We are continuing our discussion of professional basketball star Steve Nash’s child custody dispute with his ex-wife. The couple is arguing over where the children should live, but the argument is not about what you’d think. We are used to parents here in Lake County wanting to be closer to their kids and objecting when the other parent tries to leave the state. In Nash’s case, he wants his kids to stay put with their mother, 400 miles and one state away.
His ex-wife has petitioned the court for permission to move herself and the couple’s children closer to Nash. Her objective is to allow the kids more time with their father, she told the court. Nash, however, believes she may have an ulterior motive.
Nash’s job keeps him in a metropolitan area that he reportedly believes is “no place” to raise a family. His children live with his wife in an area he thinks is more family-friendly — the area where Nash plans to move when he retires from the NBA, and a state that denied his ex-wife child support.
At the two-day hearing last month, Nash said he believed his wife wants to move because the new state would look more favorably on granting her child support. The state they divorced in calculated child support based on combined income of the parents. Nash has also said that he gave his ex-wife a generous settlement, he pays necessary expenses for his children and he does not want his children to be corrupted by ready cash.
His ex apparently wrote an email in which she said that she wanted to move the children closer to their dad. The email continued, however, saying that she could not afford to buy a house without child support from Nash. Her “plan,” then, was to live in the new state for six months to establish residency then to ask the court to modify the couple’s agreement.
As we said in our last post, the judge will make his decision based on the best interests of the children. But in a case like this, it may be hard to know what is best. Education experts testified that the older childre, 8-year-old twin girls, were doing well in their current school and would fare well, too, in their father’s city. The children apparently visit their father often. If they moved now and he retired at the end of his contract in two years, they would be uprooted again.
The court is expected to rule some time in June.
Source: USA Today, “Steve Nash fights to keep ex-wife from moving to Calif.,” Craig Harris, May 30, 2013
