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Welcome to Family Law Matters. I’m Dr. Michael Mantell, privileged to be joining Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel, owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group. Hi, Bonnie.

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Hi, Michael. Now, before we start, it bears mentioning- Yes, go ahead. I know what you’re going to do.

Go ahead. It bears mentioning, okay? Dr. Mantel spells his name with two L’s, Bonnie Mantel, one L. We are not related. I know you all think we’re either husband and wife or brother and sister.

We’re not. We’re complete friends, and we just happen to have similar last names. God’s funny that way.

He’s funny. I appreciate the fact you didn’t say father-daughter. Okay, let’s go on, Bonnie.

Let’s go on. So this is an interesting question, and it’s particularly important because of the mindset that you and your team bring to the work you do, which is always right and reasonable. It’s always about making sure that people seek closure, not revenge.

You understand that divorce is the end of a marriage. It’s not the end of life. And when it comes to children, that is particularly critically important.

So the issue is when we’re looking at children, we have two kinds of custody, right? We have joint and what? Soul. Soul custody. Soul custody, where the parents share or only one parent has custody.

From the perspective of your experience, which is vast, which do you find is more impactful in a positive way for children? I think it’s important to maximize the child’s contact with two good fit parents. I think it’s also important to maximize the child’s contact up to the capacity of a parent. Not every parent is actually capable of having 50, 50.

We hear that equal custody, equal time. Not every parent is capable of that. Some parents are more child-centric.

Some parents are more work-centric. And I’ll be the first to say it, I was not built to be a stay-at-home parent. It’s just not who I am.

And yet my husband was more built towards that. For us, it made more sense for me to be more out and for him to be more in. So when deciding once you’ve broken up the marriage, how to share your children, it’s important to understand yourself and what you’re able to do with your work schedule, with your life schedule, and with how you are.

It doesn’t make you a bad parent. It makes you an honest parent. Where I become concerned about this topic is when one parent is revengeful and won’t, and is angry at the other parent.

And as a result is saying, no, you cannot see our kid. Now the kid suffers. The other parent may be a perfectly fine parent, but the anger, the resentment, the jealousy, the revenge is overwhelmed.

And that’s where unfortunately we have to get attorneys and judges involved to make orders that require the equal sharing. I have a case where I have a gentleman who has to go with police officers every time to get his son because otherwise mom will not give up the son. And I will tell you that the gentleman is a great parent, but the other parent is stuck in their way and in their muck.

And every time the judge makes it harder and harder on her for what she’s trying to do to him. And at some point, judges will flip custody and say, no, now we give sole custody to the other one because you’re not acting in the best interests of your child. Yeah.

Yeah. I think at times parents need to reach out for mental health consultation as well, because if they really are interested in your child and not revenge, it may change the way you approach this. Bonnie, if people have questions about this very, very difficult topic, how can they be in touch with you? Well, they can reach us at 619-574-8000 for a free 30 minute phone consultation, or you can reach us at www.primusfamilylaw.com. Fill out the form and we will reach back out to you and put you on my calendar for that free 30 minute phone consultation.