I’m just going to point out this: she is actuallly getting more ‘time’ with them than you are. Lets assume that you let them stay up until 9pm each night. If you pick them up from work @ 5, you get 4 hours each night which is 16 hours total. If she has them all weekend, she has the option of spending more than 16 hours in one day.
I guess I look at it from the time spent with the kids rather than the time they are at daycae or school.
I wish you the best of luck. Things can be amicable. I have not lived with my husband for over 3 years, neither of us has felt the need to involve lawyers or make any legal moves to finalize anything. Our children are all old enough and have the maturity to make good decisions on whose house they want to be at when they want to be there. We communicate daily, sometimes just by text and often have dinner together. Last night he came over to my house and hung out with the kids so I could go on a much needed girls night out. I don’t worry about the separation of ‘stuff’ nor do I feel like him being over has ever been an invasion of my privacy. I’m sure he feels the same way about me, as I live on an acerage and spent most of the winter staying in town at his home. I will also go to his house and cook meals in advance for the children and him and do house cleaning there.
My wife is driving around in a vehicle that is registered to me (which I paid for) and on which I pay full coverage insurance. I signed the title over to my wife awhile ago, but she can’t get the vehicle titled in her name until she pays the registration fee and then the DMV will refund me.
I want to cancel the insurance on the van because I don’t feel like I should have to pay it any longer, but she doesn’t have a job and she has to drive the kids around in the van on the weekends, so I don’t want her putting the kids into a non-insured situation either. What do I do on that one?
You suck it up for the time being and pay the insurance.
As delightful as it would be to stick it to your ex and leave her with a non-drivable vehicle, you’re only screwing yourself over when it comes to court time, as well as putting your children in a non-insured situation.
Good luck with everything. I suspect things will go alot smoother for both of you if you let go of a bit of your anger, quit looking for ways to save money for the time being, and just think about what is best for your children, not your pocketbook.
As an aside - did you own the vehicle before you were married to your wife?
Unless you bought that vehicle prior to you marrying her, it is a joint asset, meaning that she owns half of it, regardless of how its titled.
As a part of the asset split, if you both intend for her to get the car, it should be titled in her name, and she should obtain insurance for the car in her name. She can pay for the insurance, with spousal support that you will pay her, since she currently has no income.
Depending on the state you live in, normally the court will only look at the nights spent with a particular parent to determine the % split of time when determining child support calculations. In the OP’s case, he said he currently has them 4 nights a week, while mom has them 3 nights. That’s a 57% / 43% split. So in a simple calculation (TALK TO ATTY FOR REAL AMOUNTS), if the amount of child support needed to support each kid is $1,000 per month, and the mom has no income, Dad will need to pay mom, $860 a month for child support. [($1,000 x 2) x 43%]
My wife and I have been separated since the end of December. In that time she was employed most of the time yet she still never gave me any money for any of the things that she otherwise should help pay for: sharing in my enormous daycare expenses, paying insurance on what is technically “her” vehicle, our oldest son’s school lunch account and quite a few things more now that I think about it.
In fact I was always giving her money because she was always broke. Does any of that even matter to the court?
I have a no contact order against me, which complicates things. I was hoping that we could just calmly sit down and talk about how we wanted to plan out custody. She says she doesn’t want the house (thank Og) but that could change. She shouldn’t get the house. She can’t afford to make the mortgage payments. She can barely pay her rent.
Another question: can either of us date someone else before the divorce is final? Does that even matter when it comes to custody arrangements?
I’m not going down the legal road, but I wanted to share something I thought was pretty cool and smart.
My boyfriend and I both went through divorces prior to meeting. I had to file like 3 times and had lots of headaches, his went a lot more smoothly. One of the key differences?
He and his wife went through counseling during their initial separation and divorce. The counselor helped them get through things civilly, if not always amicably, and I think that’s pretty amazing.
It was the first time I heard of divorce counseling, and I thought it was brilliant. Especially where y’all have kids - it might be helpful to have both of you work with a counselor on how to work things out civilly, not just for your sake, but for the sake of the kids.
