My ex, another woman, and I agreed in principle to have joint custody of our two children, ages 13 and 11. We were legally married in 2008 after 13 years of living together, before Prop 8 was passed and our marriage is still valid.
We have not filed for separation or divorce to date. We have been living apart since June 2013. We agreed to a schedule of the kids spending the 2nd and 4th weekends and if there was a 5th weekend with me. During the school year one or both kids would spend weekdays with me on an ad hoc basis, that changed weekly, no constant. Some weekdays they would not stay with me. While my ex was out of town once they spent 5 consecutive weekdays with me.
We also agreed to split expenses for the children, not contest community property and each be responsible for the expenses in our individual homes. My ex did not work outside of the home for 5 years and I was the sole financial provider during that time.
Both kids have called crying at various times saying they miss me and want to spend more time with me. Since the start of this academic year they have stayed with my ex during the school week. My son, age 11, has stated that he wants to live with me full-time. My daughter has asked to spend a week night alone with me.
I moved out and live close to my ex, done intentionally and I am close to my daughter’s school.
The kids spent this weekend with me and I did a drop off at their other home Sunday night. After the drop off I sent the following text to my ex: “[Teenager] would like to spend Tuesday night. I can pick her up at 7pm and get her to school W. Is that ok? Also [boy] would like to spend a night solo too. Thoughts?”
Her response: “I am sticking to our regular schedule. Too disruptive otherwise. [Teenager] has testing all week.”
One thing I have learned in this process is to not react and respond immediately to her communiques. So I didn’t respond at all.
Two hours later I received a text from her: “[Boy] is trying to reach you.” I did respond that I would call him. I called him and he was hysterical and stated that the only thing that would calm him down was if he could live with me full-time.
My ex got on the phone and said in essence in front of the boy that she told him we could not decide on a schedule and that the judge would have to help us figure it out.
After the conversation I received the following text from my ex: “One night that could work for [boy] is Friday night.” There was more texting about disrupting his school schedule and I did not respond to the text.
I don’t think that the kids should decide with whom they stay, but clearly this transition is not working and seems “disruptive” to me. So to me the solution seems clear, he should stay with me during the week and perhaps that would be less disruptive. But clearly this is not a “conversation” I can have with my ex. I am reluctant to let the courts or more accurately a mediator decide on what to do, but clearly that is the next step. I will file for divorce and get the process started.
In my rush for marriage equality I did not think about the consequences of divorce and child custody issues. However, either way this would have ended up in family court. I have been talking to other separated parents about how they handle the physical custody aspect. I realize every circumstance is different, but support is needed.
I will continue to write and use this forum for support.
Love, peace, compassion and blessings.
As I watch the (appeals) court opinions roll in, it appears that gay marriage will be a reality sooner rather than later. Congrats… and now you need to think about the realities of marriage. One of my hopes is that the gender biases that are inherent in the system will start to go away when the courts are faced with same sex couples. Not so easy to rule in mom’s favor automatically when there are two of them. I suspect that there will be common ground with the father’s rights campaigns that pushing to remove gender bias and strongly encouraging presumptive joint physical custody.
I think you’ve discovered one of the common themes that I found in my support group. There are parents (usually mom) who think it is important for the kids to have stablity, which translates to less time with the other parent. The other parent(usually dad) thinks that the value of time spent with the kids outweighs the “disruption” (if there really is one). Across the board, the ones who thought it was better to minimize the other parents time were certain that it would never apply to them. It was my ex-wife to a T and boy did she get a big surprise.
I have sole custody of our kids. My wife gets every Wednesday from after school until 8PM and every other Friday from after school until 8PM and Saturday from 8AM to 8PM (no over nights). Now that she has her act together, I plan to add overnights on the weekend and if that goes well, increase it to “extened weekends” – Friday after school to Monday drop off at school, while keeping the mid-week visit as a visit, not an overnight. My thought is that the long weekend gives more time with minimal impact on the school night stablity. If that goes well, I’d like to make summer be every other week with a mid week visit (dinner) with the other parent.
Your concept of a monthly schedule is a bit confusing to me. Because months start on differnet days of the week, my plan and most plans that I know about are on a two week rotation. In my case, our agreement has a start date and everything is calculated from there. When you do it that way, there are 13 “28 day/4 week months” in a year. One of the gals in my support group is on a four week rotation. Her ex has the kids every Thursday night and three extended weekends (Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights) in the four week period.
As your kids get older, they will have different needs. They may wish to spend more time with one parent or the other. It may really be that they want to spend more time at the home rather than favoring a parnent. Better stuff or closer to friends. As they get older, they are less and less about the parents and more and more about friends and x-box. It sounds like you are in California, which as I understand it favors 50/50 physical custody. The courts will probably be supportive of your efforts, it will be up to you two to find a plan that fits. It think that you are finding that the “liberal visitation” aspect isn’t working. You may just have to divide the time up and agree to be flexable on important things.
