Hello I am new to this forum and I am looking for advice. I am a single dad with joint custody of my daughter, her mother is the legal primay caregiver.

My problem is that, while her mother is leagally the primary caregiver, all the responsibility has fallen on me to raise our daughter. My daughter lives with me 5 to 6 days a week, I take her to school, help with homework, go to dance and daisey scouts, attend PTO. My ex-wife has yet to even meet my daughters school teacher. On top of all this, I am paying her child support. My ex is to busy with her new life to have her daughter more than one and a half days a week. When we divorced I was afraid I wouldnt get to see my daughter enough, and that was the one fear I did'nt need to have. I have lost hours at work because I have to drop off and pick up my daughter from school and be there for all the extra activities. I am ranting, but I am angry. I am very happy that I have my daughter, but I am unhappy that her mother pays no attention to her. I am a single parent without help, putting my daughter through private school, paying for everything, and I am still paying child support to a mom who sees her dghter one day a week if my daughter is lucky. I want primary caregiver, or maybe even sole custody, but I am terrified that if I bring it to court, I may lose my daughter because I am a man, and the courts favor women. I cant lose my daughter, and I will give my last penny and all my free time to keep it the way it is, but I would like to have legal control over my daughters future, and the financial freedom to better her future instead of paying her mother to go out on the weekends. Has anyone had any experience with a situation like this, or know what legal rights I have. Even opinions are helpful.

Thanks, and forgive the spelling, I can't spell when I am in a good mood and it gets worse when I am angry.

Hi and welcome, I am also new....

Well, I am certainly NOT an attorney, but I do some (a little) bit of advocacy work (volunteer) so let me throw in my 2 cents, ok?

#1) You need to DOCUMENT every single day what you are doing for your daughter and what your ex is not doing and when or IF you choose to go to court, you will have evidence from your side....

#2) I highly recommend talking to an attorney about this....

it sounds to me (from my standpoint) that you are getting taken advantage of just a tad bit...either you need to have sole custody or at the VERY LEAST , the VERY LEAST JOINT CUSTODY........and that means the duties are split up a little more evenly perhaps?

I dunno...just thinking out loud here...

At least try to mediate a better sharing of the duties there....if you are paying child support and LOSING HOURS becuase you are doing all the PARENTING, well...... that (to me) seems a bit unfair....but I'm not there and I'm not you, so just take this all with a grain of salt, ok????/