Children are often the people who suffer the most in a divorce, and they are not the ones who are fighting. Tragically, one of the most contentious area of every divorce is custody and parent time for visitation.
There are three ways your custody fight could come out. 1) you could get full custody; 2) your spouse could get full custody; or 3) you and your spouse share joint custody. The first two are pretty self explanatory. the third can be quite confusing. In Utah, where I practice, and many other jurisdictions there are statutory minimums for how often a parent gets to spend time with their child even when one of the parents gets full custody. In Utah, that means the non-custodial parent (the parent who does not have full custody) gets to see their children one night per week and every other weekend.
Most cases that go to trial result in a decision for full custody for one parent or the other. Rarely does a judge order joint custody. However most custody battles in Utah are resolved through alternative dispute resolution, or mediation. Joint custody is much more common in case outcomes from mediation. Joint custody means both parties share custody of their children and have a parent time schedule that gives each parent more time than the statutory minimums.
In many instances a joint custody order can result in each parent having equal parent time. The best way to do the 50/50 split on parent time is the 5/2 split. The way this works is parent A will have the children Monday and Tuesday every week and parent B will have the children every Wednesday and Thursday every week, with the Friday, Saturday and Sundays Alternating. this results in each parents having the children for two days or five days at a time and alternating weekends.
