Getting What Is Rightfully Yours

5 Tips For Shared Custody After A Contentious Divorce

26 April 2017

Estelle Mathieu

Shared custody is often the most fair custody arrangement possible, allowing your child to maintain quality time with both parents and experience consistency after the volatility of a divorce. In fact, studies repeatedly show that joint custody corresponds to higher levels of happiness, better parental relationships, and fewer academic and behavioral problems for children. Navigating joint custody when your marriage and divorce were troubled and contentious is never easy, but these tips should help:

Keep Your Divorce Attorney

Even though your divorce is finalized, you still need a trusted attorney on your side to help you navigate any issues or changes in your custody agreement. What would happen legally if you move to a new city or state, remarry, or need to change the specifics of your custody schedule? Having an attorney manage these details and advocate for you helps keeps everything calm, legally binding, and harmonious. Ask your attorney about their retainer policy to ensure they will be available when you need them.

Manage Your Own Emotions

In the wake of a difficult divorce, it is normal to find yourself reeling emotionally. Spending some time processing and managing your own emotions in healthy and constructive ways will help keep you level-headed when dealing with your ex, and also help avoid letting your emotions affect your children negatively. This is a great time to see a therapist to process the painful memories from your marriage and divorce, as well as spending time talking to trusted friends, exercising, meditating, venting in your journal, and generally taking really good care of yourself.

Make Use of Your Time Alone

If you are used to being with your children around the clock (or whenever they're not in school), getting used to them being with their other parent for half the time can be hard to adjust to. One positive way to approach this is to see it as an opportunity to enjoy valuable alone time, perhaps for the first time in years. What are the things you used to love to do before you had kids but no longer had time for, or what are some things you've always wanted to do?

Whether you take online classes, start a side business, meet your girlfriends for happy hour, or go on weekend road trips, the key is to transform this alone time from something sad into something empowering and fun.

Avoid Bad-Talking Your Ex

Even very young children pick up on negativity and when you speak negatively about their other parent it will influence how they feel in ways that can be damaging. When you are angry at your ex, do your best to shield your child from this and instead only vent to other adults, like family members, friends, and your therapist. Keep discussions with your children about their other parent neutral (or positive if you can manage it), quick, and factual instead of emotional.

Enlist the Help of a Child Psychologist

Even if your child seems to be coping well, chances are they are experiencing a range of emotions about the divorce. They may feel scared about the change, guilty that they still enjoy spending time with both of you (especially if there has been a lot of negative talk about your ex), sad, and possibly relieved if the marriage was especially dysfunctional. Talking to a neutral, empathetic adult who has been trained to help kids process difficult life events can be very helpful for you and your whole family.   

By following these tips for managing shared custody after a difficult divorce, you will be doing the best thing for your kids as well as for your own peace of mind. Talk to a professional, such as The Law Offices of Lisa E. Frazer, LLC, if you feel like this may not work for your situation to see how best to proceed. 

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