Bird-nesting custody in divorce - examples or experiences?

July 21, 2018 9:34 PM

Suddenly facing divorce. One kid, age 14. Spouse suggests bird-nesting custody: kid stays in home, parents move in/out. Looking for experiences & sample agreements.

My wife has decided to end our marriage, blindsiding me. (Omitting many details here.) We have a 14-yo daughter. It's early (1 month in) so lots of decisions are upcoming, including housing/custody. Wife has suggested birds-nesting custody, where the kid stays in the home and the parents take turns moving in & out. I've read lots of general descriptions & advice about that, but I'd like to get more specifics from people who've done it, for better or worse.

(Yes, I have a lawyer. YANML.)

We own a 3-bedroom home (parents', kid's, guest room) in a neighborhood super-convenient to kid's school & both our jobs, with a recent renovation that's crafted the house to be a good fit for things important for all our lives. Neighborhood home prices have soared around us, so we have lots of equity in the house, but also couldn't afford to buy nearby separate kid-compatible homes on our own.

Neither wife nor I want to be the only parent who moves out. Neither can afford to buy out the other's equity via savings or refinancing. Our post-nup about the house commits both of us to contribute to mortgage payments, but calls for house to be sold & proceeds split in case of divorce (unless parties agree otherwise). Both our finances are such that we couldn't afford to pay for a solo home and keep up first home payments.

There are many factors to consider here, but some of the foreground ones for us are:
- We want the most stability & least stress for our kid. Keeping her in home, rather than shuttling, seems appealing.
- In many ways other than the divorce-precipitating issue, we work well together.
- A friend has moved out of her condo & has offered it to us rent-free (paying utilities only) for a few months.
- Wife has suggested that we both alternate between home & condo for short-term nesting, looking for a replacement for the condo for the next phase.
- Neither of us is dating anyone else, and I would not until the divorce is final.
- I think if we did it, we'd need to have a detailed agreement, beyond just child placement, specifying behavior at both sites.
- We'd sell the house by a year after the kid's HS graduation in 4 years.

The view from two lawyers (mine and another) is that nesting arrangements break down before long. Does anyone here have direct experience with nesting custody? I'd be glad to hear both good and bad stories. Online info from lawyers, mediators, therapists, & bloggers has been a helpful start, but I'm hoping for a more practical view from an insider. And does anyone know of sample or successfully completed nesting parental agreements? If you'd be willing to share yours privately, with my promise to keep it private, feel free to contact me via Mefi-mail.

posted by NumberSix to Human Relations (22 answers total)

I didn't experience this, but I was that age when my parents divorced, and this kind of arrangement would have been a godsend to me. Good on you both for putting your kids first. My parents did not, and we suffered for it.
posted by smoke at 12:15 AM on July 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

As a divorced person who has never nested, the hardest part from my perspective would be changing the schedule. More often than you'd guess, you need to switch by a few hours or a day because work, someone's health need, old friends wedding etc. If you need to change on short notice this may really mess with the other person and what they are able to plan.
posted by Kalmya at 2:58 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm a child of a moree traditional divorce, and I think the biggest challenge here is that while it may appeal now, it's a very difficult long-term set-up. You really need to consider how it's going to work not just when you start dating others but if re-marriage or children with your respective new partners occurs (even if you don't think it will happen now).

Understandably, you want a very specific divorce arrangement, but even though my parents had that initially, it kind of didn't work well in reality because there were too many variables.

I will also say my parents got, and still get along much better now than they did when they were married, but a big part of that was not being so involved in the other person's world like you are when you're married. I think part of what makes this type of arrangement hard to sustain is that it forces more direct interaction and it kind of assumes your relationship as co-parents won't fundamentally change. But it's going to. It doesn't matter if you get along pretty well, parenting as twp divocred people brings a totally different dynamic to the equation. Not necessarily a bad dynamic (much better in my case) but be ready for the fact that things you agree on today may change drastically as you naturally drift from one another during this process. Things can sound great in theory, but they don't always work well in reality. So I guess what I'm saying is, don't expect that how you and your wife feel right now, in this moment,, to be a stable predictor of how you will be as divorced co-parents.
posted by Aranquis at 4:23 AM on July 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

I admit I have never heard of "nesting" or this potential scenario. There are many things about it that feel potentially problematic. But I guess anything is possible if everyone commits to it, for your daughter's sake. And it's only for 4 years.

