Hi Mom of two.
Did you have your court date?
I'm divorced and some of my situation was like what yours is, so I can share some things that I learned or was told. I live in a "50/50" state and I think that you should know that it doesn't mean 50/50 no matter what. It means that the courts see both parents as equally important and barring some major problem, there is no reason that one parent should have less parenting time than the other. Mom's still get primary custody of the kids a lot, but my lawyer says that is mostly because there was a problem (some sort of abuse or inablity to parent), mutual agreement (dad travels a lot or doesn't want 50/50 parenting time), or there is too much distance between the two homes to make 50/50 work (which sounds like your case).
I wanted to move about an hour away to be near my parents and my ex got a court order to stop me. I didn't actually go and then get ordered to return the kids like you did. My attorney warned me not to act unilaterally. There's a whole procedure to follow here, you can't just grab and go, and if you do, you run the risk of losing custody. You were lucky you were allowed to return to the home. I had been out of the house for four months before we started divorce procedings. My ex asked me to wait and make sure that I really wanted to divorce before we started procedings. Unfortunatley, what that ended up being was two months where I just visited the kids (no overnights) and then every other weekend with them. So when I fianlly filed for divorce, we had established the parenting pattern of the kids living with him. His first order of business was to ask for temporary custody and child support. He got it. It was supposed to not be prejudicial against me for the final custody arrangements, but he then started to stall and drag things out so it was almost 8 months after I had moved out before we finally started mediation and by then, he was unwilling to let me have primary custody of the kids, especially combined with a move to be near my parents. Basically, I was in a position where I would have to fight for custody and I was not in a good position to win. Also he knew that as things dragged on, his position got stronger and stronger. When we first spearated he was willing to do 50/50, but now he was not as willing and adamantly against it if I moved.
Long story short, I decided that I didn't want to put my kids through a custody fight. There are psychological evaluations and I knew it would be a war with my ex. I also knew that he had essentially unlimited money to fight and I only had what was 1/2 of our marital estate. And even that was not going to help much. He had a lot of pre-marital assets, so what was "ours" amounted to our 401K's, some savings, our cars, and our home furnishings. His had business and a house that was his before we met. The business is worth a lot of money (he just sold it), but he had it structured so that it didn't pay him a big salary (we actually make about the same $). It was all about positioning to be bought by a big tech company. His family is loaded, but everything is in a trust and not touchable.
So in mediation, we settled on a parenting plan were I had the kids about 1/3 of the time with "liberal visitation" the rest. It actually worked for a while. He never said no to any request I had for spending time with the kids on his scheduled parenting time. I frequently picked them up after school or took them to movies or the park or what ever. I think we communicate and co-parented well. We did birthdays and school events together.
it all worked well, right up until he sold his company. He got a bunch of money (that's great for him, he deserved it) and they wanted to make him VP of the division that bought his company. On the other side of the country! I fought the move, but in the end the judge saw him as the primary parent and saw me as a weekend parent, and he's allowed to move. They leave this Friday. I get the kids 1/2 christamas break, alternating spring and fall breaks, 4 weeks in the summer, and "liberal visitation" whenever I go to visit the kids. He as to provide two sets of round trip tickets for the kids, essentially meaning that I have to pay for the spring/fall break travel and any other visitation. If I go there, it will mean airfare, rental car, hotel, and eating out for every meal. I don't see where I wil be able to afford to ever go. Before we went to court, he offered me most of his signing bonus (to take the VP job, not from the sale of his company), to waive my child support, and pay my moving expenses, If I would move with them and keep the same custody agreement in place. If I didn't want to move, he offered a bunch of plane tickets and most of the school breaks and 6 weeks in the summer. I turned it down because we had joint custody and I didn't think he woud get approved to move. Well, he got the approval, and all of the pretrial offers have gone away. He's really mad at me and has told me that we need to follow the court order exactly for a while and let things settle down.
So for you, I would say, you've made a big mistake by moving 2 hrs away. That's a 4 hr round trip. One of the custody criteria in my state is the likelyhood of fostering the relationship between the kids and the other parent. Taking the kids and then getting ordered to return them is also not good and might be seen as a sign that you wouldn't respect the other parents rights. Your plan to essentially have the kids all school days and essentially let your husband have all non-school time to achieve 50/50 parenting time is probably not a great idea. Especially as the kids get older. It will mean that your kids can never play a sport or participate in any activity that practices during the week and has games on the weekend. Also, you kids will make friends and want to do things with them on weekends. Eventually, they will grow to resent the time sharing.
One of the other themes in your post was that your husband wouldn't agree to what you wanted so you have to go to court. You could also say the same about you. I'm not criticizing, just understand that just because it is what you want doesn't mean that a neutral party will see it as good. One of the things that I found out in this whole process is that there are always two opinions, they probably are actuall both valid, and there is no such thing as a slam dunk. It's always point and counter point. In your parenting example, you say that he requires help (school, baby sitters, family), but you live with family too and will be using the schools and daycare while you work as well. Presumably there will be times when you need to do things without the kids (like a date, a special event, work, etc..) and will need a baby sitter too. The courts know that parents work and require baby sitters and daycare and school buses, ans such. They only care that you have the care of the kids covered.
When it comes to taking care of the kids (the UTI infection), I think that you will have a hard time with that unless it is really abuse. Keep in mind that the courts see real abuse all of the time. Are you saying that the kids will never get sick on your watch? I doubt it. If they are in school or day care, they will constantly be sick with something. What the courts care about is are you doing something about it. It's easy to make a list of these kind of things and make accusations, but my lawyer said that if you are not careful, it comes across as petty and combative. Also, with some ilnesses, when the ilness starts and when it is symptomatic are two different things.
The tax fraud comment is interesting, but it only applys to dividing the marital estate and maybe calculating child support. Keep in mind that you have to prove it, just saying it is not good enough. I had some similar concerns when it came to my ex. He had his own company and paid himself what I thought was an artifically low salary based on it's revenues. He also has a complicated trust fund. I spent a ton of money trying to get to the bottom of it all, and in the end, it was all above board. His company was essentially reinvesting any potential profits back into the company for Research and Development and aqusiitions. The bottom line was that the company hadn't made a profit in the last 4 years, but was continually growing in value (and the value was his, not ours).
Hopefully by now you've won your case and can move on with your life. If not, or if things are not going your way, I would strongly suggest moving back to the same town where your kids live and getting 50/50 parenting time. If he makes more than you do, he'll still have to pay child support. But the key thing is that you will be an equal parent. If you lose the custody case, living 2 hrs away, I doubt that you will still get 50% of the time. It's more likely that due to the distance you will get every other weekend, half of the holidays, a couple of weeks vacation in the summer and have to pay him child support. If he wins, and because you are the one who moved, you might be responsible for all of the transportation as well.
Best of luck,
Katie