Why don't they demand custody.. reasonable CO?

Courts are often stacked against the man.. usually the higher earning person... they may have a demanding job that makes it appear that the woman is more qualified to keep the kids more/full time.  They often also are not the primary caregivers when the home is intact.. because biology.. who is home with the kids recovering from giving birth? producing milk? and culturally women's roles are still caregivers for most.  They don't demand because they either CAN"T or the Courts won't give it to them.. OR they don't want it anyway.. they don't want to be full time tied down caring for their kids by themselves.

and.. hold your hat if it was his choice to leave.. to move on with someone new.. or if he was the driver behind the divorce in some way.. again... he will be punished for breaking up the home.

And.. why do they think they are deserving of being in a relationship when they come with baggage?  I guess the same way lots of people want what they want.. despite it not being a good idea.  I mean.. we could also question why so many women enter into relationships with men who have existing obligations and then get upset when they see resources leaving the home.. that they aren't having his "first child".. and all sorts of other things.. that.. yeah.. you know.. or SHOULD know these things before you get into the relationship or at least before you make the relationship semipermanent by having a kid with him.. or getting married.

Why do women forge into relationships with guys that have huge CS obligations?  Why do they ignore the fact that the guy is running after his kids and at his Ex'es beck and call.. these things might be masked a little in the short term.. but you should have a full view of what your SO's obligations are and how he interracts with his EX and his kids.  

If he won't allow any insight?  keeps it all hidden.. there is a reason for that.. lol.. run.

Just looking at this from my DH’s situation.  His CS was actually very small when I met him (he was divorced before the DISO master was implemented in CA), and he and his ex were working well together on doing 50/50 time split.  It wasn’t until she got all hopped up on drugs and started getting arrested that she started withholding visitation and went after him for a CS increase.  During all that DH was able to get full custody, but only after Meth Mouth had been arrested a second time on felony charges, yes you read that right a second time.  This didn’t even include her pending felony case in another state, our state refused to even acknowledge that.   Despite facing several felony charges in our state and another DH had to fight to get custody and continue to fight to maintain it.  I know Meth Mouth has been in prison (not jail there is a difference) at least 4 times.  You would think going to prison the first time would be cause to pull all her rights and keep her away from her kids, NOPE! Instead, my DH had to go to court every 3-6 months to fight and prove he was shades above the better parent.  Now did DH or I foresee any of this happening?  Of course not, DH did not know he was going to have to spend thousands in court and attorney fees and end up paying out for back CS per an agreement they both made outside of court while things were still going well, and they were getting along.   But to be fair to your point had he been going through all of this, and I had just met him, no I would have not dated him at that point.

His kids and his ex wife and his ex dog. What a bad SP you are.  You now must post on boards telling everyone of you fallers of not be a disnnny parennnnt. LOL

NCPs are nearly invariably men.  For all of the reasons that ESMOD highlighted above. I also think that it is a systemic effort to redistribute money to the lower income side of the blended family balance sheet. We can't have the more affluent higher earning divorced parent getting the kids now can we?

IMHO, the higher earner should be the CP in most cases. Just because they are more able to provide for their kids, obtain childcare, set an example as a performing working adult, etc... Gender should get no consideration.

Even as the SO of the CP in our blended family world, I see that NCP men get screwed and that it is a concerted tactic by the courts.  There are a number of examples of deadbeat NCP BMs who have not paid in years and there are few if any consequences. While there are any number of NCP STalker dad spouses who get brutalized repeatedly by the courts and manipulative BM Xs.

An interesting epiphany that I learned during our court action years is that under the income shares model of CS, an NCP's CS will go up even if their income stays the same or even goes down and a CP's income goes up.  This was the case for us.  DW progressed through undergrad, grad school, a CPA certification, and a progressively higher income career. The SPermidiot br

ed his way to near poverty, naively avoided maximizing his earnings as a licensed plumber in the mistaken attempt to avoid increased CS due to being a high wage earner.

When CS was reviewed and DW's income had gone through the roof and the Spermidiot had hadded 3 more kids to his brood, while having no increase in income, his CS went way up.  The income shares model sums the total income of both BPs, determines parenting time, then divides the income available for the support of the child who is the subject of the CO and divides the share of income between both BPs accordingly asigning a CS amount that the NCP owes to the CP.  

He got brutalized in that deal even though it was DW's income that was 400%+ higher than his and he was breeding dependents like they were rabbits.

The system is most definately biased against dads.  Whether the dad is the CP or NCP.  BMs have seemingly an eternal get out of jail free card in the whole mix.  If the NCP they can get way with not paying. If the CP, they can get away with not surrendering the kid pe the visitation schedule.

Giving custody preference to the higher earning BP would drive a huge shift in fairness and motivate everyone to up their earning game to gain custodial preference and would benefit the kids because there would be more resources for their support on both sides/in both of their homes.

This would also reduce brutalizing the higher earning NCPs because the CP would have an increased income and a higher % of support resources that depending on the State formula would relieve some of the ridiculous demands on the lower earning NCPs resources.

Though the CS in the CO we lived under  was a pittance for 10yrs, the process was so incredibly biased toward my CP DW even as she took a huge income lead over the NCP Spermidiot.  The more she earned, the more he paid.

DW had full physical and legal custody at birth. Likely due to no stated paterinity when SS was born. Paternity and CS was ordered just before SS turned 1yo.  A whopping $110/mo. DW was working at DQ part time and a full time HS student for SS's first year of life so the Spermidiot was the much higher earner as a landscaping laborer.

Playing around with various States' online CS calculators is very interesting. Entering various Parent A, Parent B, custody time numbers and seeing how CS changes.  Nearly all  of the ones I have explored severly impact the NCP even when it is the CP who is the significantly higher earner. That is for States that use the Income Shares or Melson Formula models.  Melson is a modified more complex Income Shares method and is significantly more complicated than the basic Income Shares model.  

% of Income Formula States are far simpler as they set CS as a fixed % of the NCP's income.  The CP's income isn't even considered. The NCP still gets brutalized but the model is far more direct. There are two versions of the % of Income model.  Fixed % and variable %. Fixed is what it is from an income chart.  The variable version is for NCPs who have variable incomes.  Instead of just a single data point tthey look at a number of years of NCP income and set CS using a normalized income based on the multi-year analysis.