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February 2, 2006, 10:18 am PST
Co-Parenting
Quote From: chevy10My god daughter's husband wants to leave the marriage (he has found someone else) and have joint custody of the two daughers ages 2 & 5. He is a fireman and works 4 days on and 4 days off and wants the girls to reside with him on his days off although he still plans on putting them in day care during the week even on his days off. My god daughter is a social worker and works full time 8:00 - 4:00. She is the primary caregiver and feels that it is unfair to deprive her of her week ends with the girls as that is their quality fun time together. She wants sole physical custody with generous access for their father. The girls' grandmother and I are concerned about the effect of changing houses every 4 days on the girls as they are so young and the mother is the nurturing parent. The father has, in the past year, been fairly absent even before he said he wanted out. Our concern is how it will effect the girls to have this arrangement. Has anyone had experience with this - do the courts even allow joint custody in cases where the children are this young? We are in Canada. The girls' mother has been dragging a very reluctant husband to marriage counselling twice a week and he is adamant that he wants out. I feel for your god daughter. I have joint customdy with my ex and my duaghter goes one week with me and another week with him. This is really hard on me, but she seems to love it. She is 7 and we have been doing this since she was 4. I hate having her gone for a week but I just have to think about her and her needs. I have talked to several professionals about if this is really good idea for a kid, the answer I always seem to get is that it is different with every child and if we see behvorial problems then we would want to rethink the situation but at this time she is doing great. It is the hardest thing for me the weeks she is gone, but when she is gone we talk pretty much every day. The difference in my ex and your god daughters husband is that my ex has been there for her since she was born and has been a excellent father. One thing that will have to happen if she decides to do this is there will have to be excellent communication or it will never work.
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