When a marriage is on the brink of divorce, living under one roof often becomes exceedingly difficult for spouses. Regardless if a couple is divorcing because of infidelity, financial woes, constant arguing, or simply growing apart, living together can be too difficult to bear.
Often, once a couple decides to divorce, the husband or wife moves out. While this is typically a non-issue for couples without children, it can be problematic if the couple has minor children together, especially if there is any question over child custody.
Considerations About Child Custody
If you intend to have your children live with you most of the time after the divorce, you want to think twice before moving out of the family home. Often, judges prefer to limit change and promote stability as much as possible for children of divorce.
If you move out of the family home and leave the children with your spouse, you are sending a powerful message to the court that your spouse is perfectly capable of taking care of the children.
Since judges typically maintain the status quo whenever possible, if you leave the children in the home with the other parent, your soon-to-be-ex could easily argue that having the children move in with you would disrupt their lives too much.
Of course, you could argue that you moved out in order to reduce the conflict in the home, and you did it for the sake of the children; however, there is still a better way to protect your parental rights if you move out of the home.
Protecting Your Parental Rights
If you feel that the constant arguing is unhealthy for your children and you want to move out of the home, it sometimes helps to create a written parenting agreement before you move out. This agreement may establish a parenting schedule and it should clearly state that you will not give up any parental rights by moving out.
If you run into difficulty with your spouse and you cannot reach an agreement that provides for significant parenting time, your divorce attorney can ask the court to establish a shared parenting schedule. The sooner you establish a shared parenting schedule, a new status quo, the better.
When it comes to your children, you do not want to take any chances. Before you make the move, contact a Katy family law firm for legal advice on how best to proceed forward.
If you are a parent who is headed towards divorce, contact our Katy divorce lawyers to schedule an initial consultation with a trusted member of our legal team.