Ex-Husband Asking for More Parenting Time

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: California.
My Ex- husband and I have been divorced 5 years. Ive always been the stay at home mom and am still. We had a custody order in place for the last 5 years. 65/35 with me having 65% time. Over the years ive given in to his wants and gave him more time with the kids ages 8, 13. He got behind on his child support after a work injury 5 months ago. He suddenly out of the blue, served me with a modification order to get more time with the kids. He is stating all kinds of lies in his mod request to make me look like my home is inadequate and im unstable. I really never saw this coming. In my opinion, hes doing this because he is fed up with paying support. Ive given him more custody when he asked and i have proof. Im not just going to give up my custody because thats what he feels is right. He filed no proof of any of his accusations that he brought against me. Zero
Should i bring in all my text messages to prove i have given him extra time, that i offered to help him with his child support modification (which he never filed)? Will any of this even matter because California is a notorious 50/50 custody state? Im not saying he's a horrible dad but i am a stay at home mom and i can provide more stability. The kids dont like change and everyones been happy with this until now. He has an attorney, do i need one?

Okay - you started off with a 65/35 split.

For the past 6-12 months, for example, what has been the (informal) split?

Closer to 60/40. He asks for extra hours here and there or an extra day. I did give him 3 extra days a month and we had the agreement notarized and submitted to child support. I have shown that i am reasonable and i do give him extra time. That was his complaint for a mod, that he has to beg for time and i dont ever budge.

Quote:

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Quoting Molly Ringwold

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Closer to 60/40. He asks for extra hours here and there or an extra day. I did give him 3 extra days a month and we had the agreement notarized and submitted to child support. I have shown that i am reasonable and i do give him extra time. That was his complaint for a mod, that he has to beg for time and i dont ever budge.

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Well then you have some obvious proof that he doesn't have to beg and that you do budge.

Some folks believe that children should have equal access to their parents, and that each parent should provide for the day to day expenses of those children on their time, without depending on the other parent, splitting medical expenses and such evenly. How could they hold such evil, heretical viewpoints? (Sarcasm intended).

In any case, whether or not I can agree with dad (and since I don't know him or you, I'm not going to make any judgments about that), dad likely has a pretty steep uphill battle. How your judge may feel about the situation is really qnybody's guess. I will say, though, that if you started with 65/35 and added 3 days a month, that's 10 percent. That brings the split to 55/45. If dad has the kids a bit extra here and there beyond that, which is great, you probably are already at or near 50/50 in reality. If you now withhold extra time from dad that he was normally getting, it may or may not seem like a spiteful response to his petition for more time.

Not with holding time from him. Hes now asking to be the custodial parent and he wants more than 50/50. Im sorry i didnt explain that in first post. Why should i just keep giving him more and more time just because hes asking? I can understand that he wants equal time but when hes asking for the court to take away more of my custody and than it will be me with less than 50%. Makes no sense. I just want to know if that can happen with no proof ive done anything wrong or proof that im somehow inadequate? I have txt going back 3 years of him and his wife badgering me about child support and threatening to take me back to court. He has an attorney, should i be concerned that ill lose without one?

If he has an attorney, it would truly behoove you to have one as well. That can spell disaster for someone pro se who doesn't really know what they are doing.

If he is asking for more than 50 percent, unless there is something wrong on your end that you're not saying, that just sounds greedy to me personally. Of course I'm not your judge so my opinion on that is only worth about two cents :). You might consider coming to an agreement to have 50/50 with no custodial parent. That's something you'll have to make a personal decision on considering all of the little details in your situation.

How strong dad's case is likely depends on how much actual time he has had with the children in the last six months or so and what his arguments against you and for himself are.

The courts are going to try and maintain what the children are used to. If you show the court that you have given the father extra time you are basically proving that he spends more time with the children than the current custody arrangement and they may give him additional custody accordingly.

That said, the custody agreement should reflect the actual time spent with the kids. If he has the kids more than 35% of the time, he should get more than 35% custody.

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

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