Reply to Walk me through the logistics of setting up your new life if you divorced while your kid was a baby.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ex-DH and I decided to divorce when DD was under 6 months old. Logistically, it wasn't that hard since we had similar salaries and worked full time, so DD was already in a full-time daycare.

We worked together to draft our own Marriage Separation Agreement and had that reviewed by a lawyer (using an online service) and had our paperwork checked by the self-help law center at the court house.  We went together and filed at the court so avoid any of the 'serving' mess, attended our hearing and had it all done in about 2 months.

We split our assets and calculated joint child-care contributions based on our salary percentage (i.e. if salary was $100,000 for the year, ExDH made 55,000 and I made 45,000- he paid/got 55%, I paid/got 45%).  We used that percentage to determine how much money I got from the house after he re-mortgaged under his sole ownership and had it appraised (i.e. 45% of the would-be profits based on appraisal value), and how to split our joint savings and tax return for that year.  He kept the house, I moved into a condo I rent (prefer the neighborhood and it has reasonable rent).

We both refused alimony and created our own childcare expenses set up. We add up the annual cost of child-care, divide by 12 to get a monthly child care cost. To this, we added $300 for misc expenses. When she was an infant, this was used for clothes, diapers and wipes. We use it for her birthday party, to pay for her birthday and christmas gifts, birthday gifts for her friends, and gifts for our daycare provider (we add a little extra in more for her birthday month and christmas). Now that she's older, the misc money is mostly used for our family outings or for her classes/activities. We sit down and review it at the end of the year to make adjustments or recalculate the percentages. As she gets older, this money will go towards school supplies and extracurriculars.

The key aspect is to make sure you guys are able to co-parent efficiently.  Ex-DH and I decided to divorce before we got to that dark bitter place. It wasn't our last resort, we probably could've stuck it out and tried more, but I do believe that by 'giving up early' (for lack of a better way to put it) has helped us be strong co-parents.  While we still have some issues, it doesn't effect our ability to co-parent and talk about our daughter and spend time together as a family (we do outings once a month together and have done weekend trips together).  We're better co-parents than we were as a couple, because we no longer have the pressure to be each other's significant other. We don't have to be bitter because there's no sex, because one person wants to go out or travel, while the other stays home, by removing that from our relationship, we communicate better and get along better.

We separated 3 years ago, and formally divorced 2 years ago.

[/quote]

A couple other things-

We also sat down together and made up a 50/50 schedule that is insane on paper.  We each see DD every day (one of us drops off the other picks up). We each had a major condition we wanted (he wanted drop off and I wanted her to sleep at my place), so we created a schedule that included those. We check in twice a year to see if it still works for the other, and adjust accordingly.  We'll move to a new schudule this fall when DD starts preschool, but we used the same process. I created a few draft schedules and sent them to him for feedback, and he chose one that worked best. We track it on a shared Google Calendar.

One perk of divorcing when DD was so young, she doesn't know us as a couple. She fully understands that there's daddy house and mommy house.  She never saw us together and never saw us fighting. She knows she has two parents, who live apart, but love her and that we can all spend time together as a family without issues. [/quote]

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