Balancing your career and your family is never easy. When you go through a divorce with children, it becomes much more difficult. Many parents find it hard to devote adequate time to their children even when they have the support of a spouse.
On your own, you may have very little time to attend to important considerations such as transportation to and from school, hot meals, extracurricular activities, and homework. While it may not seem ideal, splitting custody with your ex after a divorce can actually make it easier to balance time with your kids and professional obligations.
When you have a consistent schedule and you both work with one another, co-parenting after a divorce can let you have the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, in some cases, a high-stress and highly demanding career could impact custody determinations in your divorce.
If you both want sole custody, availability will matter
If both parents seemingly want sole custody, the courts are going to have to spend a lot of time looking at the family circumstances. This will include the current relationship you have with your kids and how much time you spend with them, as well as your availability for them after the divorce. You need to have time for practical issues, as well as for quality time bonding.
If you love your kids, you may think that pursuing sole custody is the right choice. However, the courts in Texas typically prefer that parents share custody. As long as it is in the best interest of the children, having both parents involved makes divorce easier for the kids. Fighting for sole custody can leave the courts to question your motives. It can also be detrimental to your desired outcome, which is more time with your kids.
It could be possible if you have a high-stress, demanding career such as that of a medical professional, engineer, or corporate executive, that you won’t have time to handle the responsibilities and parenting without support. It is even possible that your ex could use that as the crux of their argument for custody in the divorce.
Realism is important during custody proceedings
It is common for people going through divorce to have revenge fantasies where the outcome of the court proceedings totally justifies and validates their experience in the marriage. That may be a normal fantasy, but that is not the reality of going through court.
Whatever your wishes are for custody will always be secondary to the needs of your children. Accepting that as reality can help you create a more reasonable and hopefully successful strategy for litigating custody arrangements and other issues in your divorce. Partnering with a Texas family law attorney is a critical step toward developing a custody and divorce strategy and protecting your relationship with your kids.