Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, and Oklahoma Fathers' Rights & Divorce Law Blog

Previously, we began speaking about current Missouri law, which does not provide that joint physical custody involves equal time with each parent. As we pointed out, the statutory language only guarantees "significant" time with each parent, which can obviously be up to the interpretation of the judge assigned to the case.

Lawmakers in both houses of Missouri congress have proposed changes to the law which would change the statutory language to ensure that parents with joint physical custody have basically equal time with the child. This would ensure greater fairness in the way judges assign parenting time in cases involving joint physical custody. 

One of the problems with a divorce is that even when you do everything right, the outcome may not be exactly as you hoped. This can occur in a wide variety of situations, but one man describes a situation that may not be all that uncommon.

He has apparently had primary custody of his daughter since the divorce. She lives with him during the year and spends half the summer with her mother, who lives in another state. After this summer, the teenage daughter has asked if she can go and live with her mother. She is not unhappy living with her father, but claims that a teen "needs her mom." The father is uncertain what to do.

A person's employment situation can affect many things. According to a recent study, one of the things it may impact for men is their divorce likelihood.

In the study, which looked at well over 6,000 heterosexual couples, the divorce chances (for the following year) of men who were employed full-time were compared with those of men who were not. The study found that the estimated divorce likelihood of the men who did not have full-time employment exceeded that of the men who had such employment by around a third.

Many things can be a part of a person's everyday reality post-divorce. If they have kids, one such thing can be co-parenting with their ex. While one would hope the co-parenting relationship with one's ex would go smoothly, this doesn't always happen. Conflicts can arise between co-parents over many different things. Some examples of things that can be sources of conflict among divorced parents when it comes to co-parenting include:

• Scheduling matters, such as last-minute scheduling changes.
• Household rules, such rules regarding bedtimes and discipline.
• Inconsistencies in overall household structure for the kids between the parents.
• Differences in parenting strategies between the parents.