Divorcing w/ kids, Advice?

[JMAC]

So far we've been working with a mediator and have signed off on each others property. I've taken out a mortgage to buy out her share of the house and land. Our next mediation appointment is to resolve issues with our 12 and 14 year old kids. So far no alimony and no child support. She has them 4 days a week, I have them for 3 days a week. Can I claim one of them as a dependant? Any body have first hand experience with what happens to our agreed schedule when the kids get to drive? We now live about 15 minutes apart. The advice and words of wisdom I received from you folks on my last post was truly useful. Thanks, Jim

[Donn]

Jim...you can spend hours researching the tax/dependant issue, or you can spend a small amount of money and consult a tax accountant. I'd suggest the tax accountant.

[capt jake]

If you are on speaking terms, why not split the deductions? My ex and I did it this way and it was painless. We signed a form that the accountants file every year. I claim one child every year until he is 18, then we rotate on the deduction for my daughter over the next two years.

Being able to be civil and on speaking terms with ones ex makes life a whole lot easier when it come to the kids.

Good luck. smile.gif

[Domesticated_Mr. Know It All]

Any agreement you can come to with your Ex will be better than what the court will impose if you can't. Do what is in your childrens best interest at all times,even if it hurts you. I can't stress that enough. Don't speak badly about your Ex to your kids......ever! Thats their mother and she will always be their mother. Insist that they respect her at all times, no matter how angry you may get with her yourself. Take the high road, whenever possible. I personally know way to well what can go wrong if you don't do this and trust me.....you just don't wanna know. Try to be calm and reasonable. My divorce was the begining of a 5 year nightmare for me that only just ended recently. I pray that yours will not be the all out war that mine turned into. When it's all said and done, the money issues won't mean crap compared to the kid issues so get your priorities straight right now. Nobody wins in a divorce. My heart goes out to you Jim. I know how hard this can be first hand and am here if you need to talk. Hang in there.
Peace----> Kevin in Ohio

[Jack Heinlen]

I've never dealt with this, yet I think Kevin's words are true and noble.

Consider long before you speak or act. It's good you are amicable, may it last.

[LeeG]

the schedule that is agreed to now can change whenever the parties involved want it to change,,and the kids may decide at some time they want controll in their life and change it. Let them unless you think there's a real good reason not to. I hope you have someone in your corner that knows you and your kids to bounce ideas off. Your kids and ex may not be the best ones to process what goes on in your head.

[Tar Devil]

I can't improve on Kevin's post. My divorce also was bitter... and the animosities lasted for 18 years. Didn't need to...

My heart goes out to you. Doubly so for your kids.

Regards,

Phil

[whb]

Our neighbours (also our best friends) split about 10 years ago. They agreed to one week off one week on. That way their kids were only moving once a week. Both parents live within a five minute walk of each other and the kids are welcome to go back and forth to get things.

Both parents have made it clear that each kid has two homes 100% of the time. They are welcome to visit the other home anytime they want.

The first couple of years were rocky but after the parents let go of the hard feelings and got a little bit better at communicating things straightened out. They now think nothing about switching weeks around to fit travel/work other issues. These kids are pretty okay and things are going great now.

We are still friends with both parents and their new spouses and actually think that both are happier now.

Good luck,

Howard

[skuthorp]

Sorry it's come to this JMAC, try to keep up the communication in all circumstances. My brother and his ex left the kids in the house and moved in and out themselves, and it worked very well. Three sets of children are well integrated, the adults are on good terms, every now and again they all get together for a BBQ. Not easy, sometimes traumatic, but the children (now grown) visit everybody and when my Bro. got ill his ex looked after him. Have a think about it.
All my best wishes to you all in this difficult time, and remember it's all right to grieve for a lost relationship but don't let it consume you with blame and bitterness.
Jeff

(ps, I.ve been there too)

[ 11-03-2003, 02:44 AM: Message edited by: skuthorp ]

[Meerkat]

JMAC; With all due respect to our fellow forumites: get professional advice!

BTW, I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense if you shared the kids a week (or better yet two weeks) on/off? As an uninformed bystander, it sounds to me like it would offer more stability for the kids and, knowing how it can arise, less opportunity for the kids to play each parent off against each other.

