How to Increase My Parenting Time

[peterd1234]

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: maryland
My wife and I have been separated for close to a year. We have an 18month old boy. When i moved out last year I saw my child 10-15 days per month. Because of her young age we waited a year before I kept her overnight. I have stressed that i want to keep my daughter more nights and days and that I want joint physical custody since june andprior to that I told her I wanted to see her more frequently. My wife simply refuses. The last time I said I was going to keep her a saturday and a sunday night she dissapeared when I was to pick her up on saturday and wouldn't answer my calls and only allowed me to see her after I agreed to not keep her sunday night. She thinks that she should get sole custody and thats it.

All I want is to see my daughter and be an equal part in her life. I have paid everything since i left. I'm not a convict, drug user and have never abused her or anyone for that matter.

She will not agree to me keeping her more than 6-8 nights per month and I want more...what should i do?
Our court date won't be until January sometime

[mmmagique]

Joint custody doesn't translate to 50/50 custody. It just means you share child rearing decisions and that you both have her whatever amount of time the court orders.
Unfortunately she now has status quo on her side, so it's going to be difficult to make a case for 50/50 or much more than you've been getting.

[CustodialDaddy]

Joint custody doesn't translate to 50/50 custody. It just means you share child rearing decisions and that you both have her whatever amount of time the court orders.

I believe you are getting joint LEGAL custody and joint PHYSICAL custody confused.

Joint Physical Custody doesn't ALWAYS mean 50/50, but in most states Joint Physical Custody is 'as close to 50/50 as possible'
Joint Legal custody is joint decision making.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Actually, her statement is accurate: Joint physical custody does not automatically translate into 50/50 custody.

In Maryland, "joint custody" refers to joint legal custody, shared physical custody, or their combination. Maryland speaks of "shared physical custody" in situations where children split time between the parents' residences and spend not less than 35% of their time at either residence.

[SuperPop]

I can't leave this thread with just an arguement about what Joint Physical Custody is, that doesn't answer his question. His question was

All I want is to see my daughter and be an equal part in her life. I have paid everything since i left. I'm not a convict, drug user and have never abused her or anyone for that matter.

She will not agree to me keeping her more than 6-8 nights per month and I want more...what should i do?
Our court date won't be until January sometime

Below is an answer to that question.


mmmagique is right, it's going to be hard to make a case for 50/50 right now, BUT, Step-up plans are becoming very common with for young unmarried parents. I couldn't a standard plan for maryland or find one that 'steps up' to 50/50 within Maryland. So here is a good guideline from another state to review.

http://www.azcourts.gov/portals/31/p...guidelines.pdf
(Mr. Knowitall made a point that you don't live in Arizona so the Arizona guidelines don't matter. That is true, BUT, Maryland doesn't have any specific guidelines that i can find and these seem to be the most complete so you can get an idea of what options are available)

If she is willing to give you 6-8 overnight now, i'd start with a schedule like 4-5 in that document till the child is 3 then, Step up to number 11 from the ages of 3-5, step up to number 13 from 6-9yrs old and finally, 14 from 9+....As the child gets older she/he is going to be involved with all kinds of activities over the weekends, everything from organized school activities to Youth sports to play dates to just wanting to hang out with his/her friends, you want more time then just weekends otherwise your parenting time will just be you taxiing the child around and with no 'quality' time available.

What ever you decide on, understand that you are an EQUAL parent to that child, even if you have to start out with Every Other Weekend(4-6 overnights a month), the end zone should be 50/50. Make that known now so there are no surprises for the court later on.

[Dogmatique]

This assumes that a 50/50 split is in the best interest of the child.

Obviously that's not always the situation.

[SuperPop]

This assumes that a 50/50 split is in the best interest of the child.

Obviously that's not always the situation.

True, for example, long distance parenting doesn't work 50/50, for that i'd suggest he request(not demand, request) "All time out of school" i.e. summers and holidays(he won't get all that, but thats where you start negotiating), unless he was the one who moved away, then i wouldn't comment at all.

But for children that show symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder, a more structured plan like week on/week off as opposed to Every Other weekend, may actually help give the child time to get comfortable and settled in both locations.