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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.
Two kinds of custody are referred to as sole custody. Sole legal custody means that one parent has full responsibility for any parenting decisions. Sole physical custody refers to the child living with one parent while generally having visitation with the other parent. You may want one or both of these types of custody.
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.
For a court to award sole legal custody to a parent, there will have to be proof that the other parent is not able to co-parent effectively. Bear in mind that even if you win sole custody, your ex will still more than likely remain in the children’s lives through visitation. And, you will still be required to share information regarding your child’s schooling, medical concerns, and extracurricular activities. It is often very difficult to completely remove another parent from a child’s life if that parent desires to remain involved, even in cases of child abuse. If the parent is unfit, he or she may get supervised visitation along with orders to participate in treatment with the plan of increasing parental involvement and visitation if the parent complies with the orders and makes progress.
Sole custody is not a given in any situation. The judge is supposed to rule based on the best interests of the children. But, your definition of best interests and the court’s may vary widely.
There are some cases where a sole custody award would be possible. Sexual or physical abuse of a child could result in full custody being granted to the other parent. But, some parents make false accusations of abuse in order to gain custody. Knowing this, courts may require substantial evidence that abuse has occurred before awarding sole custody to the other parent. Unfortunately, there are cases where abuse accusations have been real, and judges awarded custody to the abusers because they thought that the accusing parent was malicious.
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.
A domestic violence history can sometimes be seen as reason to grant custody to the victimized parent. The court will be considering the effects on the children more than what acts were done to you. Some judges don’t consider abuse of the mother to be sufficient reason to take away decision-making rights if the children were not involved or abused themselves.
If your ex does not see the children, you may have a chance to get sole custody. But, many exes suddenly decide they want to be involved when they receive court papers, which will more than likely result in joint legal custody.
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.
Remember that if you get joint legal custody, there may be some ways to protect yourself and limit the confrontation over decisions. One parent could be granted complete authority to make decisions about medical care while the other may be in charge of educational concerns. Restraining orders could be granted to hopefully reduce the chance of you being a victim of violence. Parenting coordinators may be used as a go-between so that the two of you don’t have to communicate directly with each other.
Think carefully before making a decision to file for sole custody. Unless you are in one of the situations described above where you have a good chance at winning full custody, the time and expense of a custody battle probably won’t be worth it to you.
For other articles and info for single parents, visit http://www.singleparentspot.com
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