Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland
Fairness in Child Custody Rights
My boyfriend is in the process of reviewing Complaint for Absolute Divorce doc's and is seriously considering revising the paperwork to reflect joint custody. The reason he has not explored joint custody in the past is based on wanting to keep his soon to be ex in good spirits in order to work together for the best interests of their 2 yr. old son.
He wants to share custody but she is not willing based on myself being a part of their lives. He has faithly paid child support since she left him in Sept. 97 with the newborn and agreed to numerous increases in pay without visitation rights. His family has not only given the son financial trusts for the future but also given the soon to be ex, large sums from the family inherentance ($10K).
Based on his support and families generousity she continues to insist on sole custody. Does she have a right to sole custody based on myself being a part of their son's life?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Fairness in Child Custody Rights
In terms of access to the child there is not necessarily
any real difference between joint custody and sole
custody as long as the visitation schedule is spelled
out in a way that gives both parents access to the
child. The real difference in the two arrangements
is in terms of the child support that will be due.
In a true joint custody arrangement child support is determined
based on the amount of time each parent has the child.
Usually that means that the parent making the most
money will be on the hook to the other for the standard
child support payment divided by the number of days
the other party has the child (hope that sentence
made sense!).
The reason I bring all this up is to help you keep
your eye on the ball. If access to the child is what
is being fought over then your boyfriend should be
looking at the part of the agreement that deals
with his visitation rights and not worrying about
whether it is called joint custody or sole custody.
In that case it's not worth fighting over the label.
But if he is worried about both access and the amount
that he will be paying in child support, then he
should be paying attention to those labels!
As far as your being in the pictur is concerned,
unless you are some sort of bad influence on the child
it's really not going to matter that much.
Hope that helps...
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