Anonymous wrote:This is bad for Joe, but he had to take the deal.

Sophie will enroll the kids in school in the UK and can show that they have a regular home. Same school, same house every time they go to the UK. Like clockwork.

Meanwhile, JJ is shuttling the girls every two weeks to a new city - his world tour goes deep into 2024.

By the time his tour is done, the girls will have established a routine in the UK and that will lead to them being tied to the school year in the UK.

Checkmate, Joe.

Those kids are not being enrolled anywhere for 2 weeks each month. Both parents will hire someone to take care of the kids at home. There is no winning by or checkmate of anybody.

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for Joe, but he had to take the deal.

Sophie will enroll the kids in school in the UK and can show that they have a regular home. Same school, same house every time they go to the UK. Like clockwork.

Meanwhile, JJ is shuttling the girls every two weeks to a new city - his world tour goes deep into 2024.

By the time his tour is done, the girls will have established a routine in the UK and that will lead to them being tied to the school year in the UK.

Checkmate, Joe.

How are the girls going to be enrolled in school when they have to leave every two weeks to go with Joe in the US??

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for Joe, but he had to take the deal.

Sophie will enroll the kids in school in the UK and can show that they have a regular home. Same school, same house every time they go to the UK. Like clockwork.

Meanwhile, JJ is shuttling the girls every two weeks to a new city - his world tour goes deep into 2024.

By the time his tour is done, the girls will have established a routine in the UK and that will lead to them being tied to the school year in the UK.

Checkmate, Joe.

+1 the girls should stay in England.

This is bad for Joe, but he had to take the deal.

Sophie will enroll the kids in school in the UK and can show that they have a regular home. Same school, same house every time they go to the UK. Like clockwork.

Meanwhile, JJ is shuttling the girls every two weeks to a new city - his world tour goes deep into 2024.

By the time his tour is done, the girls will have established a routine in the UK and that will lead to them being tied to the school year in the UK.

Checkmate, Joe.

Anonymous wrote:This isn't a win. This is what was expected all along. The point was to have some kind of agreement in place. And now there is one.

And if you look at their living schedule as submitted by Sophie in her documetns, they moved every couple of weeks more or less for the past year. If they actually do two weeks in one place and two weeks in another and stick to these same two locations, it will be more stable than it has been the last year.

I disagree. From everything leading up to the divorce it looks like Sophie desperately wanted a stable home for their children in the UK. She wants them to live in the same city near her family. She even picked out a house. Realistically, the girls will enroll in preschool there and that’s going to be their primary residence.

Joe is going to keep traveling and dragging the girls all over the place. He’s going to maintain his status quo. He doesn’t even have a primary location picked out.

This is a big step to set the precedent that the children go to school in the UK and live with their mom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess at least it's a resolution for them from now.

Having had kids these ages, it's hard for me to imagine shuttling them back and forth between two countries every two weeks. It's also hard to imagine divorcing with kids at this age, but in my mind if it happened, you'd be living in the same city and doing whatever you could to maintain consistency for the kids -- share a nanny who works at both homes, or even share a "family" home and then the parents change places, or something.

It sounds so stressful, and unlikely to resolve because even if, for instance, a judge ordered that they had to keep the kids in the same country while sharing custody (I don't even know if a judge could order this because the kids have dual citizenship and the parents have different nationalities, so I don't even know if a judge could say "no, you have to stay here" without running into issues with immigration and international choice of law rules), their jobs are going to mean a lot of moving around.

Kids need stability. I really hope they can both grow up enough to BOTH make sacrifices to provide that stability. Which I think for Sophie could mean not being able to live in the UK with them, and for Joe could mean giving up on how much he tours and being forced to settle in one place for an extended period. Alternatively if he wants to keep touring as much as he has been, he should just let Sophie take them to the UK, but then maybe she'd have to sacrifice job opportunities in order to give them stability there.

No matter which way you slice it, it's going to suck for someone. I just hope it's not the kids because they had no choice in the matter.

There were extenuating circumstances (i.e., work visa revoked) but that is essentially what happened in Kelly Rutherford's custody battle. The court awarded full custody to her ex, and her kids live overseas.

Yes but the whole point is there were extenuating circumstance that led to that decision. It's incredibly rare. In Rutherford's case, it happened because the court found that she was attempting to alienate the kids' father from them (it was found that Kelly was the one to report her ex to Homeland Security and that's why his visa was temporarily revoked, which is a huge deal). That led to him being awarded full custody, and since he was in the US on a visa only and wanted to return to Monaco, as the parent with full custody, he was permitted to do that.

It was only allowed because Rutherford was found to be interfering with his parental rights. Without that detail, they would have been awarded joint custody, as is standard, and had to figure out a way to do that internationally if that's what they both wanted and couldn't agree to stay in the same country.

