I have seen a lot of posts about shared custody lately.
To those separated families:
What arrangement do you have? Have you always had it or have you tried different ways?
No judgement. No one answer is right. Families are different in each case.
Shared custody
Shared custody
Posted in:
Relationships & Marriage, Parenthood Guilt, Baby & Toddler, Kids
3 Replies
When my ex actually lives in the same town (he chases money all over the country with different jobs every few months) he has our two boys overnight, one night a week - when he isn't making up an excuse as to why he cant have them.
I try to (softly) encourage more time as my boys have become quite attached to my partner over the last 8 months (as in leaving their Dad out of everything 'family' at school and replacing him with my partner, paintings, drawings, fathers day stall etc.) and because of this I think they need more time with their Father, but he's not interested.
Some people may see nothing wrong with that, but when your 4 and 6 year old are buying things for your partner and not their Father at a Fathers Day stall, I think its sad.
I left a dv relationship with my kids and in the beginning they wanted NOTHING to do with their father. I mean literally, they would cry when they had to spend the initial 3 hours / fortnight with him or speak to him on the phone 2 x per week.
I changed the phone calls to FaceTime calls and over time, they got more and more used to the idea of "daddy time". The time they've spent with him also slowly increased and they now spend one night with him per fortnight (but 2 full days) and their FaceTime can go for an hour or more on those 2 days per week.
They love my partner and their father equally now and buy gifts for both on Father's Day etc.
I think you're doing the right thing by encouraging them but at the end of the day, it's up to your ex to put the effort in too!
I have 2 Dad's to deal with. One is fantastic, he basically has free access to our kids providing it doesn't impact on their school time (he lives in another town 4 hours away). Public holidays and school holidays even if there's a student free day he will come and get them. However he did slip up once so I now have CSA collect child support. That's the only 'official' thing we have. The other one... The sperm donor.. Has nothing to do with our children. He walked away and never looked back. Hasn't even bothered to meet our youngest. Has never kept in contact. I want nothing to do with him and neither do our kids.