Why do you also have to share the side-condo? I can see this working but only if each parent has his/her own place. There is too much weirdness hanging over the premise that you and your wife would share a condo like roommates who work different shifts. Sure, things seem doable and non-fractious now; but anything can happen. I personally would not trust anyone in this scenario to maintain a "chinese wall" and leave my stuff alone, etc. I would never want to "accidentally" or even actually accidentally have any overlap or awkwardness arising from this arrangement, and it it seems tailor-made for it.

You say you and your spouse cannot each afford a house, but can you each afford the cost of an apartment on top of the shared costs of continuing to maintain the house? Can you get a HELOC and take out some of the equity in a shared way, so that each of you has a bit of financial cushion to smooth the path to finding and moving to your own apartment? The time to plan this stuff seems to be now, when (from your description) despite the suddenness, there seems to be a shared interest in keeping a level head and making the best decisions for all concerned.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:25 AM on July 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

As a child of a divorce and a divorcee myself, I think you would be better off divorcing and one of you live in the guest room and one in the master than the nesting. I think it is probably a neutral to a slight positive for the child, but you are then exchanging your current marital issues for a complicated and detailed legal document on how you each behave in each house. You are intertwining yourselves more rather than less. If each of you can provide a loving home, the child will thrive.
posted by AugustWest at 6:12 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Our family had a nesting arrangement. My parents swapped for about month at a time, a few times a year. I believe it lasted until we moved out. I liked it because I didn't have to work myself into someone else's schedule, my life and home rules were consistent, and there was no "Disneyland parent" vibe.

If the arrangement breaks down then you can revisit it, but particularly in the beginning of this process when things are changing and there are so many unknowns, your kid deserves as stable and familiar an environment as you can provide.
posted by stefanie at 6:19 AM on July 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

I know of one couple who successfully do this but they split due to falling out of love and remain close friends and have a very very amicable relationship. Both are even-tempered.

You can't control behaviour legally of an ex. If you think it would take a contact, it's already impossible. Nesting means someone else is in your space 50% of the time, you are in their space 50% of the time, you have to trust each other not to snoop, trash things and so on.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:24 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

My friend and his ex followed the nesting approach for the five-six years it took for their youngest to graduate from high school. They had a two bedroom apartment they used for the off-site times. In general, it worked, but only because both were meticulous about leaving both spaces perfect for the other. It got more complicated when they each started dating. The new love interests struggled to overcome mistrust and took on disproportionate burden re: overnight stays because neither my friend nor his ex-spouse wanted to use either the apartment or the house for that (both wound up with people who respected the decision to put the kids first). My friend found that he didn't really feel like he had a home, just multiple places where he could crash; it was the stress of being meticulous about not letting his personal stuff intrude on someone else in either the home or apartment or girfriend's place.

When the last kid graduated, my friend bought his ex-wife out, having used the time to save. He remarried and his new wife maintained her own home elsewhere for awhile for kid reasons. After her kid graduated they remodeled his house to erase its fraught history and lived there together. That went okay but the remodeling was key (new wife flips real estate and does it well). Both were happier when they eventually sold it and got a new place together. By this point, ten years had passed and my friend says he feels at home for the first time in a long time.
posted by carmicha at 6:25 AM on July 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

I should add that the arrangement worked well for the kids, but they were also already habituated to being in the home with only one parent because both travelled pretty regularly for work.
posted by carmicha at 6:35 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

So, this is a tiny data point but I rented out my room in my condo for 10 months to a divorcing couple who were planning this sort of arrangement -- the kids would stay in the house, the parents would alternate between the house and my condo. The other room in the condo was already rented out to someone else. Reports (not formal reports, just, we are friends and sometimes we chat) from the other roommate suggest that over the 10 months, one of the members of the couple never actually used the space and the other rarely did.

I don't know why they didn't end up really needing the space -- they both worked really weird schedules so maybe covering childcare at home actually meant they didn't overlap in the house as much as they would have -- but it does kind of suggest that this arrangement didn't work as perfectly or regularly as you might hope.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:48 AM on July 22, 2018

I'd involve your child in the conversation. When I was growing up as the child of divorced parents I would have preferred to live solo with one parent rather than the other one. You guys may have different 1:1 dynamics with your child than you do with her together, and that might matter to her. And you all may not know what those dynamics are until the dust settles.
posted by ramenopres at 9:23 AM on July 22, 2018

The biggest issue for me would be that under the system you're proposing, neither of you would actually have your own space—you'd be alternating between two different shared spaces, the house and the condo. I would find that really hard, like I didn't have a home of my own and was just sort of camping out in somebody else's house, always having to be on eggshells about keeping my footprint light and not stepping on the other person's toes.

