Is this reasonable?

[WittyUserName]

What is the name of your state? Idaho

Some background - daughter is six, Dad and I never married. He left to another state 600+ miles away when daughter is three months old. Paternity is established, support order in place but no custody or visitation order.

Dad's visits are here in Idaho approximately 3x per year, 1-2 afternoons per visit. This is an average; he is not as consistent as he could be. We had originally had a verbal agreement that he would have 1 weekend a month here + Thanksgiving/Easter. (I think he underestimated the logistics needed to get here that often, which tells me that maybe we need to figure out a more realistic way to handle visitation.)

Daughter had major medical problems so I was kept very busy dealing with that. She is getting better now, so I am in process of trying to file pro se for a court order so that we can stop hanging in legal limbo.

In opening the discussion, I asked for sole legal custody (Dad is not comfortable making medical decisions in light of her history) and sole physical with visitation in Dad's state. (Sample schedule =5 days each over Spring Break/Thanksgiving, Half of Xmas Break plus 4 weeks over summer break. This is just the opener to the negotiation; and certainly this schedule can be rediscussed as she gets older.)

Dad flips out & says he wants either "70-30 or 80-20" Joint Physical Custody with Sole Legal going to me.

It seems like an odd arrangement to me given the distance and the fact that he has a long history of failing to exercise his visitation already. (Significant "maternal drift" in the track record.) I want to be fair to him & give them time together but also want to craft an agreement that will actually work. I don't know if contentious parents are the best candidates for long-distance-weirdly-asymmetrical joint custody.

Care to weigh in?

 

[SopranoKris]

Semi-OT response:

There are Long Distance Parenting groups online that are great resources you might want to try. While they aren't for legal issues, they do provide an excellent support group and you can see how people are dealing with making long-distance parenting work. Sometimes just talking to people who are going through it really helps.

Yes, it's much more helpful if both mom & dad are on the same page in order to make it work.

Try this one for starters:

http://www.distanceparent.org

 

[Isis1]

What is the name of your state? Idaho

Some background - daughter is six, Dad and I never married. He left to another state 600+ miles away when daughter is three months old. Paternity is established, support order in place but no custody or visitation order.

Dad's visits are here in Idaho approximately 3x per year, 1-2 afternoons per visit. This is an average; he is not as consistent as he could be. We had originally had a verbal agreement that he would have 1 weekend a month here + Thanksgiving/Easter. (I think he underestimated the logistics needed to get here that often, which tells me that maybe we need to figure out a more realistic way to handle visitation.)

Daughter had major medical problems so I was kept very busy dealing with that. She is getting better now, so I am in process of trying to file pro se for a court order so that we can stop hanging in legal limbo.

In opening the discussion, I asked for sole legal custody (Dad is not comfortable making medical decisions in light of her history) and sole physical with visitation in Dad's state. (Sample schedule =5 days each over Spring Break/Thanksgiving, Half of Xmas Break plus 4 weeks over summer break. This is just the opener to the negotiation; and certainly this schedule can be rediscussed as she gets older.)

Dad flips out & says he wants either "70-30 or 80-20" Joint Physical Custody with Sole Legal going to me.

It seems like an odd arrangement to me given the distance and the fact that he has a long history of failing to exercise his visitation already. (Significant "maternal drift" in the track record.) I want to be fair to him & give them time together but also want to craft an agreement that will actually work. I don't know if contentious parents are the best candidates for long-distance-weirdly-asymmetrical joint custody.

Care to weigh in?

did he give an actual sample schedule of visitation, or did he just demand that percentage?

 

[WittyUserName]

Just rolled out the percentages

and then said something that made me think he's confusing termination of parental rights with agreeing to sole physical custody. ("What happens if you die??", like he's worried he would then lose access to her?)

I pointed him to some quickly-googled sites with legal definitions and then advised him to maybe think about doing a consultation appointment with a lawyer so he understood his rights. I got one just to ask questions and it wasn't all that spendy.

Hopefully we can work through this; I was so hopeful it'd go smoothly. He's also in CA, which tends to be a whole 'nother animal compared to Idaho law on child custody, so the info he's hearing from friends may not actually fly here in ID.

 

[happybug]

Could he have possibly heard from his " friends " that he can lower his C/S if he has an order for Joint Physical Custody?

 

[WittyUserName]

I wouldn't dare presume....

...but certainly that's a possibility.

 

[WittyUserName]

Bump to add:

Dad emailed again tonight to say that he was going to speak to an attorney in CA. I agreed that that might be helpful in getting some clarity on definitions, the difference between TPR and custody, etc..

But then he commented that he would prefer to "handle things in CA". Swears up & down he knows someone "w/ a similar out-of-state case" who had a California attorney and "things worked out great".

Just to set my mind at ease: if I've lived here in ID with our daughter her whole life and neither of us have ever set foot in California, and paternity/support was established here...that would mean Idaho has jurisdiction, right? He can't just argue to change jurisdiction at whim?

Thanks! And goodnight.

 

[Ohiogal]

Yes Idaho would have jurisdiction since the child lives there.