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What does consistency in a relationship mean, and how does it affect custody decisions? In a child custody case, maintaining a steady, involved relationship with your child can have a significant impact on the outcome. Just like in any competition, the goal is to secure the best possible result. While it’s not about constantly outdoing others, it’s about showing your commitment and connection to your child, which can play a crucial role in custody decisions.
As a family law attorney, I often think of divorce and child custody cases as a sort of competition. While a family law case is about much more than competition, at its core, it’s a matchup between you and the opposing parent, both vying for as much time with your children as possible to maintain your relationship with them. Parents involved in child custody cases often have concerns and doubts about what the future holds for themselves and their children. Understanding how relationship affects custody decisions can give you an advantage in these situations. By demonstrating a strong, consistent relationship with your children, you can improve your chances of securing a favorable outcome in your family law case in Texas.
Gaining an advantage over your competition is acceptable as long as it’s achieved ethically. When people ask me how to gain an advantage in their child custody cases, I tell them that if you ask that question at the beginning of your case, you ponder it far too late. The difficulty in gaining an advantage in a family law case involving child custody is that there is not much you can do once your case begins to change the course of where a judge would likely rule in terms of custody responsibilities and time.
What outcomes are decided in a child custody case?
Before we go any further, let’s discuss the key issues decided in a child custody case. A child custody case can take place on its own or as part of a divorce. While a divorce also addresses financial matters between you and your spouse, our primary focus today will be on the child custody aspects of your divorce. When I think about child custody cases, I consider several factors such as conservatorship, possession, and visitation. Understanding how relationship affects custody decisions plays a crucial role in these cases, as a strong, consistent relationship with your child can influence decisions regarding your time and involvement with them.
Conservatorship in a Texas child custody case
What is a conservatorship? You have undoubtedly heard of the term custody, but you may never have come across the term conservatorships. It may surprise you to learn that the word custody does not appear in the Texas family code. Instead, the term that we use to refer to custody is conservatorships. Conservatorships allow one person to make decisions for another person across various contexts.
For instance, you can serve as both the conservator of your child and your elderly mother who has dementia. Essentially, the law allows for another person to act as a conservator when one individual is unfit or unable to make decisions in their best interests for any reason. A conservatorship lets someone make decisions for another person, believing it to be in their best interest.
Primary Conservatorship in Child Custody: Authority and Residential Rights
In a child custody case, there are two parents and typically two parenting roles to fill. The first role is that of the primary conservator. When named the child’s primary conservator, a parent gains the authority to set the child’s primary residence. For example, if a court designates you as your child’s primary conservator during a divorce, you would have the right to decide where your child lives primarily. Almost undoubtedly, you would choose for your child to live primarily with you, giving you the upper hand when it comes to time spent with your child. Knowing how relationship affects custody decisions is key here, as a strong, consistent relationship with your child can influence whether the court assigns you this critical role.
Moreover, obtaining the status of primary conservator in a divorce or custody battle enables a parent to collect child support from the other parent on behalf of the child. The rationale behind child support in most custody circumstances is this: since the other parent spends less time with the child, it’s reasonable that they contribute less towards the child’s care compared to you. To balance this, the other parent pays child support to you to compensate for this disparity.
Conservatorship Dynamics: Sharing Rights and Responsibilities in Child Care
Above all else, conservatorship issues entail the division of rights and duties related to your children between you and your co-parent. Typically, both parents share these rights and responsibilities equally. This means that both of you will have the right to receive medical and educational information from schools and doctors for your children. This also means that you and your co-parent will each have a say in Medical procedures and educational decisions on behalf of your child. Additionally, in an emergency, the parent with the child can make urgent medical decisions without consulting the other parent.
Both parents usually share other rights and duties regarding their child. However, some rights and responsibilities might solely belong to you or the other parent, especially if one of you becomes the primary conservator. While we need not delve into these specific rights and duties, understand that demonstrating a consistent and stable parenting history can significantly influence how a judge allocates rights and duties between you and your co-parent.
Possession/visitation in a Texas child custody case
For today’s blog post, I will combine the issues of possession and visitation into one. I’m doing this because custody and visitation are all about time with your children when you get right down to it. Notably, we are discussing the subject of how you and your co-parent must now divide time with your children between the two of you. As we all know, time is a finite resource. There are only so many hours in a day, and your child can only spend so much time with you and your co-parent. This means that you will need to figure out how to divide your time with your child during a child custody case. If you cannot do this, then a judge will be tasked with doing it for you.
