Divorce Support Forums: Help! stay at home dad with questions

I'm going to tell you what I tell all the mothers on here who ask the same questions. Divorce means that you will be supporting two separate households on the same income, and she will probably not be required to support you in the manner to which you'd like to become accustomed. The division of labor in your family was a great luxury while you were together, but now you're not going to be togetehr any more and you'll probably need to find a way to support yourself. You need a plan, some way to return to the workforce full force, and eventually earn your own keep. Because you turned down opportunities in order to take care of the kids, you'll probably be given the opportunity to have some spousal support while you are putting your plan into action, but this will most likely be temporary, just enough to rehabilitate your career. If you chose a career that earns less than hers, well, learn that you'll not have as much to live off of for the rest of your life. You don't get a life-long benefit of being married to a high earner if you get divorced. And no-fault divorce rules mean that it doesn't matter that you don't want the divorce. In this world, if you choose to stay home and let your career go to hell without a written agreement (like a pre-nup) for compensation, then when the job of "stay-at-home parent" is no longer available to you, you will need to go through the trouble of changing careers. The courts will think of spousal maintenance as kind of your golden parachute for this job... enough to get you a push on the way to your new life, but probably not enough to entirely support you forever.

On the issue of the kids and custody. Now that there is no longer a marraige where a division of labor can take place, she might very well step up to the plate and be a good parent, in her own way, if given the opportunity. As it is, you have all days with them except if they're in school... she has all days with them except if she's at work... the difference in time is really quite short, though of course you will say that YOUR time with them is higher quality because YOU do the things like go to the doctor with them and cook & clean for them, and SHE is only doing the after-work relaxing things with them... But now that you're going to be separate, she will have to find a way to organize herself to take care of those other things when she's got them. WHy in the world would you think it's fair to cut her back from 80% of her time spent with them to 20%, giving her every other weekend, for example? Why would you think it's fair to keep your 85% of thier time with them while you chop her time with them so severely? Why would you think that they don't need thier mother except a few hours a week?

They need their mother equally as they need their father, not mroe, not less, but equally. This woman who provided 50% of their DNA deserves to be someone they know. If you don't like their mother any more, that's too bad... if you think she's a bad mother, also too bad... but you thougth she was perfectly fine BEFORE the split. It's not right to try to take more than 50% of their time from her just because the division of labor in your married household put you in primary charge of organizing them, handlign MD's appointments, etc.

The RIGHT thing to do is to agree to a 50-50 split of thier time. THe RIGHT thing to do is figure out what kind of work you'll have to do to gear back up to full time full salary, full responsibility employment, and figure out how much alimony you'll need, for how long, to make this happen.

Oh, and you don't just get tossed out with nothing... if that's what you're worried about. You deserve half of the assets built up during the marriage. Hopefully the two of you were industrious enough to do this... you get half her pension, half her 401K, 403B, IRA entitlement... so if the daunting task of starting a new career at a time when you should be saving for retirement is freaking you out, just calm down... your retirement plan is already half accomplished as you had originally envisioned it. And now without her to support durign the retirement years, your retirement needs should be about half the price of what you'd originally envisioned. If you were on target in saving for that before the split, you should still be on target for it after the split, unless you get crazy and the two of you decide to spend all your assets in the effort to fight custody and property settlement & such! Divorce can be expensive if EITHER of you decides not to do the right thing.

That's why I'm trying to let you know what's fair... from the perspective of a disinterested third party... from the perspective of someon ewho is not in a panic about making ends meet when this is over... because when you're in a panic it's tough to think clearly and fairly. The fair thing is for you to pull your own weight in supporting yourself, and for her to pull her own weight in providing 50% of the parenting to the kids. The good thing is that these things work in concert... you will need more time to devote to your career, so you'll have less time for the girls. She will have to pick up the slack for what she'd been letting you do full time wiht the girls, so she will probably have to tak emore time off work and mommy-track herself to some extent, so she can get to their school functions and medical appointments when they're on her week... you'll both find it less satisfying in some areas, and more satisfying in others. If you do it right, life might even improve all around, over life in a household with a skewed division of labor, arguments and people who are no longer madly in love with each other. It's scary to think about, but it's kind of amazing how nice it is to step into the relaxed way of being when your'e no longer having to face that other person in your own home on a daily basis. If you don't turn it into world war three to separate your lives, then you might find it's all much better once the initial stress of moving, negotiating time with hth ekids, handling finances & etc is resolved.

On the issue of parenting time, simply expect the kids to enjoy time with your stbx and let her set up their own rooms in her new house (or you do it in your new place if you're the one who ends up without the house, which might happen if you're the lesser earner and cannot afford to maintain the ouse on your own). COnsider a week on-week off parenting time schedule with the kids. It's the easiest way to deal with things and kids find it very easy to slide into a new house at the end of the school week. There are those who would tell you that it's outrageously disruptive for this to happen, but if you talk to kids who are doing it, they really have no problem with it. Only real problems arise if the parents live so far away from each other that the commute to school from one parents' hous eis awful... or if they have no friends in the other parents' neighborhood, etc. But otherwise, they're perfectly good with having their wardrobes split into two households, different decor and different toys at different houses, different activities with the different parents.

Your girls' mother might take them shopping and do thier nails wit them on her weeks with them, while you might go biking or do more active things... or visa versa (I don't know if you're the mani-pedi type of dad)... you can be sure the kids will enjoy their time at BOTH parents houses (and for the different disciplines that they experience at each house, they'll also equally DISLIKE thier experiences at each parent's house!) and overall they'll get a more balanced view of the world if they get the experience of both parents providing equal parenting.

KGrow is right, if you were a woman, all you'd have to do is refuse to do the fair thing and spend lots of the marital assets on a legal battle and you'd probably get a better than fair share. But becasue you're a man, if you are smart and ask for the fair share, you have a chance of getting it. If you ask for more, you might find yourself laughed out of court.

Good luck and let us know how it works.

First step, figure out what kind of work it'll take to get back to full time, full income on your career.

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