SPARC Forums

What are strong reasons to modify custody?

My Ex is has joint custody and I have primary physical custody. In our current agreement , he has every Tuesday 4:30-Wed am (until she starts school and then it will be 4:30-8). Every other Friday (8-4) and every other weekend until Monday am.
Our current agreement has been in place since Oct 2005.
16 months ago my ex has quit his job and is selling items on ebay. He is taking me back to court because he wants primary custody during the school year because he is works out of his house and claims that he can provide better care for our child. I am a school teacher and our child will start K-garten next year in the school that I teach. I'm not sure what to think. I am very concerned because I do not want our child bounced back and forth during the school year. Consistency is extremely important to me.

Is a change of job reason enough to modify custody when a child will be starting school and "working" the exact same hours as the current custodial parent?

Typically, that's not sufficient, particularly in your case where the child is in your school.

In extreme cases, it might be. For example, let's say you have two parents who both have jobs involving a lot of international travel and the child has to spend most of his time with sitters. Now, one parent quits and works from home (or has enough savings to retire young). Could that be grounds for a change? Possibly, depending on the judge, but even then it's no slam dunk. That's not a legal opinion, just a layman's view.

If he has actually filed the papers, then I would see an attorney right away. If he hasn't filed anything, I wouldn't do anything until he takes action.

Alls I can say is that it wasn't for me when I filed.

I retired from active duty and became self-employed where I too stay at home more than my EX.

Motion was heard but not granted.

I know where I went wrong and what I failed to do in court.

AND since my EX and Camilla read and print whatever I say on these boards, that's as far as I'll go.

It wasn't strong enough for my husband either, who was also active duty at the time the original order was made, but who's status has now changed.  There were other issues as well, but they didn't feel that they were "severe enough" to constitute a change in circumstances.

Again, they heard the motion, but it was denied.