Support for the self-employed breadwinner and homemaker

[Divorcesuedenim]

There must be divorcing people with my problem and I can’t work out how to handle it. I’m looking for support groups to help me deal with my position and I welcome your recommendations.

I’m a wife and mother of two primary-school kids and the breadwinner. STBXH converted his working life to work from home and support me in my career after we had children. He earns much less but works full-time and is always available to do pick ups, drop offs, sick days, etc, so I could be out of the house at the crack of dawn and back at the kids’ bedtime. I travel far and wide for work and am self-employed.

Now we are divorcing I cannot work out how I can share the childcare 50/50 and also work as I did to be able to pay for a smaller house (in SÉ England) near our old house where STBXH will stay with the children, and retain a similarish lifestyle. I’m absolutely not willing to do alternate weekends and a weekly overnight as it’s far too little and I’ll miss caring for my children far too much (and they’ll miss me a lot), but even if I do 5 or 6 nights a fortnight having to do the school run on the handover day means I’ll be working half-time if I can’t work from home (which is a real possibility with my job). I do a “prestigious” job in a highly competitive profession and my identity and self-worth is tied into my job - you have to fight to get into it and I’ve been doing it for decades. I can’t imagine doing anything else, work wise, and believe me, I’ve tried to envisage it,

My STBXH will receive maintenance from me, but after that I’m going to have to downsize and will still have a massive mortgage and bills to pay. I’m terrified I won’t be able to manage it.

I’m looking to understand how other breadwinner mothers have managed this. A number of my divorced colleagues have told me they specifically chose to wait until their kids were at university before instigating the divorce so they didn’t have to find themselves in the state I’m in. I don’t have that luxury available. Is there anyone who has been through this and what have you done to get through?

what is your question exactly? If you want to share 50:50 then you will have to design your work around it. You might have to adjust your expectations of what you can achieve.

Personally, I have a small house which is affordable and this takes the pressure off me earning (also self employed small business owner).

Why is your ex staying in the old house? Could it be sold and both of you downsize? Wouldn’t that be better than you losing out on time with your children just so that you can pay maintenance for them to stay in the house? They’re only little for a short time and you can ramp up work when they’ve left for uni.

Could you nest? (Only advisable if very amicable)

If you can’t afford a nanny or similar for childcare the you will have to find a way to reduce your hours. My job wasn’t as ‘prestigious’ as yours, but when we split exDH didn’t want 50/50 meaning I got the kids full time so ultimately I had to change jobs and industries to get something that paid more and had more flexible hours for school. I loved my old job but obviously being a mum took priority and I don’t regret it.

Most people who divorce cannot continue their old lifestyles fully based on having to provide 2 homes not 1

obviousky we don’t know the asset £ or noth your respective earnings but the principles will be

he needs to maximise his earnings if not already
you will need to choose to have less time with children or less time at work or pay for a nanny and work out which you are prepared to do
if you had 50:50 there’d be no child maintenance due
can the fmh be sold and ex ( and you ) downsize
can he afford the fmh mortgage and bills alone? Is your equity being released now or later?

ultimately it’s rare for lifestyles to remain the same.
you need to work out your compromises

This is what id be facing if we divorced....hopefully not on the cards!!!

Practically id be looking at live in au pairs.
Why you not use breakfast club, a CM or similar for school run and after school?

Presumably he keeps the house, so you keep your pension? Could you change this and either you keep the house or sell it?

You adjust your life style. For a while I was in a one bedroom flat with two children. Even now I sleep in the living room.

How amicable are you with ex? One of my kids spends 50% of overnights with his dad but is actually only out of the house 7pm-6am. I could be very difficult and insist ex source the childcare on those days but because I'm home anyway and we have a good coparenting relationship I've not argued. Would you ex accept a similar arrangement? Frame it as what is best for the children continuity of care

Basically the only option. Is a nanny. Actually my ex and I shared the nanny so it worked out well as we employed her FT and had the kids 50 50 and she helped do the transitions from house to house as well as providing continuity.
In your position, either you have to find a nanny that is prepared to work part time or job share with someone else or you'll have to organise work a bit differently.
I basically did all my major travel when I did not have the kids. As I knew the schedule was fixed, it just meant when client wanted to schedule meetings or whatever I'd just be like ... ok I can't do that day but how about this day?
It's just another factor in scheduling. Of course the odd time something urgent came up or couldnt be accomodated in the schedule and then it's a case of asking ex or nanny to help.
ifyou truly can't organise things to accommodate a very fixed schedule then that will make it hard. You may need to accept less than 50 50. Perhaps doing some evening dinners or something mid week.

Thank you all for your thoughts. Ex and I do get on and he says that he anticipates he still do fetching and carrying after we’re in separate homes, but we’ve yet to go head to head on the minutiae of the finances and there are particular points where one of us is going to have to capitulate - something neither of us is very good at doing. He’s anti nanny or au pair - he wants a parent available (and I have seen from colleagues that both Nannies and au pairs can be unreliable / go sick / resign at inconvenient times and cause lots of problems). This is why when we had kids he gave up his well-paid job in the city and started his own business. If I were to engage an au pair / nanny he’d start a dispute about my ability to provide proper care for the kids and I can’t face that. But he also needs his own time and not be doing most of the childcare. He has his own business to run which would be seriously affected if he didn’t have time without the kids.

