Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: Child custody

There are really two types of custody: physical, meaning who has the child at any given time and the other is legal or "decision making authority," meaning who has the power to make decisions that govern a child's education, health care, ability to obtain a driver's license, get piercings, date, etc.

Typically, unless there is good reason not to allow it, both parents share in decision making authority. In terms of joint physical custody, unless it is agreed to, I think it is exceedingly rare that a judge will sign off on it. Unless the parents live very close geographically and get along well, no matter what time schedule one uses to switch back and forth, it usually works out to be a hardship on the child to do a 50/50 visitation schedule.

Most often, one parent will wind up being the residential parent and the other is the parent with visitation rights. Typical visitation schedules call for every other weekend plus alternating major holidays.

By the way, unless there is good reason for it, your request for "full custody" will also be denied. Situations where that is allowed so that the other parent has no visitation typically involve abuse of the child, neglect, or an impairment of the parent denied visitation, such as drug or emotional problems that make it impossible or unsafe to see the child.