When it comes to choosing a living arrangement that best suits your family after divorce, you have a lot of options. Will you or your spouse keep the family home? Should you move? How far is too far of a distance for your children to have to travel between homes?
However, under a nesting arrangement, you and your ex can both keep the family home, meaning nobody will have to stray too far from your pre-divorce living situation. Your children will be able to stay in the home permanently, while you and your co-parent take turns living in the home and taking care of your children there. And when it isn’t your scheduled parenting time, you’d live in a separate home of your choice.
This allows families the opportunity to slow the roll of all the changes that come along with the moving process that is often a staple part of a divorce, which can be mutually beneficial for parents and children.
Why do parents like nesting
When you change homes there are a lot of steps involved. Moving often involves selling your current home, finding a new neighborhood that you like, packing your belongings, and more. When you are fresh out of the legal side of the divorce process, you might find relief in a slower-paced moving process.
It can also give you the chance to adjust to taking care of your children on your own in a space that is familiar to you. If you implement it as a temporary arrangement, it can help you decide how much or how little you can tolerate regular interaction with your co-parent and develop a communication system that keeps your children’s needs at the forefront.
Why do children like staying at the family home
Children may thrive from the stability that staying in their current home can provide. Specifically, if they don’t have to change homes, change schools and make new friends, then children can feel physically and socially secure. Nesting can be something to consider if you have children who are old enough to feel the emotional weight a divorce can put on a family.
Essentially, nesting can serve as a training wheel stage before fully separating your life from your ex-spouse.