How does shared custody work when one parent moves away?

Let’s say we have two divorced American parents sharing custody of a child. The mother gets a terrific job offer on the other side of the country. The job gives her and the child more than enough to live comfortably, but it isn’t the kind of money where she can afford to put her child on a plane every other weekend or anything. How do they make it work?

And what if the distance isn’t all that great, but still requires a day or two of driving?

I’m going to assume you are talking about shared legal custody with one parent having physical custody and the other having visitation because shared physical custody (where the child spends half the time with each parent) won’t work if the parents don’t live close to each other.

How it generally works is that the parent with physical custody can’t move the child(ren) beyond a specified area or distance without the court’s and /or the other parent’s approval. And sometimes getting that approval requires the parent with custody giving something up - maybe agreeing to the majority of school vacation time being spent with the other parent to make up for every other weekend being impossible , or agreeing to a lesser amount of child support because the left-behind parent will now have to travel to participate in the child’s life in ways like attending graduations or religious ceremonies. Or even more - my cousin’s ex-husband has physical custody of their kids. When he wanted to take a job transfer from NY to Florida, he ended up paying for my cousin to move to Florida including the security deposit on an apartment. He didn’t have to do that- but it gained him her agreement, and if she didn’t agree the court may not have allowed the children to leave NY. He ,of course, could have moved wherever he wanted to - but the court could have transferred custody to my cousin if he left NY.

If the parents are good at co-operating … then the travel can be shared … and arrangements made …

Cross-country is troubling … two-day drive only less so … the child needs both parents … does the mother really want that job, or is keeping the child connected to the father more important …

If by “shared custody”, you mean either parent can make decisions for the child … then that need not change, which ever parent the child lives with will be making those choices … the only reason to set one parent as custodian is to prevent disputes …

In some states, depending on the specific language of the divorce decree, the parent staying can prevent the other from leaving… or that’s my understanding. Though I’m not sure that’s always wise.

As has been mentioned, a lot depends on just how ‘friendly’ the parents are.

I went through this with my ex, twice.
In ID moving the kids out of state requires the consent of both parents and the court. In-state moves require no permissions.

It depends upon how much money the other parent has. If they’ve got four to five figures to waste on lawyers to fight the idea, then they may succeed in keeping their child in their lives. If not, then they may never see their child again.

Welcome to the US court system.

My custody agreement stated my ex-wife could not move the kids more than 50 miles. If she wanted to she would have to go back to court and get a judge to agree. At that point she had primary physical custody. When they moved in with me permanently I had the same restriction.

That seems to me to make more sense than defining it by state lines. Moving from LA to SF or Houston to Austin would really complicate weekend visits or teacher-parent meetings without leaving the respective states.

I have a friend who would have left Texas (where she was born and raised) with her two kids years ago if she could have. Her ex, of course, would not consent. She’s stuck in Texas until the younger one turns 18 in about 6 years. There are plenty of parents in the same boat.

I have a twenty mile restriction with my ex-wife. When I needed to move, I moved the opposite direction from where she wanted to go but still inside the perimeter so it locked her and my kids into place. We get along fine now but long distance moves are right out and the court system will back me up on that. There are no state moves by either of us until both kids are over 18.

Varies by state. The judge awarding custody can impose any conditions he wants.

In my stepdaughter’s case, conditions were set by a Missouri judge, awarding partial custody to the sociopath father. On a visitation to Mom in Arizona, an appeal was made to a judge there, who overturned the Missouri judge and awarded custody to Mom. It would probably not have happened in the same state, for one judge to step on another’s toes, but in another state, a little more open game.

The state line restriction is for a different reason - that one has to do with court jurisdiction. If the kids move from NY to NJ, even if the distance is only 10 miles after some period of time the NJ courts will have jurisdiction over custody/visitation/child support issues.

I wrote into my divorce decree - and she went for it - that the kids couldn’t be moved out of their school district. We did that once and they didn’t react well so I wanted to avoid it. There’s no legal issue with a parent moving out of the district, but should one of us do so that parent would lose all custodial rights.

The one thing missing in all this discussion is the needs of the children … and children need both parents …

I appreciate the mother in the OP has a great job opportunity, but if taking this job hurts her children, then she has to pass … the children’s needs must always come before her wants … it’s a shame the courts have to intervene to make parents do right by their children, just a shame …

Children do not always benefit more from having each parent more in their lives. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the non-beneficial parent is bad, or abusive, or anything like that (although that can, in fact, be the case)… but if for example they’ve got completely different criteria from the custodial parent, or if they view the children as more of an obligation than a blessing, or if the child and they are in different planets… then having that parent around more is likely to be more of a source of stress than anything else.

If the parents don’t get along well, having them interact less with each other, and also having the mom have more financial resources to care for the children, might be a huge double win for the kids.

Individual situations vary. That’s why we usually have a judge decide each case in its merits, rather than having blanket rules for all divorced families.

What if the custodial parent’s job is moved on him? At one point my father’s company upped and moved its offices six hundred miles away. His choice was to move to the new area or try to find a new job, and his occupation was a pretty specialized thing where there were virtually no other similar companies in the area.

In such a case, surely it would be better for the children to move so their parent could continue to provide for them, vs. taking a drastic hit on their living conditions? (My parents weren’t divorced, so that particular problem didn’t arise.)

Or, if the other parent won’t agree to the move, could they be forced to pony up extra money to make the custodial parent & children able to continue their lifestyle?

Are you asking what type of plan can they come up with to make it work, or are you asking what are the legal ramifications?

If it’s the former, whatever the two agree to will probably be rubber stamped by the judge. The parent staying behind should probably get all summer and two weeks at Christmas with the child, or something like that.

If it’s the latter and the father isn’t keen on the idea of mom moving away, the judge is likely to say “Sure go ahead mom, but the kid stays here.”

I think you’re making some assumptions here you may want to rethink. First, the discussion isn’t based on courts “intervening” but on what the legal parameters are. What’s best for the child isn’t an explicit part of the discussion because it’s not what the OP was asking. (And you’re assuming she was asking about herself.) Simply because she asked doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the best interest of the child at heart. She didn’t share what the theoretical details of the theoretical situation might be. For all we know, they might include another parent who shares legal custody but has chosen not to be a part of the child’s life. In any case, it’s best to go easy on the assumptions.

In my case of 50-50 custody, I had a condition added that said neither one of us could move outside the current school district unless we both agreed that the new location is acceptable.

We ended up living a few blocks from each other and it worked out great for the kids.