix his marriage and is going straight to court over the kids

@GrapefruitsAreNotTheOnlyFruit

**I'd say that in the majority of cases where the mother has done a good job and doesn't have an addiction and isn't abusive there will be a very close relationship and bond between the mother and child and to try to disrupt this is cruel.

I don't think mothers and fathers are equal. I think they are different. Both relationships are important but they are not the same.

I think we like to pretend they are the same because we want them to be. They aren't. The very first and most important relationship a child makes is with it's mother.

50/50 could be pretty good. If he's dead set on the idea that one of them has to be the primary carer and they are both good parents then his children will be better off if it's their mother**

Shockingly ignorant post!

With those views, what era were you born? 1925?

In other cases, say where one parent works long hours, or is less of a “nurturing” personality (to put it in a nice way - can’t be arsed with bedtime stories and the like), the. 50:50 can start working when the kids are teens, but less so when they are small.

@Suzieredhead Isn't it equally possible that this thread is actually the mother who has spent the last week beating her husband and children and is trying to predict ways in which the father might get residency if they break up so she can plan a defence? I can't even comprehend what you must have been through to assume every man abuses his wife or that men don't deserve to see their children.
Either you're a troll or you desperately need to speak to someone about your demons.

@TheBusDriver I think more father's are given the choice than take it up. I think a read through pretty much any study, thread on here, journalistic article, etc shows that childcare is primarily seen as a mother's issue within a family. This doesn't stop when a split happens, but normally escalates.

From personal experience, I can count a hell of a lot more fathers who disappear or chop down contact drastically than mothers who stop contact. Those father's often have excuses why every other weekend is too much.

If you ask the father of my oldest child, he would tell you I stopped contact (not the case) as he doesn't want to look like the dick he is. And he doesn't pay regardless, so meh on the money front.

For the record, if I split from DP I would be pushing for 50/50 care of the baby. Two of us decided to have a baby, two are responsible for logistics.

BumpBundle

Isn't it equally possible that this thread is actually the mother who has spent the last week beating her husband and children

Statistically speaking, no. No, it's not.

they do ask children of a certain age to write statements. My brothers kids had to.

Spill children will NEVER have to.

If Cafcass become involved and the children are old enough, the worker may sit with them in a neutral place and offer for them to write a letter about their feelings which can be shared with the court and parents. But they certainly don’t have to, it’s their decision.

I'd hate my dh to have the dc half of the time, especially while they're small, he never changed a nappy, gets very stressed, has no patience and has very little interest in playing with them, he works hard though and I stay home and look after the children which I love to do but if we split and he had them half the time I would be going out of my mind knowing he would be stressed with them.

Sometimes one parent is naturally better with the children, and that can be either parent.

He would struggle with them where as I live for my dc but he'd probably want 50/50 anyway and I'd probably fight for sole residence.