The parent who does not have custody may still have what are called guardianship rights. Guardianship of a child is the right to have a say in major decisions about how the child is brought up, for instance which school they go to or which religion they should follow. If you cannot agree, then the parent who has custody is obviously in a stronger position to decide on what will happen to the child. If you and your husband can agree on who should have custody of your children, then as long as the court is happy with the arrangements you have made to take care of them, it will agree with what you have decided. Mostly, but not always, this means that custody will go to the mother by consent.
Consent means by the agreement of both the mother and father and with the approval of the court.
It will do this by looking at what is in the best interests of the child. It is important to understand that when the Court is deciding who should have custody of a child it is not interested in hearing arguments about who is at fault, or who is to blame for breaking up the marriage or home. Because the court is only looking at what is best for the child, it has the power to take them away from their parents if it decides that the parents are not able to look after the child properly and someone else would look after the child better. If the court decides to do this it will put the child in the care of a legal guardian , someone who would like to have custody of the child. This might be the child's grandparents.