Best of luck to you and your family in working this all out.
X
@XdeRubicon, seriously? You are a father with full custody of his children yet you spout the old, “gender bias” in the family court system? Seems there was no bias in your case. I guess you are the exception, right?
And, as far as Elizabeth having anything in common with hate spewing father’s rights groups, let’s hope not. She is still a MOTHER after-all. What in the world will family court judges do when two fathers end up in a custody battle? With that rampant “gender bias” I can only imagine how that would be handled. Wherever will they find mothers for those poor children?!?!
I appreciate your attempts to tell us women folk how custody or, divorce in general should be dealt with BUT, I’m getting frustrated with your need to use terms such as “usually mom” or, “usually dad” when describing negative/positive aspects of divorcing or divorced parents. This is a site for divorced women. If we can police ourselves and not make gender specific assertions about men in our articles and blogs, surely you can do the same in the comments section.
In the future, please refrain from insinuations about gender biases and negative traits based on gender.
Oh dear. I spouting and lecturing the ladies. Certainly not my intent. Sounds like gender bias in the courts is a hot button issue for you. I wasn’t trying to run the author down or suggest she join some hate group. I’m actually quite sympathetic to her situation.
You can believe that there’s not gender bias in the family court system, but I don’t. Is it as bad as it once was, of course not. You can tell that from the changes that have been made over the years. Each one less bias, but in doing so, show that the last supposedly non-biased set of laws was actually biased. From what I can see, it’s getting better. Now that the supreme court has effectively legalized same sex marriage, which will surly result in some same-sex divorces, the gender biases will have to go away even more precisely because they will be faced with to moms or two dads in family court. My whole point. They are not going to take the kids from the two dad family and go find them a mom, they are going to have to make decisions that deal with them as parents. If you know any same sex couples, then you know that breakups can be brutal and they have few protections under the law.
I’m curious, what would your advice have been for me. My soon to be ex was unwilling to share custody and was likely going to move. Just blindly assume that all was fair and hope for the best? I certainly don’t have sole custody of our kids because cause the family court system is gender blind. I have sole custody of the kids because I had a very good legal team who understood those biases made sure that I was able to defend myself and my relationship with my children. A large part of the process as going point by point and looking at it from a mom point of view. We didn’t spend a minute on my positive fatherly traits. I honestly was only hoping to fight her to a draw and get her to share parenting with me. I was fortunate that my ex wife made several major mistakes including two DUI’s, one with the kids in the car, and she lied to the custody evaluators. Maybe we’ll get to the point where a judge will use a coin toss to choose whether the good mom or the good dad gets custody. The sooner the better, but to believe it’s today is a bit of a stretch. Certainly a risk for dads to blindly hope to be treated fairly.
Well anyway, too much typing my original post and probably to much in this one as well. I found this site because some of its articles get picked up in the news feeds that I follow. While they are far from gender agnostic, they are generally pretty good. As a single dad, the “mom” articles are a better fit for my situation than the dad focused one because there are so few dads who have sole custody of their kids.
Wow, Elizabeth, it sounds complicated. Mine is 50/50 but we birdnest and the kids aren’t that disrupted. That said, the kids still would rather be with me during the school week, and I have no idea how it will work when this comes to an end. I’m sorry your ex isn’t more understanding and helpful.
I’m glad you posted!
Hi Elizabeth, welcome to Divorced Moms and the world of divorce. It sounds like your wife has already spoken to a divorce attorney or is getting bad advice from someone who enjoys stirring up conflict. The sad thing is, there is nothing you can do if she is hell-bent on causing a high conflict divorce. Nothing other than what you are already doing, that is. Keep taking the high road, for your sake and that of your children.
I am about to enter a very similar situation. It sounds like you and she only need to sit together to talk freely and define each other’s concept of ‘disruptive’ and weigh pros and cons, together. maybe you will find the child’s wishes to be acceptable? maybe come up with a trial situation for the month of october and be willing to tweak things as they come up during the month? all my best.
I feel really bad for what you are going through- it seems like you guys are caught between letting he kids decide or battling it out legally. Really (I’m sure you know this) it should be a discussion and decision between you and your ex ad it’s so frustrating when attorneys are used to decide what is in best cases decided by parents. Maybe you could calm this down by trying an interim step of using other “neutral” professionals such as a divorce coach or child specialist or find a mediatior/attorney with a family orientation (more collaborative-ish).
Hoping things will turn around, K