Fighting for the most custody now is the best thing you can do, because if you give up early, it's hard to get it back. If you were awarded emergency custody there must have been a reason.
This is so important a point to ponder well. During a separation we (we who end up here, we who tried so hard, we who never wanted to give up trying) are thinking we ought to play softball with fairness. The problem is that, for many of us, our soon to be ex-spouses stoop to playing hardball with spitballs and every underhanded slick tactic to sabotage us. That's why we have to be strong and have determination to do our best to have the stable parent be in charge. It may feel like we're too mean but it's because we can later, when it is safer to do so, we can consider being 'nice' later when our parenting is secure, as momtara wrote:
If he improves down the road, he can always come back and change things. Don't get soft.
My separation started out with my then-spouse facing a Threat of DV charge. Yet family court made a temp order assigning her temporary custody and majority time. I had 22% time, alternate weekends and 3 hours in between. The mutual protection orders and temp order eventually were dismissed. My ex blocked all father-son contact. I had no choice but to file for divorce. The magistrate, fully aware of the 3 months of blocking, made a new temp order, same as the last. Within a year the court's own parenting investigator recommended I get equal time and also a custody evaluation. Court ignored the parenting change and ordered CE as the next step. The CE report summarized, "Mother cannot share 'her' child but Father can... .Mother should immediately lose temporary custody... ." The judge did not change the order but moved to settlement conference as the next step. The separation and divorce took two years. I walked out with Shared Parenting and equal time. As predicted, it didn't work and I went back and became Legal Guardian. Still issues and so I went back and got majority time during the school year.
Eight years in and out of court with baby step improvements to reach an order that finally has worked. Going in my son was 3 years old, conflict finally reduced when he was nearly 12 years old. Only now, from an established position of authority, can I afford to be nice without risk of sabotage and conflict. There are still problems, my ex still gets triggered and flares up from time to time, but it is finally manageable.
If you are at the beginning of the separation or divorce... .My experience was like others, it is hard to get a temp order improved. And our divorce cases usually take a year or two and sometimes longer. Then there is the real risk that a temp order will morph relatively unchanged into the final decree. For those reasons, do try to get the best order, temporary and subsequent, that you can from the very start.
Every case is a little, or a lot, different. But be careful to place your Parenting as the priority, you can afford to be 'nice' later when that is secure. Don't let your ex guilt you by claiming you're unfair or mean or whatever. Your priority is yourself and your children.
