separation/divorce/coparenting when one spouse travels a lot for work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you think he actually wants 50-50? You may want to consider a more nontraditional arrangement that maximizes his unpredictable time in town with them, but not at the expense of continuity. So you get them Sun-Thurs, and he gets Fri - Sat PM, but live close together so he can do school drop-offs, therapy appts, dinners? Then on weeks he travels, hopefully he can arrange to be back in town by Friday to avoid losing days. He can also get extra time on school holidays, weeks during the summer, etc.

I would never advise doing this. I am 10 years post-divorce with an ex who travels a LOT for work. I have full custody, but since I also do all the parenting, all my parenting time is taken up with school, homework, sports and activities, medical and therapy appointments, etc. I have very little "fun" time with my kids and that has definitely been damaging to our relationship. I would never agree to let my ex have only FRI to SUN. When he is here, he has dinner 2x (he used to have 3 but he voluntarily dropped when he married, which was devastating to the kids) during the week and one day on the weekend.

When we first divorced, I bent over backwards to accommodate travel, making up for the time he lost when he was gone. The problem is that this also became disconcerting to the kids because the schedule was always changing. As they grew a bit older, I stop this accommodating. If he is concerned about the amount he sees the kids, he has many job opportunities with less travel. His choice what he prioritizes.

Both accommodating his travel and being the full time parent severely hurt my career and income earning ability which was not at all made up for by child support (nor did he provide extra child support while he was traveling, so I paid for any extra help out of pocket).

It's a raw deal if the other parent doesn't want to be a 50/50 parent, and there is nothing you can do to force it.

It sounds like the issue is you. If he dropped visitation time as you wouldn't let him have weekends and probably wouldn't allow other times, and say it was devastating to the kids, at what level do you stop being selfish and do what's best for the kids. You didn't want him involved and were not at all flexible and he probably got blamed for it. He shouldn't have to pay extra in child support if you have full custody and he only has a few days of visitation. Child support is calculated to cover that. You choose to have him stop being a parent.

Many things you say/assume are not true
1) "If he dropped visitation time as you wouldn't let him have weekends and probably wouldn't allow other times.". He had visitation M/W/F after school until bedtime and all day Saturday. He dropped visitation, without consulting me. He did so just prior to his marriage, telling the kids he and his STBW had to use the day he dropped for them to do something to prepare for the wedding, and then after the wedding he never picked visitation back up.

2) "You didn't want him involved and were not at all flexible and he probably got blamed for it." - I absolutely was flexible and bent over backward to accommodate him - to my personal and financial detriment. I only stopped when the kids themselves said they preferred a regular schedule and even then his scheduled 50% was sacrosanct unless he himself cancelled, which was often.

3) "He shouldn't have to pay extra in child support if you have full custody and he only has a few days of visitation." His child support was calculated on the basis that he would reliably take the kids for a certain days/times per week. He often cancelled in order to travel for weeks at a time at short notice. I would often have to either hire childcare to fill in his time that he abandoned or I would have to cancel my own work and use my own social capital to cover for his abandoned parenting time. Child support was never adjusted to compensate for that. Parents typically pay for half of necessary childcare. He never paid for his half - preferring just to take it out of me personally.

4) "You choose to have him stop being a parent." - I chose to have him stop being my husband. He made his own choices about whether to continue being a parent.

Unbelievable the lengths to which some people will go to make up lies to protect men!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My soon to be ex has been increasingly expected to travel for work. He's had around 4 work trips these last few months, with his last trip spanning 8 days. He is asking for 50/50 custody but I feel that if he is continuing to travel this much, it can't possibly be 50/50.

Wondering how others navigate this when you have children in the picture. How to keep it fluid for them with changing care schedules? What should I have written into a divorce agreement?

He can hire a nanny and it sounds as though you are objecting just to be nasty and controlling. If you had to travel for your job, you wouldn't think twice about leaving child with a nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, 50/50 isn’t the standard. Some people want it to be the standard but it simply isn’t true. Out of my circle of friends who didn’t pre-agree on their custody arrangement, the mother wound up with more for reasons like husband travels a lot. Kids need stability and going back and forth is very difficult —add to that a traveling parent, it’s a mess. Why should OP get 50/50 and constantly have to cover for her traveling ex? Why? Just so he can pay less support? Or so the kids can never know their actual schedule?
OP-don’t accept that 50/50 is the standard.

Whether 50/50 is the default really depends on the state where you live. If a lawyer told OP that it's likely to be 50/50, I would consider that reliable. I live in a state that still prefers to have a primary parent.

My ex travels for a week every 6 weeks and we do 50/50. It works okay. She usually leaves on Sunday and comes back on a redeye on Friday. When means I cover 3 additional nights. We do a monthly schedule and sometimes we rebalance to make up for those travel days, other times I just take the extra days. That means that I might have 55% of time in a given year, but honestly it's little enough that I really don't need the courts to acknowledge that. I think it's completely reasonable to ask your ex to pay for any additional care you need during travel time, and to also have him be the lead in making those arrangements.

I wouldn’t recommend trying to get the ex to arrange for care OP is relying on, not unless they can be really cooperative and he is reliable. And the problem is here that he travels for over a week at a time, not just three days.

I think I would try to negotiate a schedule that is 50-50 only when the ex is in town, but doesn’t provide for full “make up time” because that would be too disruptive for the kids. OP has the kids when he is gone. Child support should include daytime childcare necessary for OP and the ex to work whether or not the dad is in town, right?

Men are actually kind if motivated by appearances here, I believe. They want to say they have 50-50 or “shared custody” even if they do not. So one strategy is to say - “Hey, let’s split custody 50-50. When you’re in town it will be 50-50. When you travel I’ll have them. When you get back we go back to 50-50.” Chances are he’ll go for it.

This was really true in my case - offered DH 50/50 but he didn't take it.