A Parental Shift

In the not-too-distant past, most custody agreements provided that the children would live with mom, and dad would enjoy “visitation” on alternate weekends, and perhaps one evening each week. But nowadays I am seeing more and more “shared” parenting arrangements where the children spend a significant amount of time each week with each parent.

I suspect this is partly because dad has become more involved in the lives of his children and does not accept the concept of being only a “weekend” parent. In addition, mom wants to continue to share parenting duties with dad in order to have some time for herself. And while this has had mostly positive benefits for everyone, especially the children, it has created an additional financial challenge for the parents to resolve.

While the children might have a primary residence for school purposes, they are going to be spending a great deal of time at the residence of each parent. As a result, both parents want to establish a home that the children will be comfortable being in, during the time they are living with that parent.

The problem with this, of course, is cost! It is simply much more expensive to establish two comparable residences than it was to keep one main residence for the “custodial” parent, and a small apartment for the children to stay at when they were “visiting” the other parent.

So how are parents making this work? I find myself spending a lot of time with couples looking at their budgets, trying to figure out how they can reduce their spending and increase their disposable income, so that they can afford to live separately in comparable housing. This often requires the couple to make some difficult financial decisions such as:

• “Can I stop my 401(k) contribution for a few years until I can better afford it?”
• “Do I really need a $200 cable TV bill each month?”
• “How can I reduce the amount of money spent on entertainment or other non-essential expenses?”
• “Do I need to find a part time job or increase my work hours?”

The bottom line: Figuring out how to live separately on the same income that was often hard to live on together is a real challenge. For most couples, spending thousands of dollars on a legal battle between attorneys is not the answer. Instead, why not sit down with an experienced divorce mediator who can help you figure out what needs to be done so you can each provide your children with a similar home environment and minimize the financial impact a divorce will have on everyone?