We use wraparound care from 7.30 am to 6pm anyway but often for me that’s not long enough when I have to travel for work. I often have to leave around 6.30am and get back around 8pm. On other days I WFH. My diary changes all the time and nothing is fixed. So it may be I’d be dropping off at his to do the school run, but I don’t want to have to burden him with that often.

He’d keep the house because we are fortunate enough to afford to keep a familiar base for the kids and he can afford to take over the mortgage and bills. I’ll be waiting for my share for about 10 years.

As far as maintenance is concerned, I know as a matter of law that even with 50-50 care I’d be paying some child maintenance because of the level of my income (as it currently is at least). The child maintenance service formula won’t apply for us. I have to factor that in.

After writing my post I started to have some clarity and am putting a plan in place with the help of some colleagues to alter the way I structure my work, which I hope will be sustainable, progressive and open up new avenues. I hope it will result in a model of practice that those finding themselves in a similar situation in my sector could emulate. I also have to remind myself that if my diary says I’m unavailable for whatever reason (other professional or personal commitments) those who expect me to be present for a particular event usually have to work around it. I might be all right. I might…

I don't know what sector you're in but for years I worked in consultancy and so it was a case of whatever client asks you do.
After I went back to work post DC of course I couldn't be as flexible as before, and I got good advice to focus on what you can do not what you cant.
So rather than say, "oh sorry I can't travel to Newcastle every week for this project." You say " this project sounds great. I can travel to Newcastle on xx and yy days, I'll be there at 10am so let's get our meetings scheduled in for 1130" or whatever. The point is describe what works not apologise for what doesn't work, most of the times people are fine with it.

The whole benefit of divorce is not having to agree with your ex. If you need a nanny to help with your parenting situation that’s your decision to make. He doesn’t have to agree or even like it. His responsibility is to make his own arrangements for when they are with him.

I would get an au pair to help with the school runs? Or a child minder?

Your ex doesn’t get a say in how you arrange your life around your time with the children.

You can’t leave an Au Pair in sole charge though, especially not leaving the country.

We do need to co-operate though. I still need him to help me out and vice versa and we need to work together for the sake of the children. They need to see we can get on with each other.

Seems like your ex gets to not change anything while you make all the sacrifices

You sound like my ex husband, he wanted 50/50 but didn't want to adjust his working pattern for pick ups and drop offs. Just carry on working as normal whilst having the kids 50/50. You are living in a dream world.

I think you need to be self sufficient, my ex was always trying to swap days with me. No thanks, you so your time and I will do mine.

Yes, I’m in the typical male role and note how unjust it feels when you were de facto sharing care when together and will struggle to do so when apart while also trying to ensure that your children don’t miss out financially in both houses. Because the kids come first and need to have everything as normal as possible. Separation itself is devastating enough for them as it is.

I don’t intend to swap days. I don’t want to have to call him up for help. But he has volunteered to help me out on the crossover days (collecting from school so I can pick up later from him and letting me drop off early so I can get to work on the return to him day) so I / we all aren’t too negatively impacted.

When he goes away for work (which he does for a week at a time a couple of times a year during term time) I’ll help him out by having the kids full-time for that too. As I’ve always done.

Basically you pay someone to do what your ex did in terms of childcare (which enabled you to work) or you adjust your lifestyle to accommodate your kids.

You can't have 50/50 and your current job as it is.

Something has to give.

Is having a nanny in the best interests of the children? I would have thought him having them more than 50% and you paying more maintenance would be more in the children's interests than a nanny. Or is it him pushing for 50/50?

What age are your DC? What time do they go to bed? If you're often not back until 8pm and they're in bed or heading for bed by then, I think that, sadly, you have to accept that 50:50 isn't in their best interests, at least not for the next couple of years.
Can you afford to stay locally? What seems to have worked best amongst my friends' DC/my DCs' friends (lower/mid secondary age) is where the children are able to walk between each of the parent's houses. They have set nights for staying at a particular house but what happens between about 3.30 and 7ish depends on which parent is around and the DC make their own way between houses. This requires a lot of communication between the parents but they seem to have managed it even where there have been really acrimonious divorces. Is this something that might be an option for you?

This is likely and possible. Thank you. It’s what we’re aiming to do. One is old enough to walk between the two. The other isn’t, but will be in a couple of years.

To the poster above, no, it’s not him that’s pushing for 50/50. I’m really struggling with not potentially seeing the children everyday, but recognise there has to be that separation. It’s possible we do 6/8 in his favour in term time every fortnight. It still means I have to be around for the drop off evening and the drop to school morning, but he’s volunteered to have them for me to pick up from him and drop off to him before the school run.

i hope we’ll get there. Feeling more optimistic than when I initially posted. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.