Hi,

I've been around this site for over a year now. I thought I had finally found the answer to my marriage problems and guide to make it whole again. All the guidelines seemed sound and all the encouragement was terrific. The only missing ingredient was a wife who wanted to make it work too. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, believe me, sure it hurts sometimes but I think it may be best for me both emotionally and physically to get out of this as soon as possible. I know that I did the best I could to put it all back together and she just couldn’t get there. What bothers me the most is that she will eventually take up with another guy and that person will be influencing my son. The reason this concerns me is that I’m leaning toward giving her custody of our only son. She shares joint custody with a son from her first marriage. I personally feel that it has hurt him emotionally to be shuffled back and forth between homes every few days, so I don’t want to do that to my son. I had indicated that I wanted custody of my son and she retorted with “ I’ll do whatever it takes to get custody, including dragging you through the mud”. I responded that I could certainly do the same and left the room. After thinking about it though (about 3 months)… does it make sense to go through the battle, become broke, embarrass the children and ourselves. Won’t he (my son) be better off if we both have a little money left after the divorce is over? Won’t we both be able to provide for him better? I think so. I’ll still be in his life; I’ll be the one who takes him to cub scouts, to football and baseball practice etc. I’ll just be dropping him off with his mother after its done and I’ll see him on weekends I suppose, or whatever arrangement we work out. Thanks for reading I just needed to jot down these thoughts and I felt a need to share them.

Back9

Dave,

Welcome to our little corner of the world.

As for Joint Custody, there are many studies on the pro's and con's. To me the biggest attribute to it's success or failure is the ability of the two parents to "work out issues" and maintain similar households with similar rules.

Personally, I have shared custody of my 3 girls and emotionally I believe it has helped them if anything. So I guess it kind of boils down to what experience one has had with shared custody.

I do think that you are better off trying to work to an agreed upon schedule rather than the court system being asked to hand pick a parent without all the information. As for the legal fees, had my X not agreed, I would of went for full-custody and money would not have been an excuse.

Best of luck to you and keep us posted.

Just wanted to say hi Dave, and let you know I understand completely where you are coming from. I am at about the same place with my H. He has filed the paperwork, and it is he who just isn't interested in trying at all. It's disheartening, painful, confusing, but we'll get through it. One day at a time!! Take care of yourself.

Sorry that you've hd to join us, but this is a great group and we'll try to help the best we can.

I just wanted to note for you to remember that YOU ARE THE SANE ONE in your marriage and DO NOT EXPECT WIFE TO ACT RATIONALLY - even if it is in the best interest of your son.

Fromn experience, divorce can turn people into their worst selves and if you give your wife full custody, just plan on being prevented from seeing him whenever she gets mad or had a boyfriend who she wants to take him to cubscouts instead.

DO NOT assume that you will be allowed to do those things if she has all the control.

There are many custody plans out there and there is one that I'm sure will work for you and your son, you just have to decide on what will work best for you and then present it to wife.

Just had to throw that word of warning out there because if you give it all away it will cost you even more to get it back.

K

Thanks to all for the kind words and advice I will seek info on the joint custody issue.

Thanks again
Back9

Yes, not too many judges give joint custody anymore because they want one parent to be the decision maker. They feel if your in divorce court then you probably have communication problems already!

Shared visitation is a good one. If you live close by, have similar schedules and get along somewhat then you split the time. If this is done there is no child support since you share equal time, both having equal expenses.

My STXW has already done the "I'm taking our D for Thanksgiving". I'll get more of that to whenever it suits her. If she does violate custody order than you can file contempt of court papers and have her brought in front of the judge......they don't like that........but then again $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and ex's know you probably won't file.

It is always fun when you have at least one bitter spouse and a child caught in the middle of Divorce. And they say D is the answer and doesn't affect kids. PHOOEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

My first ex-husband and I have joint physical and legal custody of our two sons. We went through a divorce mediator to work out a joint custody arrangement. The mediator is trained in helping negotiate through the difficult issues in divorce. Of course it takes two to agree to the process! At one point early in the divorce my ex had talked about going for full custody or disappearing out of our sons' lives because "it would be too painful to just have visitation." I told him that I would give him custody if he wasn't mature enough to deal with his feelings around visitation. I also told him that if he chose to go to court and slam me to get full custody, he would be accountable in the future to explain to our sons why there was such a custody arrangement. Our arrangement started out with the boys being with one of us weekdays during the school year and the other one every weekend. We would switch the following school year and split the summer months. It involved me doing more driving since I couldn't afford to live in their school district, but I feel it was worth it. When our one son ran into difficulties in school, we made a joint decision to have them remain at their dad's on weekdays and my place on weekends to provide more structure and consistency for our youngest son.