This isn't a win. This is what was expected all along. The point was to have some kind of agreement in place. And now there is one.

And if you look at their living schedule as submitted by Sophie in her documetns, they moved every couple of weeks more or less for the past year. If they actually do two weeks in one place and two weeks in another and stick to these same two locations, it will be more stable than it has been the last year.

Anonymous wrote:I guess at least it's a resolution for them from now.

Having had kids these ages, it's hard for me to imagine shuttling them back and forth between two countries every two weeks. It's also hard to imagine divorcing with kids at this age, but in my mind if it happened, you'd be living in the same city and doing whatever you could to maintain consistency for the kids -- share a nanny who works at both homes, or even share a "family" home and then the parents change places, or something.

It sounds so stressful, and unlikely to resolve because even if, for instance, a judge ordered that they had to keep the kids in the same country while sharing custody (I don't even know if a judge could order this because the kids have dual citizenship and the parents have different nationalities, so I don't even know if a judge could say "no, you have to stay here" without running into issues with immigration and international choice of law rules), their jobs are going to mean a lot of moving around.

Kids need stability. I really hope they can both grow up enough to BOTH make sacrifices to provide that stability. Which I think for Sophie could mean not being able to live in the UK with them, and for Joe could mean giving up on how much he tours and being forced to settle in one place for an extended period. Alternatively if he wants to keep touring as much as he has been, he should just let Sophie take them to the UK, but then maybe she'd have to sacrifice job opportunities in order to give them stability there.

No matter which way you slice it, it's going to suck for someone. I just hope it's not the kids because they had no choice in the matter.

There were extenuating circumstances (i.e., work visa revoked) but that is essentially what happened in Kelly Rutherford's custody battle. The court awarded full custody to her ex, and her kids live overseas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For Sophie it’s a first step because now kids can go to UK for even any time. This is in her favor and I’m glad her lawyer advised her to take this deal.

They kind of had to do something like this because otherwise they girls are held hostage in a tiny section of New York City.

The girls getting to be home with Sophie 50% of the time is a win.

They’ll eventually negotiate something where they can stay in England during the school year (with visitation where the dad travels to them.)

+1 Joe now has to give her the passports! Ha.

Anonymous wrote:For Sophie it’s a first step because now kids can go to UK for even any time. This is in her favor and I’m glad her lawyer advised her to take this deal.

They kind of had to do something like this because otherwise they girls are held hostage in a tiny section of New York City.

The girls getting to be home with Sophie 50% of the time is a win.

They’ll eventually negotiate something where they can stay in England during the school year (with visitation where the dad travels to them.)

For Sophie it’s a first step because now kids can go to UK for even any time. This is in her favor and I’m glad her lawyer advised her to take this deal.

This sounds miserable for these kids, even if they are used to traveling a fair amount. I rarely think that a 9 month/3 month split is a good idea for kids, but maybe in this circumstance, it's the best option. With visitation on every other weekend or something for whichever one doesn't have the kids, so the parent flies, not the kids.

I guess at least it's a resolution for them from now.

Having had kids these ages, it's hard for me to imagine shuttling them back and forth between two countries every two weeks. It's also hard to imagine divorcing with kids at this age, but in my mind if it happened, you'd be living in the same city and doing whatever you could to maintain consistency for the kids -- share a nanny who works at both homes, or even share a "family" home and then the parents change places, or something.

It sounds so stressful, and unlikely to resolve because even if, for instance, a judge ordered that they had to keep the kids in the same country while sharing custody (I don't even know if a judge could order this because the kids have dual citizenship and the parents have different nationalities, so I don't even know if a judge could say "no, you have to stay here" without running into issues with immigration and international choice of law rules), their jobs are going to mean a lot of moving around.

Kids need stability. I really hope they can both grow up enough to BOTH make sacrifices to provide that stability. Which I think for Sophie could mean not being able to live in the UK with them, and for Joe could mean giving up on how much he tours and being forced to settle in one place for an extended period. Alternatively if he wants to keep touring as much as he has been, he should just let Sophie take them to the UK, but then maybe she'd have to sacrifice job opportunities in order to give them stability there.

No matter which way you slice it, it's going to suck for someone. I just hope it's not the kids because they had no choice in the matter.

Anonymous wrote:There reached a temporary custody agreement through January. Each gets the girls for two weeks at a time, wherever they want in the US and UK. Seems confusing for the little ones and obviously not workable once they're school age. What a mess.

The kids have already been living all over the place. It’s probably pretty normal for them at this point. But yeah, unless they home school, it won’t be sustainable long term.

There reached a temporary custody agreement through January. Each gets the girls for two weeks at a time, wherever they want in the US and UK. Seems confusing for the little ones and obviously not workable once they're school age. What a mess.