Month: February 2023

If you’re a married person who thinks that your marriage might be over, you’re not alone. Nearly 38% of marriages end in divorce.

The bright side is that this means you have resources that can help you get through even the toughest part of the divorce process. For most people, the hardest part is figuring out how to parent your kids in two different households.

Read on to get some divorce coparenting tips that will help you out.

How Does Divorce Affect Children?

Divorce takes a significant emotional toll on kids in many cases. Babies learn about the world through their parents and their household, and this foundation solidifies as kids get older and mature into adults.

When that foundation is fractured, it’s natural that a child’s sense of security and wholeness might be threatened. This can have psychological and emotional effects well throughout childhood and beyond.

Studies show that teenagers from divorced households are three times more likely to need mental health counseling. Some other ways that divorce takes a toll on children includes:

• Struggling with school grades and performance
• Are more likely to act out with their behavior
• A stronger likelihood of substance abuse
• Higher dropout rate
• Difficulty in romantic and interpersonal relationships

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get divorced if there’s no fixing your marriage. However, consider this potential toll as you and your soon-to-be ex figure out strategies for raising your children post-marriage.

What Is Divorce Coparenting?

Divorce coparenting is the best-case scenario if you’d like to get a clean split from each other while still doing what’s best for your kids. With co-parenting, you get to go through the divorce process cooperatively and create solutions that will help you do what’s best for your children.

There are some helpful steps you can follow to create the ideal coparenting relationship and agreements.

Get Divorce Mediation

The first thing you should do is agree to sit down with professional mediators. Mediators are impartial professionals that can help the two of you negotiate and speak your mind without making the process contentious.

Working with professional mediators starts your divorce process with cooperation in mind and opens lines of communication. Going to mediation makes it easier for you two to come to agreements without letting squabbles get in the way.

Consult With an Attorney

Though cooperation is the name of the game, you still owe it to yourself to get sound legal advice. A divorce attorney will sit down and discuss the circumstances of your marriage and divorce. During the consultation, the lawyer will ask your goals for the divorce, and will talk about your assets and whether you have a prenup.

Once you hire a lawyer, they’ll also provide you with advice on how to move forward. Perhaps most importantly, your attorney will advise you so that you don’t make costly legal mistakes.

Come to Terms on the Most Important Things

Once you know that you can openly speak to your spouse, treat your conversations in a business-like fashion. Start hashing out the most important details of parenthood, such as child support, child custody arrangements, visitation, and other issues.

You’ll need to work them into an agreement that you can put before the judge, so get as detailed as possible. Having these discussions on your own is more productive and less painful than deciding everything piece by piece through several tense hearings.

When you create your agreement outside of court, the rest is a formality.

Discuss Your Family Vision

Take time to also discuss how you want to move forward as a family in a holistic sense. Talk about things like your kids’ activities, where they’ll attend school, religious beliefs, and other important matters.

Don’t be afraid to have the hard conversations, and never assume you’re on the same page about things unless they’re verbalized. Getting a divorce is only the beginning – you’ll need to get comfortable having these conversations for as long as you’re raising your children together and beyond.

The sooner you can get comfortable and develop a rapport, the more productive these conversations will be over time.

Take Care of Your Personal Health

Ending your marriage is hard, so do everything you can to take care of yourself. It can take a toll on your stress, health and emotions, so practice self-care to the best of your ability.

Make sure that you get sleep, eat healthy, and exercise regularly. Avoiding unhealthy habits and promoting healthy ones produces positive endorphins that can ease stress, anxiety, and depression.

You can also get divorce help in the form of mental health professionals. They will help you unpack your emotions and work through them so that you can heal and move forward. Don’t rush back into the dating market, and take as much time as you need.

Embrace your hobbies and find meaning in your work. The better you take care of yourself, the easier it’ll be for you to remain active in the divorce process and coparenting.

Work Through the Divorce Process

Divorce coparenting can be a difference-maker when applied correctly. The best thing this does is keep the temperature down. When emotions are low and not contentious, you’re more likely to get a quality outcome. This is necessary for everyone involved, and perhaps your kids will benefit most.

