I'm the only working member member of the family. He plays video games all day. Threatens he will take my children from me. Accuses me of being unfaithful.
There is a great deal of additional information an attorney will need in order to give you specific answers to your questions.
Child custody issues can be very complex depending on the facts of your case. Unfortunately, in divorce cases, it is not unusual for one parent or the other to threaten to take the children.
However, in general, custody of your children is determined by what the court decides is in their best interest looking at all the facts of your case. There are two types of custody; legal custody and physical custody. Legal custody involves the parents' right to make decisions regarding the children's health, education and welfare. Typically, the court will grant joint legal custody, but not always. Physical custody is generally awarded to the parent who is or has been the primary caretaker of the children, unless the non-custodial parent can prove that the children would be better off in their care. Physical custody can be sole physical custody to you or your husband with visitation granted to the other parent. Or joint physical custody when both parents share a substantial amount of time with the children.
You need to consider what facts your husband has that will work against your having physical custody and what facts you have that will work against his having physical custody. In all cases, before the court makes a custody order, you and your husband will have to attend child custody mediation which is provided by the court. The mediator will meet with both of you and, depending on your county, will make a recommendation to the court regarding custody and visitation. Very often the court will follow the mediator's recommendations.
There are many factors the court will consider when making custody and visitation orders. I highly recommend you contact an attorney in your county at least for a consultation to get an informed answers to your questions on custody.
Child Support and Spousal Support: The court will order guideline child support and temporary spousal support (spousal support during the divorce process itself) based on a computer program calculation. The computer calculation includes your income, your husband's income, the amount of visitation time your husband has with the children (assuming you have physical custody of the children) and other financial considerations such as the cost of health insurance, deductions for mortgage interest and property tax and other financial factors. If you work and your husband does not, you could end up owing him child and spousal support. Again, without more facts, I can't give you a more specific answer.
If your husband is not working, you can ask the court to order him to look for a job and report his job search efforts to you on a regular basis. If you can prove he has the ability to work and the opportunity to work (there are jobs available that he qualifies for), you could ask the court to impute income to him.
At the conclusion of your divorce case the court can order long term spousal support and can no longer use the computer calculation to determine the amount and duration of support. Here again there are many factors the court will use to determine long term spousal support beginning with the marital standard of living and taking into consideration your respective incomes, length of the marriage and several other factors.
The court will almost always use the computer calculation for child support except in some instances when the court finds there are special circumstances allowing them to deviate from the guideliine computer calculation. Child support can also include add-on expenses such as child care expenses required for the custodial parent to work.
Again, I strongly recommend you contact an attorney to get answers based on the facts of your case, so you can make informed decisions.
