Legal Question in Family Law in North Carolina

Your post makes no sense. If there are no prior custody orders or any agreements then both parents have the same right to the care, custody and control of their children.

The problem is that the children have to live somewhere and whichever parent has the children has custody.

There are 2 types of custody, legal and physical. Legal custody refers to things like access to school and medical records, or whether a child will attend public or private school or be raised in a particular religion. This is almost always joint barring any special circumstances. Its expected that both parents will discuss these issues and make the best decision for their children.

However, the children have to live somewhere and whichever parent has the children the greatest amount of time will have primary physical custody of the children. Physical custody involves things like which parent will be responsible for feeding/clothing the children, putting them to bed or caring for them on a daily basis. The other non-custodial parent has periods of partial physical custody or visitation. The non-custodial parent also usually pays child support to the parent who has physical custody.

Marriage of a parent has no bearing on custody. If the parents are fine with the arrangement then let it be. If not, then marriage might be an issue. Either parent could bring a custody petition but if the non-custodial parent wants the court to change primary physical custody from the other parent, the non-custodial parent will have to establish that changing custody will be in the children's best interests. Unless the children's exposure to the parent with primary physical custody will somehow be detrimental (say if mom has custody and marries a man who has been convicted of child molestation) then it can be argued that the children's best interests would require that they live with the other parent.