I think you and your ex-wife should think hard about how you would each feel in that living situation. I appreciate that you're trying to do the best thing for your daughter, but part of that means making sure that both of you remain psychologically fit, so to speak. If your living situation is constantly stressing you out, it will impact your parenting. For me, I'd need my own place—somewhere safe and stable where I could relax and decompress and be myself. Maybe that's not you, but I think you should give it some serious consideration.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:19 AM on July 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

My wife and I did this for a couple of years. I lived elsewhere during the week; at weekends my wife, a homemaker mom, moved out of the apartment and I moved in. It worked moderately well for us and for the kids (one year old, six year old, and three teenagers) but we didn't have a contract and in the end didn't divorce but after two and a half years decided to live together again. During the week the six year old often came over to my place for the night.

"My place" was actually a room in a mediation center, only five minutes walk from the apartment, so it was all quite simple. The pain of separation was maybe a bit less, and the disturbance for kids' lives minimized, but I often found myself driving "home" after work to the apartment instead of my room at the center.
posted by anadem at 11:08 AM on July 22, 2018

You should both have your own rooms at each place (I'd probably put an outside lock on each door just so eveyrone knows their space is respected). You might also consider hiring a housekeeper at one or both places to avoid issues over washing tubs and toilets and the like.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 11:28 AM on July 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

My parents were divorced and remarried several times as I was growing up and this arrangement sounds just awful to me.

As the parent you need to feel secure and happy and in control of your own life to be the best parent you can be for your kids. Juggling work and domestic chores and future dating in this scenario seems basically impossible even if you and your ex are on awesome terms and great at communicating.

My take is tha it’s way easier for kids to adapt to a new house and routine than it is for them to be around constant tension and frazzled parents.
posted by forkisbetter at 12:15 PM on July 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

You might be surprised by how soon one of you, maybe even you, wants to date. You might also be surprised by the emotions you need to go through. I'm not sure I'd want to be surrounded by evidence of an ex while I was in some of the post-breakup phases, so I don't think I'd want to do this unless we had our own places aside from the main house. But good for you for thinking about this.
posted by salvia at 12:33 PM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the comments, positive & negative. Very useful stuff to think about, and I'll try to respond soon with helpful specific info/questions.
posted by NumberSix at 1:30 PM on July 22, 2018

Hey OP, my condolences on the unexpected loss of your marriage. That is no fun. So I didn't know it was called nesting but my ex and I did this with our kid for 3 years, starting when our kid was 12 until our kid was 15 and wanted to move back to our country of origin for school.

In our case, we were not divorcing but were separating for the long haul so no lawyers were involved. Like you, we owned our place in an expensive real estate market. It was a nice two-bedroom apartment. Had we sold it, we would not have been able to afford two more two-bedroom apartments, and probably only crappy 1-bedroom apartments in less desirable areas.

I wanted to try nesting because our kid had just lost our intact family and we had also relocated from our home country, so losing their literal home too just seemed like way too fucking much to ask. Especially since any new places our kid ended up shuttling between would be forever my place and dad's place but never really our kid's place.

So I found a sublet and my ex and I went back and forth a week at a time. Usually we traded on Sundays and sometimes had lunch together on Sundays and discussed upcoming stuff as a family. This wasn't that hard because neither of us had fallen in love with someone else. That said, there were still hard feelings and plenty of argument leading up to the split so I won't pretend it was easy.

After awhile I had an opportunity to buy a tiny studio and the ex and I continued to shuttle between that place and the family apartment. That worked for me because basically I treated the studio as my place and the family apartment as his place. It wasn't exactly fun but I was determined to do it as long as possible because I thought it was better for my kid.

My ex did not date during that time; I started dating about 7 months later. About 90% of the time I stayed at my lover's place; the rest of the time he came to the studio or we went elsewhere. I don't know how my ex and I made it work. We had no formal nor legal agreements. The two of us were incapable of coming to an agreement and keeping it, at least on important stuff; If we had been able to disagree and/or agree in a reasonable manner we might still be together. :-)

When I was helping my landlady find a new tenant to take my place in the original sublet, I met a nice young woman from Australia who asked why I was moving, and I explained about the nesting thing. It turned out that she was a child of divorce, her parents nested until she finished high school (or the equivalent), and she told me what I was doing was wonderful.

