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Anonymous wrote:That's the problem. After divorce you can't force him to be a parent, if he meets someone he'll barely remember their names. Sad, but that's the reality. Just wait till you want him to pay his portion for college.

Kids are 18 and adults. Its a parents choice to pay for college. Married parents are not required nor should divorced and this has nothing to do with OP.

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.

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.

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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?

If your agreement isn't final, you still have time to change it (I hope). Have you outlined the right of first refusal so that you are offered his custodial days when he travels?

I'm in the same boat where my estranged DH travels and works late, yet wants 50/50. It's not realistic, obviously, but there is no dissuading him. I still haven't quite figured out how to best navigate it, so I'm here for tips too.

No, nothing is finalized. It helps to know there are others out there going through this because I'm feeling alone. I hope we learn something here.

I'm the PP above, back again. From what I've gathered, it takes a lot for the courts to not allow 50/50 if one parent wants it - even with travel. It's very disheartening. My ex's travel is last minute, but I've decided to suck that up for the added time with and stability for my children. (I believe it's more stable for them to be at either of our homes rather than elsewhere).

I document all his travel and the timeline in which he asks. It's also bжРЙо
een a fine line to navigate in terms of makeup time. I want to make sure I put the kids needs first in seeing him, but also maintain my boundaries for plans already made on my time. It is a constant challenge. But his attitude towards me makes me feel better about keeping these boundaries and not rolling over (anymore) for everything he wants.

Thanks for the insight. And yes, it seems 50/50 is the standard. I am also trying to document all the travel and all the time I've been caring for the kids. I don't want to nickel and dime on me caring more for them, since I do want to be with them, but the bottom line is his schedule doesn't give me the support to get back on my feet and I want to be sure this doesn't negatively impact me further in the future with job prospects or needs they have. And navigating boundaries will be part of this process for me. He has overstepped and walked on me so its tough to regain power without a job/income.

Is his travel mandatory? You can say No to caring for the kids during his time, and then he has to either find alternate care or decline the travel at work. Raising kids is hard work, and very inconvenient at times, and it shouldn't only affect one parent's career.

Even if you end up with 50/50 make sure the custody agreement addresses travel and whether you are responsible for providing him with make-up time for travel planned with less than X amount of notice, and make sure that HE is responsible for finding alternate childcare in the event that you are unable to take them (pre-planned work travel of your own, pre-planned solo vacation, pre-planned WHATEVER of yours) and that he can in no way expect you to just drop all things to care for the children when he goes on last minute travel.

I know everyone wants to think that this is SO EVIL of me, but there have been times when I've been unable to pick up the slack for my ex - like when I had to go to a memorial service for a childhood friend who died by suicide and already had plane tickets. He worked it out, and the kid is fine.

I'm the PP - the back again one. I don't think that's evil at all. I think it's more than perfectly fine. For me, the struggle is with knowing he would never not go on a trip, and where my children would end up/who would be watching them. There is a history there that I won't go into, but I'd like to avoid my children being where I assume he'd have them stay. That said, I also struggle with not wanting them to ever feel like a burden or a hot potato - b/c there is so much travel, last minute change, etc. I don't want them to feel like they are something to be dealt with. I'm not trying to martyr myself - seriously - but this dynamic, as well as making sure they see me as setting healthy boundaries, is something I am definitely working on.

Anonymous wrote:That's the problem. After divorce you can't force him to be a parent, if he meets someone he'll barely remember their names. Sad, but that's the reality. Just wait till you want him to pay his portion for college.

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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.

So why didn't you get the child support adjusted when it became clear he wasn't doing 50-50?

Because, frankly, child support is de minimus. Receiving 80% instead of 50% isn't what is going to rescue me financially. The biggest thing that kills me financially is having an ex spouse that does NO parenting. That means no medical appointments, no homework, no school meetings, no carpools for activities, nothing. He has never in his life taken time off work to attend to something on the children's behalf nor turned down a work opportunity because it would take him away from the kids. When he's here he takes them out for a meal a few times a week, and he's frequently out of town without more than a few days notice to me for 4-8 weeks at a time.

I, by contrast, had to turn down a number of extremely lucrative job offers either because they would have involved long, making partner type hours or because they involved 25% travel. exDH does not take any custody of the kids (it's entirely his choice), so I feel that I have to be there for the kids. I don't think I can work 9-8 every weekday plus some weekends when I am the solo parent. Complicating the situation is that both kids are either SN or have had significant medical problems that required me to be at home with them or shuffle them to doctor and therapy appointments during the week and take on an extra layer of tutors. All of this requires that I be home during the normal work week more than the average person and is therefore not compatible with a regular 9-5 job, let alone a high paying one. If I had a co-parent that lives in the home, this kind of higher paying job would be sustainable, but without one, it's just not. Let alone the fact that the kids already have one parent that they clearly can see is checked out and unreliable; they can't have a second parent who is unavailable.

Instead I have stitched together self-employment that pays a reasonable hourly rate, but of course there's a lot of unpaid hours to support the paid ones (billing, product development, marketing, etc.). I make 1/3 of what I could if I could have if I'd stayed in traditional employment in an area that my education and work experience supported.

I know this will get a lot of flames -- you should just make him co-parent or why did you marry the guy? Obviously, I wouldn't have gotten together with a guy who didn't support my career. When we were single, it was easy for him to be verbally supportive. During the three years in which we had 2 kids, while I was in grad school, he never made the switch to co-parenting. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

And finally, I am the one left holding the bag financially; he never tells them no about anything because he writes his check to me and that is that. I am the one that receives all he bills and requests and pays them. Child support doesn't pay 1/2 of what it really costs to raise a child. The court doesn't order braces, or college, or that after school activity that is expensive nor the out of network psychiatrist. I am the one that has to tell my child we can't afford it. Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I short myself in order to pay for the kids (haven't been to a dentist or doctor in ages) if it's something we really need and will cost more in the long run if we don't pay up front (like good doctors).

The notion that the court can increase child support enough to make up for all this is laughable. I think you know that.

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The notion that the court can increase child support enough to make up for all this is laughable. I think you know that.