[edmonddantes58]

My ex and I have a shared custody legal agreement. She has decided, without discussing with me, to enroll my child in a catholic school. She is designated the custodial parent. I am against this idea for various reasons that I believe I can justify. Does this qualify as contempt of court? How can I assess whether the legal greement is being violated?

[Fr_Chuck]

You can discuss it all you want with her, but as the custodial parent she will normally have the final say. Shared legal custody does little to take away her control over the day to day life.

And sorry but providing a better education than public school could not be considered a bad thing, plus there has been countless cases where the non custodial parent can not control the religion of the child over the custodial parents wishes.

Nope, it only means you had a much larger beliefs of your rights than was realistic.

[edmonddantes58]

I get the essence of your reply - but I'm not sure if you presume issues here that do not exist. My daughter has been going to this catholic school for all of her elementary education. It is a fine school. It, however only goes up to the 8th grade. 7th grade - middle school - happens to be a natural place to transition to another school. We are fortunate - but we planned it this way - to live in a small, public school district that has stellar schools (a rarity). Based on prior experience of two older sisters, she can best transition at this point. Furthermore, we had already discussed and agreed to move my daughter to another school beginning w 7th grade. There are other pragmatic issues, but any argument is irrelevant if the final say is to the custodial parent. And by the way, my ex is an atheist. There are no religious issues here. Does anyone else - lawyers - have any opinion? Shared custody should not be a blank check that says we can discuss but your opinion is essentially irrelevant. Fr_chuck - thanks for your reply.

[ScottGem]

You do have a say, but to block this you will need to take your ex to court. From there its up to a judge and the case could go either way. You would have to show its not in the best interests of the child to go to another catholic school.

[tawnynkids]

As you both have equal rights to make decisions I believe you can file a complaint for contempt. However, you would really want to be able to prove that she is hindering your legal custody rights by consistently making unilateral decisions regarding the major issues in the child's life and may need to be able to show that those decisions are not in the best interest of the child. She has not necessarily taken away your rights, she has simply exercised her own. However, that being said you can make the equal decision of taking her out of the school. BUT that will definitely be seen as not the best action to have taken from the courts perspective. You would need a really strong case though, abuse by the teachers or something, because your opinion is simply that your opinion. I say this school is better you say that, won't really hold much water in court. Do you see my meaning? You would need to file for a modification specifically as to education if you feel you need to push this issue. Pick your battles though, if you are not careful you could wind up looking like you are just going against a parent who is actually making sounds choices for your child so that you can have control. You don't want to come off as argumentative, controlling and unnecessarily uncooperative. Those can be grounds for less custody/visitation for you if she wants to turn it on you.

[Fr_Chuck]

Yes, in the end it will not be contempt since you both just disagree, but almost always the custodial parent gets the final say unless there is some harm, with that it is hard to say what a judge will say, unless you can show some real and actual harm, most likely there is little the judge will do.

Normally what the judge will do is order mediation for you to work it out. And normally of course one has to win and one loses,

The entire joint custody idea actually in practice never works, this is one example, since when both sides don't agree, one is going to get their way, and one is not, so normally I can say that I have never once seen a joint custody actually work

[edmonddantes58]

Thank you all - my concern does not so much have to do with schools but - as you may have guessed - an ongoing pattern of manipulation so I am unable to participate in decision making in what is supposed to be a co-parenting arrangement. I am extremely frustrated at the lack of support in the judicial system towards people in my situation. Counseling services are equally unhelpful, as frequently (at least in my experience) men are presumed to be victimizers. Thanks to everyone again.