Life is an experiment. Maybe it will work; maybe it won't. In my case, nesting was the only way to let my kid feel like she still had a home and also keep her in a central and convenient location. Trading one nice apartment for two really shitty housing situations seemed insane to me, and it still does. I did not want my kid to have to shuttle between two sad, crappy homes and somehow it all worked out. So nesting worked for us, but not for everyone.

It helps a lot to remember that while 4 years may seem like a long time, it is a relatively short time in your life as an adult (so even if it sucks, you can probably survive it) but a relatively long time for your kid. So whatever you choose to do, try to make it as not-sucky for your kid as possible. Which, obviously, you are trying to do. I remember how hard it was. On some days, I thought I might die. I did not. Life got better for all of us after the split, including my kid. Not immediately, but over time. Sending you lots of hugs.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:01 PM on July 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

P.S. My ex and I already disagreed about many important topics, including parenting, so none of that part changed. Nesting did not make our disagreements worse or add new disagreements. But your mileage will probably vary.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:07 PM on July 22, 2018

Nesting is a reasonably common arrangement in the Netherlands. I have two friends who managed their divorce this way and while it caused the occasional headache (cleaning styles, etc.) it seemed to work well for all. In one case, they kept it up until the kids were teenagers, in the other until they graduated. Note that both divorces were civil.
posted by frumiousb at 3:14 PM on July 22, 2018

I have a friend who did this - she and her ex have three kids and the kids kept the house. The middle child is neuroatypical and they decided that moving houses would be really hard on him. I emailed her to see if she had any advice but she hasn't gotten back to me yet...I will update if she does.

They all live in a smallish city in Iowa. The house is large enough for both Lynn and her ex to have their own rooms so each parent has their own space. Lynn lives with her mother on her "off" weeks and I think her ex has an apartment nearby for his "off" weeks. The kids always know that there is a parent at home and they don't have to move around. I think Lynn's mother also comes over on her week. The amount of money they save by not having to have duplicates of kid stuff probably covers the cost of each parents "other" house! And there's no lost homework, no "who's house are we at for Thanksgiving", nothing like that.

As far as I know, neither Lynn or her ex are seriously involved with another person at this time. I imagine that might make things more complicated. Theyre all pretty easygoing people so this works out well for them.
posted by Elly Vortex at 4:47 AM on July 23, 2018

My wife and I separated a little over four months ago and we have almost this arrangement. When we decided to separate, I suggested we do exactly what you describe. My wife was initially hesitant, but for the sake of our kids, especially the older one, who is non-neurotypical, she came around, with a slight modification.

We each have our own second place. Hers is a five minute walk from the house. Mine is a seven minute drive (or twenty minute walk). It's working acceptably for now, but we can't maintain this financially in the long term, and our youngest is only six. After next school year we will probably need to change things up.

Our situation is a pretty extreme edge case, though. The catalyst and main cause of our split was my transition. We still consider ourselves a family, even though we don't all live together. Heck, we just got back from a family vacation together. I still love her, and I think she still loves me. Our finances are still completely commingled. We have no current plans to file for divorce. We have always communicated really well, about almost everything except our relationship itself. So those factors work in our favor.

The pros of the current arrangement:

• It's easier on the kids than shuttling them back and forth.
• There's something to s=be said for having a space (however small) that is just mine.

The cons:

• I sometimes feel like I don't have a home. My wife is out of town with the kids on a second trip right now, and I'm staying at my place instead of the house. It just doesn't feel like home without the kids there.
• Clothes—I'm still very early in my transition, and have a very limited wardrobe. Definitely not nearly enough clothes to keep a decent selection at each place. So I end up feeling like I'm living out of my suitcase.
• Forgetting things—If I leave a charger, or my meds, or an item of clothing at the house, it's a major pain. We both accommodate each other, but we also agree we shouldn't just be dropping in when it's not our turn at the house.
• The cost—If you guys are splitting the second place, then this one won't be as significant for you.

I'm glad we're doing this this way for now. If we can find a way to do it without breaking ourselves financially, we might keep it going. As mentioned by a few others upstream, the big unknown for us is dating. Not that it has to directly affect the arrangement, but if either of us gets into a serious relationship, we both agree that we will reconsider the divorce issue, with the accompanying financial disentanglement.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 7:30 AM on July 23, 2018