[km gresham]

Skuthorp, that is the best idea I've seen yet. It keeps the children from having their lives disrupted every few days or weeks and they get a home to live in, which is only fair since they aren't responsible for breaking up the family.

The inconvenience should definately fall on the shoulders of the parents. Also this allows the children to carry on their social lives and extracarricular activities which are both interrupted when it's time to go to Dad's or Mom's for the weekend. It doesn't take long for the children to resent this disruption of their lives.

Sad situation for the children all the way round - :(

[Cap'n R an R]

Regardless of what any therapist tells you ...failing a psychological miracle ....no matter how long they live....your children will never fully recover from what you and your spouse are about to do......the only path of true concern is to SQUELCH your disagreements until they are grown....even then it will hurt them but not as much....all denial of this is pure bull ****....

[LeeG]

So Captn, what's your helpful suggestion? My mom never made me clean up after myself and I'm still recovering, my parents never showed physical affections and I'm still recovering,,hell I had puberty and that really screwed up a good thing.

[Cap'n R an R]

Next time around choose better parents...

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I speak from observation, not from experience.

I think it rather likely that children of this age will bounce around from one parent to the other as they grow up - one parent will be the "most wanted one" for six months or a couple of years, then the other one. The two children may not agree on which parent they each like, at some points. This can make a mess of otherwise tidy arrangements.

[km gresham]

People used to stay together for the good of the children. I can't think of many more noble reasons for putting up with annoyance than that. Of course there are situations that trump that, but I think most people who divorce have just quit getting along, or even trying to. I know, I know every circumstance is different, but the results are always the same for the children - a broken home. I don't think they call it that anymore cause it sounds bad, but that's what it is.

[Cap'n R an R]

Karen....Noble reasons are not formost in the American thinking process at the moment....for the most noble of actions look up, on google ...William R.Charette and you will read about the most Noble of actions....I have been graced by being in the same room with this man....I would post the info but dont know how...

[cs]

I will come at this from the kids perspective, since that is how I experianced divorce.

I don't think a married couple should stay together for the "kids" sake. That could just lead to the kid growing up with guilty feelings and they could develop some sort of complex.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was about 9 years old. Up untill they got divorced I remember some of the fights, and they were good ones. After the divorce I can't remember them ever fighting.

And of course my mom and dad put us kids first. We got to go to Dad's just about anytime we wanted. He still was a big part of our life. We would go with him to Grandma's house on Christmas Eve and he would come over to our place on Christmas day. He kept us insured with his insurance policy and helped out when he could. If Mom's car broke down he would work on it and would let her drive on of his in the meantime.

With a good realtionship like this both me and my sister have grown up with no hard feelings and are both well adjusted. I think if I would have had to deal with many more years of them fighting it might have been a different story.

Chad

[LeeG]

Originally posted by km gresham:
People used to stay together for the good of the children. I can't think of many more noble reasons for putting up with annoyance than that. Of course there are situations that trump that, but I think most people who divorce have just quit getting along, or even trying to. I know, I know every circumstance is different, but the results are always the same for the children - a broken home. I don't think they call it that anymore cause it sounds bad, but that's what it is.Let's change the sequence around,,I know a few homes that stuck it out for the kids sake, the kids grew up and left home and the marriage went shortly thereafter. You can call it a happy stable home life but it was where quiet desperation and shared abuse defined a childs understanding of love, but that doesn't change what it was, the best that both parents could manage.

[whb]

I already posted but I'm going to respond to the the Cap'n.

The family I referred to above didn't have knock em down drag em out fights. There was no yelling, there were no fireworks.

There was a quiet sense of unhappiness. There was a lack of love. They were going through the motions and had done so for some time for the sake of the children.

After the split was completed (not right away, there is always some bitterness) all parties were better off and happier.

Children are very perceptive. They know when life isn't as it should be. Why continue a fiction when no one believes it.

Howard

[Jim M]

Divorce:

1. A pie does not get bigger because you slice it some fancy way.

2. Beware the IRS, the bank, the mortgage co., credit card co., health ins. co.

3. Sooner or later you will realize the kids are more important than most things. The costs of resisting this realization are greater than the benefits.