As I mentioned a moment ago, the child’s primary conservator typically winds up with more parenting time throughout the year. However, if you are the non-primary conservator of your child, you don’t need to worry in most cases about having your co-parent have a disproportionate amount of time. In reality, the lion’s share of time that your Co-parent will spend with your child comes during the school year during the week. If you remove these periods from the overall possession schedule that you all adhere to, you are the parent who has more time with your child.
What does a judge look at when deciding issues related to your children?
Let’s begin today’s blog post with the end in mind. Most notably, what you need to learn about family law centers around the steps you can take to convince a judge that not only are you a good parent, but you are a stable and consistent force in your child’s life. As I mentioned a moment ago, it is tough to change gears once a case has started and suddenly becomes apparent that you were not six months ago. This means that if you plan to suddenly become a parent of the year once your divorce for child custody case has begun, then I’m telling you it almost indeed is too late for you.
The bottom line is that a judge would look for stability and consistency for your child. They would be tasked with making what is called the best interest determination on behalf of your child. This means that the judge would consider what is in your child’s best interests and would need to predominantly make decisions based on that factor. Your concerns or that of your co-parent regarding parenting or losing time with your children is not a primary motivator for the judge. They would look to what would benefit your children the most physically, emotionally, and relational and make decisions accordingly.
Building a Case for Primary Conservatorship: Stability and Work Flexibility
As such, you need to figure out how you can plan out your case to show that you are a consistent and stable parent were your child. For instance, if you are interested in becoming the primary conservator of your children, it would be vital for you to show a judge that you have a consistent work schedule and that you would be available to your children In the event of an emergency. A work schedule that does not allow much flexibility would not be the most conducive color to becoming a primary conservator of school-aged children.
If you plan to push to become the primary conservative review children, you should make plans in advance and create a work schedule for yourself that is conducive to this goal. It does not matter if you are a terrific parent and have always done what you can to be physically present for your children. If you have a work schedule that is not flexible and does not allow for you to be able to be at home with your kids consistently, then a judge would likely look negatively upon this unless other circumstances allowed you to care for your children, despite your busy work life.
Closing thoughts on Child custody cases in Texas
Building a solid relationship with your children long before your child custody case begins is the ideal scenario. Setting aside any family law issues, fostering a strong relationship with your children is not only essential for your case but is also what your children need. For me, my children are the center of my life, and I know that, even if your circumstances are different, you likely feel the same way. You probably wouldn’t be investing all the time, effort, and resources into a family law case unless you were deeply committed to your children’s well-being.
Focus on building a meaningful relationship with your children simply because it’s the right thing to do. When you make yourself physically and emotionally available to them, you’ll see your relationship improve. If a child custody case arises in the future, you’ll be in a stronger position, with a well-established connection that supports your case. While not all aspects of a child custody case are about competition, positioning yourself to win where it matters—by maintaining a strong relationship—can make a difference. Understanding how relationship affects custody decisions is crucial, and building a consistent, positive relationship with your children is the best way to influence those decisions in your favor.
Questions about the material contained in today’s blog post? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan
If you have any questions about the material contained in today’s blog post, please do not hesitate to contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. Our licensed family law attorneys offer free-of-charge consultations six days a week. These consultations can be had in person, over the phone, or via video. I appreciate your interest in our blog, and we hope you will join us again tomorrow as we share more information about Texas family law.
If you want to know more about what you can do, CLICK the button below to get your FREE E-book: “Child Custody E-Book”
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Frequently Asked Questions
Judges consider various factors, including the child’s best interests, parental fitness, the child’s age, and sometimes the child’s preferences.
An unstable parent in Texas may exhibit behaviors or conditions that endanger the child’s physical, emotional, or psychological well-being, such as substance abuse or neglect.
The most common custody arrangement in Texas is a joint managing conservatorship, where both parents share decision-making responsibilities for the child.
In Texas, there is no specific age at which a child can legally decide. The judge may consider the child’s preferences, but the final decision remains with the court.
A parent may be deemed unfit if they pose a danger to the child’s physical or emotional well-being due to issues like abuse, neglect, addiction, or mental instability.
Proving emotional instability may involve presenting evidence such as witness testimonies, psychological evaluations, or documented incidents of harmful behavior.
Interfering with a child custody order in Texas can involve actions that violate the court-ordered custody arrangement, which may lead to legal consequences.
An emotionally unstable parent may exhibit erratic mood swings, impulsive behavior, difficulty managing stress, or inconsistent emotional responses.
