Separated and sorting through the mess

[Ready2Change]

so we are working on trying to insert some time in there during those gaps.

I have a dinner visit midweek...IE the kids come to my house for 3 hours during mothers parenting time and go to mothers house for 3 hours during my parenting time.



Current parenting plan:

Exchanges on Fridays. Kids go to off week parent from 5-8 on Tuesdays. During school season, they would go to offweek parent after school and then get dropped of at the On-week parents house. Was nice when they were younger and sitch was fresh.

[unchien]

R2C - How old are your kids? And how old were they when you started 50-50?

Glad the 7-7 with a mid-week dinner is working well for you and your kids. If we D, I think I prefer the 7-7 schedule over a 2-2-5-5 arrangement. All of these schedules have their pros and cons.

Our kids don't seem overly emotional during the handoffs, at least for now. I know sometimes people need to limit the number of handoffs to help their kids adjust.

My W still advocates for a family dinner from time-to-time. If we were D'd (or in process) it would be a hard no for me. And I know the advice here from the forum in my trial separation would be the same. I'm just sort of ... ambivalent about the whole thing? Maybe something to bring up in MC next time. I don't know if the family time thing is good for our kids right now because it must be confusing. Limbo affects the kids too...

I felt like 50-50 would be more disruptive to our kids right now than I was comfortable with. I admit to feeling some incredibly strong guilt sometimes over not pressing for 50-50, but I do not feel like my W coerced me into it. Long-term if we go down the D path then 50-50 will be what I want. I know there may be legal battles to fight, etc. but I felt now was not the time to fight future battles that may not materialize. But if somebody asked me "Why are you not doing 50-50?" I would immediately feel put on the defensive and every reason I give could be countered.

I heard on a podcast yesterday that guilt is the most selfish emotion one can feel. Maybe I need to explore that.

[Ready2Change]

D5/S7/S9 at start.... D16/S18/S20 now...


The mid week dinner visit also allowed me long/short days each week. My Boss was flexible.

[AnotherStander]

U- I is/ was in a weekly split with my XW similar to R2C's. My kids were 9, 15 and 17 at the start. They're 16, 22 and 24 now. Both D's are out on their own, XW and I still swap S16 back and forth.

My brother did a 2-3-2 split with his XW. He and the kids really hated it. The kids were living out of suitcases all the time. The constant swaps meant neither parent could track homework assignments very well. The odd number of days meant they weren't even swapping on the same day each week. They were constantly wrestling with coordinating where to pickup/ drop off because the kids were in activities (tumbling, football, etc.) I asked him about it early on in my S and that was a big reason I talked XW into the weekly split. XW and I both agreed 7 days was a long time to go without seeing the kids, so like R2C we agreed that we would incorporate one evening a week for the other parent to have the kids for dinner or a movie or whatever (when we D'd we wrote that into the agreement). In actuality we rarely used it because as it turned out, we both saw the kids quite a bit even on our "off" weeks because of school and after-school activities.

I really feel that the weekly split is beneficial in these situations. Homework rarely spans a weekend so it allows you to track the kids' work on your week and not worry about it on your spouse's. It also allows for a leisurely handoff on the weekend. We did Sunday evening handoffs, sometimes we would have dinner together with the kids to ease the transition.

[TBSakaJ9]

My xw and I do 50/50 Sunday to Sunday and there has been no issues outside of kids getting adjusted to not seeing the other parent as much. We dont have anything written in our D agreement for week night visits but my xw and I are open enough to get them from each other when we want and they have their activities through the week as AS described so it really never is a full week.

[DejaVu6]

My STBXH and I have 50/50 custody. Currently we do a 2-2-3 schedule starting on Mondays. When school is in session, the kids are home every day as they are within walking distance of my house and their grandmother is here. Their dad picks them up as soon as he can. He’s a teacher so they are usually at my house for an hour. We also have an arrangement where he drives our D11 to her tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings regardless of who has them and I or my sister picks her up and takes her to school. He also takes her to her speech therapy appointment on Fridays after school. The suitcase scenario is not an issue as my kids have clothes at both places so don’t need to take things back and forth. So far, so good although I’ve told the kids that if it starts to be too much, we would look at doing a schedule with fewer changeovers. My D11 has made a few comments that indicate she may want something different but her twin brother has said he is happy with how things are. That could change over time but for now it is working reasonably well. My STBXH and I have also been really flexible if either of us needs the other one to take them outside of our schedule which helps.

[AnotherStander]

U- I is/ was in a weekly split with my XW similar to R2C's. My kids were 9, 15 and 17 at the start. They're 16, 22 and 24 now. Both D's are out on their own, XW and I still swap S16 back and forth.

Oh my gosh, "I is". Wow my grandmother would knock me on the head if she saw that Too late to edit now, hope you all can forgive the grammatical error, and you too Mimi if you're looking down now

[Maika]

I also have a 50/50 split and we do a 2-2-3 schedule like DV. This allows both of us to see the kids during a calendar week and we get alternate weekends. We have flexibility and if we need to change somethings up, we do that. I find the 2-2-3 pretty good and its worked for us.

[Ready2Change]

My kids were involved in sports. X and I would both go to practices and games. I would interact with the other two kids that were not involved in the formal sport. Saw my kids almost daily during soccer and basketball season.

[SoTorn]

My exww and I do 50 50 with Sunday as the swap day. I live 5 minuted away so D16 drives her and S12 over. I wish I had full custody but I am satisfied with what we have. I also have a closet full of clothes for each kid.