We could not agree more that the whole system needs to be reformed.
It should start with “domicilliary address”. The court should set that day one. In my cases, 9 years apart, I fought for the domicilliary address to be the county we had raised our child in for many years OR any contiguous county. That worked. Both kids had both parents throughout childhood!
Either parent could move to Borneo if they wanted, they just would not get to see their child.
In our case, we both stayed here and raised the kids together, well, LOL, so to speak. But, we were both at all their events and the proof is in the pudding. One is a CPA and one is building houses. Both have college degrees.
I don’t know whether I’d agree with the domiciliary address reform you’d like to see. It would depend on the case.
I’d like to see changes made to the way the courts handle spousal debt. If one spouse has driven up debt without the consent and/or knowledge of the other, then the other spouse shouldn’t be responsible for that debt at all.
Another reform needed is for cases where one spouse broke up the marriage by committing adultery: In those cases, the faithful spouse shouldn’t be required to pay the cheating spouse alimony.
Yet another needed reform - and this is one that fathers should support - is that, if genetic testing shows that a husband is not the biological father of a child, then he alone should decide whether or not to pay child support. (Right now, there are men paying child support for children conceived through their wives’ adultery.)
Congratulations on the success of your children, by the way. It’s good that everything worked out in the long run.