IANAL. I don’t think there is anything legally preventing you from doing so. But that doesn’t necessarily make it the wisest decision when you’re trying to iron things out with someone who doesn’t appear to have your best interests in mind.
From a purely practical standpoint, you might want to have a look at this thread I started when I was in a similar situation.
Given that, date to your hearts content. There’s no law against it. Recognizing that any actions you take now **can be used **by her as evidence as to you not being a fit parent in a custody battle. Of course you get to defend yourself and present your own evidence as well.
From what you’ve said in this thread, FoisGras, you’re already well past amicable. Looking into my crystal ball, you are going to need a good lawyer, or you are going to be paying for everything and probably not getting custody of your kids.
I know that people (courts) get hung up in over nights as part of the calculations - but I was pointing out the reality of the ‘time’ issue. When I think about who is spending ‘time’ with my kids, I only consider the actual ‘time’ being spent with them - not while they are asleep, or in school, or in other social situations.
When I first replied to FoisGrasIsEvil and his comment that he didn’t think she was going to be happy with the amount of ‘time’ she had the kids, I was not thinking about the greed behind what motivates some people to having their children more. It is truely sad when it comes down to dollars as a reason to want to have your children in your home more nights, rather than because you enjoy the role of being a parent.
Its not about dollars WRT my kids if that’s what you are implying. I’m just trying to anticipate what this is going to cost me in every respect: emotionally, time-wise and monetarily.
And I am going to have a good lawyer. And I do have a significant side of the story to tell. I don’t think my wife wants to totally rip the kids away from me because I don’t think she would want to do that to the boys.
Ah, gotcha. And I don’t think that is the case with her either. And since I can’t really talk to her I won’t clearly know what her intentions are until our lawyers start commiserating.
You want some advice? Keep a journal of everything you do with the kids. Keep every email and stuff that you both send and receive. I have 115 pages of things that I’ve done with the kids and what my ex has said over the last year. I’ve also got 500 or so emails.
As for the dating, from what I’ve been told in my state, Maryland, they don’t care much any more. You have to go through so much stuff to ‘prove’ it and even them spending the night means nothing. I was told that the judges really don’t care in this day and age. Though I wouldn’t just jump right back into dating, take some time for yourself. Also don’t drag your kids into any new partners you have, at least not for a few months. My ex did that, she started dating and took the kids to meet him right at the same time. Now 6-7 months later they are really attached to him. Don’t know what they’re going to feel if/when she breaks up with him.
You also might want to get some counseling. There’s nothing wrong with it and it helps a lot. You’re also going to go through a lot of cycles, big ups and downs, but eventually it does go away. It’s taken me almost a year and the first six months or so were bad, especially since you have to see her because of the kids.
You’ll get through it, but it will take some time.
Thanks. I know time does indeed heal all wounds. I have been in a broken relationship before, so I understand the cyclical nature of these types of emotions, even if understanding them doesn’t necessarily make you feel any better at the outset!
I also am getting counselling for myself. I have some anxiety and insecurity issues to deal with. My first session was yesterday.
My cousin advised me to start imagining her being pounded in every orifice by some other dude, just to get used to the idea. I don’t know how helpful that advice is, but…I am not so worried about that. We are going to get a divorce and its perfectly natural for her and for me to eventually gravitate towards other partners.
And I agree with you about not dating right away, and there’s no way in hell I am introducing someone new to my boys anytime soon even if I were dating.
I always wanted for them to have only one mommy and one daddy. My biggest qualm right now is her shacking up with someone else because she needs financial support in a bad way, and my kids getting exposed to that scenario, and god forbid, she gets pregnant again. I know its not any of my business if she does at this point but it would really be a shame to introduce another set of complicated issues into the situation at this point. They already have a half-sister from Mom’s previous pregnancy 17 years ago.
I think what I am trying to say is that I don’t have a problem with her having the boys during her custody times at all, but I don’t want another male (or female on my end) around to help raise them or try to befriend them in any way. These are our kids, not anybody else’s.
I can’t stop imagining scenarios where some random swinging dick is telling my kids things that contradict what I tell them. Nothing will infuriate me more than that.