4. Same as 3, with regard to getting on with life as opposed to fighting past battles.

[LeeG]

repeat #4.

[Scott Rosen]

Divorce has profound, permanent effects on all concerned, especially the children. The foremost expert on the long-term effects of divorce is Judith Wallerstein. She wrote two of the most well-respected books on the subject: "Second Chances" and "Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study."

Her conclusions are many, but to echo some of the comments above, a couple is almost always better off staying together until the kids are grown. There are exceptions like abuse, alchohol, etc. But mature adults who understand that their marriage is no good can still hang in there for some years while the kids grow up. With the right kind of "understanding" between the parents, they don't have to live lives of quiet desperation. The kids will feel the love generated by the parents' willingness to sacrifice their own immediate happiness for the sake of the family.

After all, the family belongs to the kids as much as to the parents. You wouldn't give your kids the right to break up your family . . .

[ 11-03-2003, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: Scott Rosen ]

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

I suppose there are people who can live together for the children's sake, and it's a pretty good thing. Most of the time it's not. My parents did that, and before they actually split up, my mother died. It was horrible, and I learned very little about good relationships from either of them. I loved them both, and would have rather seen them independent, than together. I remember having that thought at about 10. There is no childhood for the children of a bad marriage. Just caretaking.

[LeeG]

Scott, Judith Wallersteins books are unique in that they are a long term study but having read the books I can say that they start with the premise that divorce is a dysfunction with no analytical basis of the family before the "event". My take on the "event" is that people are talking about it as a phenomenon that occurs to a unit called a family,,and that family is something that exists by virtue of a mating pair irrespective of it's context.
My take on the "event" is that it it traumatic, as is birth, puberty and death. Cycles of bonding and separation occur all the time, children are born into your lives and they grow up and away, parents grow old and die, to think that the cycle of mating should be forever doesn't jive anymore than one can be fertile forever.

[JMAC]

Taking my marriage vows very seriously and feeling a strong sense of duty to my wife and children kept me in this marriage for 18 years. Throughout that time I've been sucker punched, kicked, scratched, had things thrown at me, had pillows yanked out from under me while I slept. I got screamed at, swore at, berated, you name it. Not constantly, but way too often. She didn't think twice about doing any of this in front of the kids. She is one angry person. I had the stupid notion that I could take it,put up with it, turn it around, explain it away. FORGET IT! I am a good man, and I am committed to being a good Dad, and I will. We parted in June and my only regret is that I didn't have the nerve to leave a long time ago. I'm in a tough spot right now financially and emotionally, but by God I know I'll get through it and hopefully meet someone that actually enjoys my company...and my boat for that matter too!

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Jmac, you seem to have discovered some truths about your life..... and some of them ain't pretty, but there you are. Everything you just said I agree with, and I don't even know you. The behaviour you describe is not reasonable, and it isn't good for kids to see either. Take a deep breath and walk tall... You'll be okay, I can feel it. ;)

[Jack Heinlen]

JMAC,

Strength, just now. Understanding down the road.

I've been through this, but not with children.

I believe people find each other for reasons...reasons worth exploring, but you are hurting right now, not a time for such.

I'm here in central Maine. If I can help let me know: a sympathetic ear, a walk in the late Fall woods, let me know. Where's Burnham?

Believe me, others have been though this and made life better afterwards. It's a hard time.

E-mail me for my number, if you wish.

Regards,

Jack

[ 11-03-2003, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[Domesticated_Mr. Know It All]

I think You're gonna be just fine Jim. :D Sounds like the relief is setting in. My Ex was physically and mentally abusive to me for 13 years and when she left and I didn't have the constant pain in the ass of her in my face 24/7 I truly felt like anything was possible. smile.gif

Getting on with your life and being happy is the best revenge. tongue.gif

[George Roberts]

JMAC ---

Without some child support on your part it looks like your wife will get both deductions. The deduction goes to the person paying more than 50% of the cost. 4 days/week is more than 50% of the time and probably more than 50% of the cost. But ask your accountant what can be done.

It is amazing to me that 2 people who can tolerate a mediator can not live together. But I guess that is what happens.

Always support your ex even if it makes you look bad.