Child Custody Issues When Ending a Dating Relationship

In this podcast episode, San Diego Divorce and child custody attorney, Brian A. Victor discusses the differences in child custody when ending a dating relationship vs. when divorcing. 

Listen to Attorney Victor as he provides insight into the issues and differences in child custody situations when ending a dating relationship rather than in a divorce situation.  

Attorney Brian A. Victor has experience both in the field of psychology as well as in divorce and child custody in San Diego. He worked at Family Court Services in San Diego where he created and recommended to family court judges parenting plans for parents unable to reach agreement on a child custody plan.

Remember to subscribe to Attorney Victor’s podcast on iTunes so as not to miss any important discussions regarding divorce and child custody.

The information provided in this podcast is to inform rather than to provide legal advice. And nothing in this podcast creates an attorney client relationship. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Hi, I'm attorney Brian a victor and welcome to my all new podcast. Each week I'm going to discuss the issues of divorce and or child custody in my last podcast I talked about the considerations necessary for thinking about getting divorced. I also talked about your initial meeting with your attorney and the issues to prepare in advance to discuss with your attorney regarding your matter this week I thought I would talk about something a little different, not really related to divorce but rather related to child custody. A little different than the usual where there's a custody plan in place after divorce or were there as a custody plan needing to be made because the parties are thinking of divorcing. This podcast is going to discuss what happens when parties who are dating decide to break up and they have children from that dating relationship. This is the question I get asked a lot as a child custody attorney in San Diego, California, there are many similarities in this situation as there are when a couple is divorcing and they have children. One of the most important issues to focus on is the physical custody of the children. It is important to decide with which parent the children will be living. Will it be with the mother, the father, or under a joint custody situation where they spend an equal amount of time with both parents. Whether divorcing or ending a dating relationship, there are many factors to be considered when determining the custody situation. A longer discussion of each factor would take a podcast of its own, but suffice to say that the familiarity between the children and each parent and the time spent with each parent is a good starting point to determine the physical custody issue. When a couple is married, they have generally been living together and raising their children. Unless a couple who has been dating has been living together, they have not been in a situation where both parties had been living with their children. This is one of the major differences between a couple who is divorcing and a couple who is ending a dating relationship. This can also be a major factor to be considered when determining physical custody of the child. Similar to a divorcing couple, another factor to be considered when determining custody is how much of a role each parent in the dating relationship has played and how involved in the children's lives they have been. Although they may not be living with their child, a parent may be involved in taking the child to school to extracurricular activities or spending time with them on a regular basis. While I have been talking about the factors to consider for determining physical custody of a child, one of the major differences between divorcing couples and those ending their dating relationship is the type of support that can be requested from the court. Whether a couple is divorcing or ending their dating relationship, a parent can usually request child support from the higher earning parent to help them care for their child's needs. These needs range from providing for extracurricular activities to food and clothing of the child. A big difference, however, is that when divorcing, spousal support can be requested by the party who earns less. While an unmarried couple cannot request spousal support. Also, divorcing couples are able to divide assets while generally an unmarried couple cannot. To inquire further about the choices available from the court when ending a dating relationship. Be sure to consult with a local family law attorney who can discuss this process as it relates to your specific situation. In San Diego, California, contact the Law Offices of Brian A. Victor for more information on children and the court process. Thank you very much for listening and feel free to contact me at my website at www.brianvictorlaw.com for any suggestions you may have for future podcasts.