Custody battles can be one of the toughest and most painful aspects of a divorce but what can you do if your spouse takes off with the children?  Host Lee Rosen and attorney Holly Gray discuss the options that one can take with regards to child custody.  They also answer listener questions about cohabitation during separation.

According to two recent studies, over half of out-of-wedlock babies born in the U.S. are born to women who live with the fathers of their children. Cohabitating couples are on the rise and as more couples live together before marriage an increasing number of them are having children.

How do you think child custody cases should be treated concerning children of cohabitating couples?

A recent study by the Pew Research Center revealed that the percentage of unwed mothers have ballooned from 5.3% in 1960 to 36.8% in 1995. However, the faces of these mothers are drastically changing. Before, most unwed mothers were teenagers without any support from their partner. Now, the image has shifted to 30 and 40-year-olds career women—often times living with their partners.

Along with this rise in out-of-wedlock birthrates, cohabitation is becoming more prevalent—nearly half of adults from 30-40 having lived in a cohabiting relationship.

With the rise in both statistics—is it safe to assume that cohabitation is a likely cause for the ballooning birth rate? Could it also indicate a general change in societies’ perception of whether marriage is a significant part of child-raising?

The law in N.C. prohibiting cohabitation was enacted in 1805. It’s hard to imagine that such an outdated law would still be valid some 200 years later. N.C. House bill 132 was recently filed to repeal this statute. Some say by abolishing this law you are basically support adultery.

Last I heard cohabitation by unmarried couples is also still illegal in Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.

Yesterday, Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford of New Bern, North Carolina struck down a North Carolina law that makes unmarried couples living together illegal.

In North Carolina, according to an 1805 law, if a couple is not married and cohabitates, they are guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor. Cohabitation by unmarried couples is also still illegal in Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.