Sharing a Home During Divorce

Putting your Family first when Divorce is Pending: Home Sharing

Pandemic or not, sharing a home with your spouse during a divorce is not easy, and managing the added worries of a pandemic is especially impactful on family issues. Faced with these issues, many couples choose to put their children first, with their safety and health in the forefront. Their goal: to maintain a balance and normalcy to family, home, work, and social life.

A Smooth Transition

The average person is not wealthy enough to own three different houses for spouses to rotate to and from. A frequent practice is parents keep the main house for their time with the children and share a separate apartment where they individually stay for their time away. An understanding family member or friend may also offer an alternative abode.

Keeping the children in the family home and always with one of the parents, helps to maintain the balance and normalcy of family life. It allows children to stay in the same school and maintain their friendships. This type of arrangement is referred to as "Nesting," first made popular by celebrity, Gwyneth Paltrow in her "Conscious Uncoupling" with her spouse.

Making it Work

First, decide how long you want to do this. Experts agree that Nesting works better if it is kept to a brief time, 3-4 months at best. This brief transitional period helps to ease the children into the idea of living with one parent at a time. If done any longer, children, especially the younger ones, may become confused, believing that the parents are getting back together.

To make this type of transition for your family, may require rules that you and your spouse work on together to reach a mutual agreement. These rules should help maintain the status quo and keep family life stable. Establish clear rules from the beginning on issues such as:

Mutually agreed upon parenting decisions to avoid conflict.

Equal distribution of households chores. Laundry, housecleaning, grocery shopping, all of the chores you may have shared together still need to be done.

New partner situations. Most house sharers agree that it's better to keep partners out of the "Nesting" house to help avoid confusing the children and increasing conflict.

Feel like you need Help?

It's normal to feel overwhelmed with this situation, especially if one of you does not want a separation or divorce. Mediation can help your family maintain a peaceful home. A skilled mediator helps couples through the issues, reminds them to consider the other person's point of view and leads them to their own peaceful resolution. Through knowledge of each family member's feelings on the issues, an understanding develops that leads to an equitable decision for all.

For more than 30 years, A Fair Way Mediation has been helping couples with relationship issues to produce a positive resolution to their issues. Our mediation experience includes success with domestic partnerships, traditional marriages, same sex marriages, military marriages, and alternative relationships. Mediation works equally well for non-criminal disputes such as landlord tenant, family, and HOA issues. We have successfully mediated issues throughout Palm Springs, Riverside County and San Diego.

For your convenience, we offer Zoom, Skype, video chat and in-person sessions. Mediation is a voluntary process and both parties in the relationship must be willing to try mediation. Our free 30-minute consultation with both parties involved, will help you decide if you want to try mediation. For a free evaluation, call us at 760-227-5090 or 619-702-9174. Complete an online request at www.afairway.com. Offices in Coachella Valley and San Diego.