Separation - advice pls, esp on joint residency and splitting time between us

[Rubineski]

Hi everyone,

Well, never did I think the day would come when I'd be posting about this! After a few years of denial and walking around in a fog, I am now going for it alone.

DP - oh sorry, can't get used to this - exDP is a lovely guy. No abuse, no awful stuff. But just not right for me.

So am setting up in rented house just round the corner. This home will continue - to provide continuity for DS and also to allow exDP some breathing space to decide what he wants to do. We are switching to interest only mortgage and i am still paying half of it (gulp!).

We have always done joint parenting and I'd like this to continue. The following questions come up though:

• is there a legal thing we need to do for joint residency (is that even the right term?), even though we're not using courts for anything else and are sorting stuff reasonably amicably?

• should one home still be the main home - for school, dr's, anything else? I know we can designate the tax credits to me.

• what is the best arrangement for sharing time with our 6 yr old DS? We were looking at a week each but others have said that's too long for a little boy to go without his mummy. It would be more straight forward in practical terms and avoid the shunting around back and forth. But is a week a really long time for a six year old? Will he feel I've walked out on him?

• advice on what to say when I tell DS?

Phew! And don't even get me started on the finances. I'll save that for another day!

Thanks. xxx

As you have a good relationship with your exDP, the good thing is that you can experiment a bit to find out what works.

You don't need to make any legal arrangements for joint residency, but you might want to consider putting something in writing for yourselves, so that you're both clear about your expectations.

I don't think there's a problem about which address you use, once you're clear with each other about sharing the information relating to your DS.

About the arrangements, I think a week each would be fine provided that DS can get to see the other parent during that time. Being so physically close is an advantage.

Not sure what to tell DS, other than to reassure him that he'll continue to see both of you very often.

Might be worth taking a look at some of this info: www.cafcass.gov.uk/publications/leaflets_for_adults.aspx

Trying link again: downloadable leaflets

why are you moving out and not him?

Were you married? If so, you already both have Joint Residence - if not, it may be worth making sure you sort out PR for your ex (if your DS was born before PR became automatic for unmarried fathers on the birth certificate)

Definitely worth getting something written down about how the split (of the child's time) is to be managed, how communication is going to work, holidays, etc etc. Advance planning is the key to avoiding a lot of stress, I think.

I have heard of couples who make the family/marital home the base and move in and out themselves, so the child stays in the same house. Would that be too far out of the box for you? (It would for me, but I have heard of it working)

Week-on, week-off can work fine for 6yos but it does depend somewhat on the situation and the child. If it does become an issue then consider having Wednesday afternoon as additional time with that week's "non-res" parent. Regular phone contact will help, too. Think also about what you'd do for birthdays, Christmas, mother's day / father's day etc.

It helps if there's as little stuff that needs to be moved from home to home each week. This might mean doubling-up on school uniforms etc but it does make the transition easier on your child. It also helps that both homes will be so close to deal with those "I left xxx at the other house!" moments.

It does make life easier if there is one "official" home for documentary purposes, but do ask the school to keep both addresses and all contact numbers on record. You could possibly argue this point with them as if you had court-ordered Shared Residency then the child would officially have two residencies but I'm not sure the benefit's worth the effort.

As mmmred says, if you both have PR then you will effectively have joint residency already. A court order wouldn't make any significant difference and it's quite likely a court wouldn't bother making any order if you're both in agreement anyway. If your ex doesn't have PR then do get that sorted out.

Finally, I'd also strongly recommend putting it all down in writing. When I split with my ex we did two separate written agreements - one for residency/contact and one for finances. They're not legally binding but it does mean that everyone knows where they stand.

DH and I have joint residency with DSD's Mum. She is 5 and we have had a week on/week off arrangement, it works really well. DSD is incredibly happy with this. DSD's Mum is not, she only wants DH to have DSD every other weekend, despite her reluctance it generally works well.

As DH and she couldn't agree, they went to mediation and they suggested that they give the arrangement a try, that was a year ago. She initially suggested 3-4 days then swap and DSD got incredibly confused as she never knew where she was IYSWIM. There is nothing in writing, it just bumbles along as is.

Nobody pays any maintenance to anyone, we all just cover our own costs and jointly cover extras such as school trips etc. DSDs Mum gets the child benefit and tax credits for DSD, only fair as she has childcare costs and we don't. When I was working and we had childcare costs, she just included our costs in her TC claim and gave the extra to after school club that we both used.

Don't know if any of this is helpful?

Oh, also DSD speaks to the 'other parent' every night before bed, I am not sure this helps TBH, I think it depends on the individual child.

It definitely helps if you can both agree on everything without solicitors/courts involvement.

All kids are different and ultimately only you can know what is right for your DS. But thought you might like to hear my perspective as my parents divorced when I was little and, looking back, I really wish they had done things differently.

I lived mainly with my mum and saw my dad every other weekend. That was way too long and made the transitions much harder - I used to get incredibly anxious when my mum dropped me off (sometimes she'd have to come and pick me up again!), and would suffer a lot from being away from her even just for the weekend. My dad was a great dad and I really loved him, but those long stretches of time (2 weeks) away from him made it hard to maintain the bond.

BTW it's brilliant you are planning to live near each other - my dad moved away so that made things harder too. There was never that sense you could just drop in to say hi if you felt like it - contact with parents followed the calendar rather than my needs.

I think it would have worked a lot better if they had stayed living close to each other, and if the transitions had been every couple of days. Also echo what others have said about phone calls - I don't remember my parents doing anything to help me "stay connected" with the absent parent. They had a bad relationship so it was probably easiest for them to minimise their contact with each other, pretend the other didn't exist etc.

It sounds like you will have a big advantage here - I'm sure being able to work cooperatively with your xDP will make things a lot, lot easier for your DS!

Good luck!!