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Mother of 2 year old - not married to father

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sprkltaz

Junior Member
I live in Ohio.

I am the mother of a 26 month old son. My son's father and I have never been married. My son has lived with me all his life. This past February his father started requesting to come get him and take him to his residence, which I had no problem with. He now picks our son up on Tuesday nights around 6:30 p.m. and keeps him overnight, and gets our son every other Saturday overnight.

He has recently begun to be very persistent about wanting 50/50 custody of our son. He wants him 7 days and then I would get him 7 days. We live in the same city, but are approximately 30 minutes apart. We are in two different school districts.

I am not married. I own my home and have been employed with the same company for over 15 years.

He just got divorced. He lives with his parents in their basement. He has been employed with the same company for about 3 years.

If he would take me to court, what do you think his chances are to gain joint physical custody with a 50/50 time split?
 


Ohiogal

Queen Bee
I live in Ohio.

I am the mother of a 26 month old son. My son's father and I have never been married. My son has lived with me all his life. This past February his father started requesting to come get him and take him to his residence, which I had no problem with. He now picks our son up on Tuesday nights around 6:30 p.m. and keeps him overnight, and gets our son every other Saturday overnight.

He has recently begun to be very persistent about wanting 50/50 custody of our son. He wants him 7 days and then I would get him 7 days. We live in the same city, but are approximately 30 minutes apart. We are in two different school districts.

I am not married. I own my home and have been employed with the same company for over 15 years.

He just got divorced. He lives with his parents in their basement. He has been employed with the same company for about 3 years.

If he would take me to court, what do you think his chances are to gain joint physical custody with a 50/50 time split?
Depends. Why are you so against it? Maybe not week on week off but what about a 5/5/2 plan? What is wrong with dad having equal time with you? Your employment matters not. Your living situations do not matter as you both have a place to stay. You owning a home matters not. What is your concern about it?

Ohio has a presumption of joint custody -- both legal and physical> That does not automatically mean a 50/50 time split. However, Ohio is also a strong believer in parents mediating and you can count on being sent to mediation.

So again, what is your dispute with him having 50/50 time? You have said nothing about him not being fit nor do you have an insurmountable distance.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
I live in Ohio.

I am the mother of a 26 month old son. My son's father and I have never been married. My son has lived with me all his life. This past February his father started requesting to come get him and take him to his residence, which I had no problem with. He now picks our son up on Tuesday nights around 6:30 p.m. and keeps him overnight, and gets our son every other Saturday overnight.

He has recently begun to be very persistent about wanting 50/50 custody of our son. He wants him 7 days and then I would get him 7 days. We live in the same city, but are approximately 30 minutes apart. We are in two different school districts.

I am not married. I own my home and have been employed with the same company for over 15 years.

He just got divorced. He lives with his parents in their basement. He has been employed with the same company for about 3 years.

If he would take me to court, what do you think his chances are to gain joint physical custody with a 50/50 time split?
At this point, his chances of that kind of split are not particularly strong. That would be a really huge change for a 26 month old child. Its pretty unlikely that a judge would make that dramatic of a change for a child that young.
 

sprkltaz

Junior Member
I am not against him having time with our son. However, I am concerned that he didn't show the desire to spend time with him until he was able to walk and talk. He even said that he felt no connection to our son when he was born and had to warm up to the idea. That's really just the tip of the iceberg.

He is totally set on a 50/50 split of 7 days on 7 days off, which I believe would be very hard for our son to adjust to at this point.

There have been occasions where he was scheduled to get our son and called and asked me to keep him instead because he was "stressed". If he had him 50/50 he wouldn't have that luxury. I wonder if he would be able to cope or would he call me to come get him. When he is scheduled to get our son he is always late. Not just a minute or two. He is 30 minutes to an hour late.

I am not comfortable with a joint physical custody arrangement. I am not convinced that he would be able to handle it. To be frank, I truly feel it's more about the money than anything else. He has mentioned on many occasions how he is broke and doesn't have anything. However, child support has been set by the courts.
 

TinkerBelleLuvr

Senior Member
Judges aren't going to consider it in the best interest of such a young child to be with only one parent ever other week. Children that age need frequent parenting time with both parents. I could see it maybe going up:

pick up from daycare on Friday afternoon and keep the child till they go to daycare on Monday every other week. The week that the parent doesn't have them overnight, they would have an overnight that week.

You have established status quo on what you currently have.

Have you researched parenting plans for Ohio for infants and toddlers?
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
I am not against him having time with our son. However, I am concerned that he didn't show the desire to spend time with him until he was able to walk and talk. He even said that he felt no connection to our son when he was born and had to warm up to the idea. That's really just the tip of the iceberg.

He is totally set on a 50/50 split of 7 days on 7 days off, which I believe would be very hard for our son to adjust to at this point.

There have been occasions where he was scheduled to get our son and called and asked me to keep him instead because he was "stressed". If he had him 50/50 he wouldn't have that luxury. I wonder if he would be able to cope or would he call me to come get him. When he is scheduled to get our son he is always late. Not just a minute or two. He is 30 minutes to an hour late.

I am not comfortable with a joint physical custody arrangement. I am not convinced that he would be able to handle it. To be frank, I truly feel it's more about the money than anything else. He has mentioned on many occasions how he is broke and doesn't have anything. However, child support has been set by the courts.
If you are not comfortable with it, you do not have to agree to it. As you have already been told, a judge is not likely to order it without your agreement, for a child that young.

However again, as you have already been told, a judge would like expand dad's visitation to something greater than he has now...at least expanding the every other saturday to every other full weekend.
 

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