Moving out of state

My husband and I may be moving out of state. We have physical custody of the child, othe parent has visitation. If she decided to fight us on the move, we plan on fighting the issue. My question is, I have heard that there has been cases of custody changes...Like if she fought us because we were moving and tried to get custody...Let's say she won...Would they give us the option to not move and stay put with us still having custody. What I mean is this...we would never give up our custody to move...if we are not able to move then we would stay in the state...if it got down to it and the courts decided that we shouldn't take the child out of state,,,would they at least give us the option of staying with the child like it is now or would they automatically overturn custody? Mind me saying, we are MUCH better parents to the child than the non custodial, in fact she has just lost cusotdy of her 2 other children less than a month ago. So obviously we would have a wonderful defense with her...what we are afraid if is f we do try and move, and she fights us, would fighting her back in court be harmful if we lose...like if we tried we would possibly lose custody just for trying to move to a different state for a better job...if that is true then we don't think we could take that chance...I hope this makes sense..Thanks! By the way...we live in Iowa and we may be moving to Minnesota...

[This message has been edited by KimLong (edited April 13, 2000).]

You are correct in thinking that the worse case would be that the court would say to you and your husband; "Either move without the child or stay here and continue to have primary custody". They will not automatically strip you & yours of custody simply for utilizing your legal right to go to a court for help with this matter. The main issue is really not that of custody but rather of visitation. In other words, given your move far away, who is going to pay for the increased costs of visitation? What about the logistics of transportation, etc.? Will the move to MN have the effect of changing the visitation from say twice a month to something like every other month? See?

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Mark B. Replogle