Divorce Support Forums: Help! stay at home dad with questions

You know, EZ, most of the men I know who have primary custody got it EITHER because the mother agreed, OR because she was so much of a problem that she left them (by drugs or mental illness or something else) OR he got it after the fact, after a year or more of living with her as primary custodian proved that she was not up to the task. And this applies even to guys who styled themselves as stay-at-homes, which is rare. They often say they have internet businesses, work from home, or have some other non-9 to 5 version of a job, and because they're not earning a lot, they later call it stay-at-home parenting. Which is not to say that they were not stay-at-homes, just that while the marriage was going well, they didn't want to admit it. For the most part, their egos prevented them from being willing to call themselves "Mr. Mom". Unlike the soccer moms who proudly proclaim their "choice" to stay home (whether or not thier husbands were privately, behind the scenes, trying to get them to go back to work and help out with the budgets), the men who made that choice seemed more to slid into it, unintentionally.

I'm not saying that's always the case, and may not be with this original poster, but it's what I've seen.

And with this general situation, the judges will TREAT him like a guy who is... well, as some of them describe themselves... "between jobs"... perpetually and without his wife's agreement, sometimes.

I'm offended that the judges don't treat women the same way, but that's the way it is.

Now I HOPE we all can say that a 50-50 split of assets and kid time is what's fair... and that he really NEEDs to get on the stick and ramp up his career so that she can spend 50% of her time with the kids... because if it was a woman SAHM and a man earning the majority of the earnings, I think most men here would say the same thing... but we may disagree as to HOW to reach that fair result.

I happen to think that with a man whose wife has already offered him 50-50 time with the kids, he'd be well-advised to jump on that and get it in writing, set in stone as soon as he could... rather than mess around with trying to get 60-40 so that he can have an advantage in child support... because I think we all know how easily a judge will shred a man and take everything away from him if the judge thinks the man is over-reaching what is FAIR. More so if the judge thinks the man is trying to manipulate what is fair regarding parenting time just so that he can get more money.

It's not fair. If a woman were in the same position, these might not be considerations we'd have to worry about... but he's a man, so he needs to think it through better so that he does not find himself losing it all in the end just because the judge thinks he's being greedy or lazy or ... well, whatever the judges think when they do these things like giving 85% of the kids' time to mothers.

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