Making any kind of life change is can be difficult. You’ll be upsetting your carefully constructed status quo and you won’t ever be sure of what the future will bring. When you make a life change after a divorce, things can be even more difficult. You’ll not only be dealing with an uncertain future, but also dealing with any agreements that you made with your former spouse. When you enter into a relationship, things can become very difficult indeed – and the difficulty spikes if you have children. When many women move on from a relationship, they worry about what will happen with child custody.

Moving to a new place is a very common cause of custody change. If you’re moving down the road, it’s unlikely that things will change. If you are making a major life change, though, you might be putting strain on your initial custody agreement. When you bring another person into the equation, it becomes ever more likely that change will occur. Before you move in with someone new, it’s important to stop and think about how it will impact your custody agreement. It’s important, in fact, to consider whether or not your former spouse will be able to get your custody agreement changed.

To start, it is important to note that there’s certainly nothing legally wrong with you moving in with another person. The law doesn’t tend to look unfavorably about moving on with your life and there’s certainly no clause in any state’s law that makes you an unfit parent because you have a new partner. Likewise, there’s nothing in the books that prevents you from moving in with a new boyfriend or a new spouse. It’s a natural part of life, and it’s something with which the courts are prepared to deal. It is also, however, something that might make a major change in the way your custody is determined.

Unless you have crafted a custody agreement, the court always decides where the child should live based on his or her best interest. He or she will live in the place where he or she is safest for which he or she will be best cared. In most cases, this really comes down to a health and safety issue – where will the child be treated best? In other cases, it also comes down to an issue of quality of life. The court tends to favor areas with better schools and where the child is given more of a chance to live a normal life.

Moving in with your boyfriend isn’t something that can impact your custody, but it is something that brings another party into the equation. The way your boyfriend lives and the place where he resides will now factor into how the court looks at your custody arrangement. If there are no glaring issues, it’s unlikely that the court will make any kind of major change in your agreement. It’s only if there is a danger presented to the child or if something changes that can hurt the child’s life that a change will be made.

Can moving in with your boyfriend change your custody arrangements? Of course. Almost any change you make in your life has the possibility of changing the way your custody is structured. What’s more important to ask is if the change you are making will in any way make your situation less safe or less appropriate for your child. If it does not, you really don’t have any reason to fret about having your custody situation challenged. At the most, you’ll need to consult with your attorney to make sure he or she is prepared for any challenges to the arrangement. If things work as they should, though, you won’t have to worry about any challenges and you can get on with enjoying the new changes in your life.