2houses can help you when you’re interested in strategies that can help you get through your divorce. To learn more, contact us on our site.

Maintaining a healthy marriage is consistent work, especially when children are involved. It is an intimate, frustrating, fulfilling, and often overwhelming undertaking all at the same time. Yet, for the service men and women of the US military, it is often a breaking point.

It’s no secret that military personal experience some of the highest rates of divorce and separation in the country. A result of the incredible toll active military service can have on the private lives of its servicemen and women.

Yet, this phenomenon is not without its understanding. Today we’ll be exploring the common causes of military divorce, as well as the effects military divorce can have on your family. To provide you with the knowledge and support you need to navigate this difficult time.

The Common Causes of Military Divorce

It’s important to quantify that there is nothing inherently different about a military marriage and any other marriage. They can fall apart in all the same ways as each other, with nothing to do with the military at all.

We, however, will be unpacking many of the studied reasons that specifically military divorces occur. Causing them to be some of the highest divorce rates in the country.

Long Deployments

Perhaps the most obvious culprit is the deployments. Soldiers can be stationed for months, even years, at a time before returning home. This puts unimaginable strain on a marriage, with long bouts of loneliness.

In addition to that loneliness, studies have shown that couples often struggle to readjust after deployment. Creating an environment that fosters conflict, discomfort, and eventual emotional isolation.

Domestic Violence

Whether we like to admit it or not, statistics don’t lie. Service members of the US military have a higher-than-average rate of domestic violence, a trend that matches other high-stress occupations. This plays a large role in the high rate of divorces within the armed services.

A study conducted by the University of Florida showed that domestic violence was particularly prevalent within couples where a service member recently left the service.

Untreated Mental Health Problems

Tragically, mental health whilst being much more understood and treatable these days go staggeringly undertreated in the armed services. This is despite an honest effort by the US military to offer robust mental health treatment for their servicemen and women.

Service members can suffer from PTSD, violent outbursts, depression, anxiety, and much more. These issues, if left untreated, can often drive a wedge between couples.

Adultery

Whilst cheating on your partner is never acceptable, it is somewhat understandable for its common presence in military couples. With long bouts of loneliness, uncertainty, and doubt, a perfect recipe for adultery is made.

Studies have shown that any couple who spends a significant amount of time away from each other repeatedly, in the case of months to years, has a higher rate of adultery. This fact holds for military couples.

Exploring The Effects of Military Divorce on Children

A military divorce can have a wide range of lasting effects on your children. Many of these are typical for any divorce but often made worse by an absent deployed serviceman or woman. Let’s break down some of the most common effects, in a broad-stroke sense.

If you would like to read about these effects in more detail, you can read our detailed write-up, or check our blog for a variety of topics related to this complex subject.

Higher Rate of Mental Illness

Studies have shown that children of divorced parents exhibit higher rates of mental illness later in life. These mental illnesses can range from depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and eating disorders, as well as a wide range of other conditions.

Within the context of a military divorce, your child will be feeling even further isolated from one of their parents. This loneliness, mixed with the confusion all children have about divorce, and the infrequent nature of one parent’s presence in the child’s life, is often identified as starting point for these issues.

Sudden Behavioral Shift

In the short term, your child will likely experience a foundational shift in their behavior. It is one of the most common effects of military divorce and can have lasting negative impacts on a child’s social skills, mental health, and more.

These effects include, but are not limited to:

• Sudden destructive behavior,
• Arguing,
• Shouting, temper problems, or tantrums,
• Lashing out physically,
• Being quiet, not wanting to be around others,
• Crying.

Housing Instability

One of the more unique effects that face children of military divorce is housing instability. Whilst one parent may be consistently home, a military partner will likely be away for months to years at a time. Servicemen and women are also highly likely to be deployed overseas, sometimes for a large portion of their military career.

For children, this will often feel like losing a parent completely. Unlike most other divorces, where both parents will be present in the child’s life, military divorces can force one parent to be absent from their child’s life for longer than is healthy.

Children will experience feelings of rejection, loneliness, and even resentment toward their more present parent.

Insomnia

For decades studies into insomnia have underlined the connection between children of divorce and insomnia later in life. Over half of insomnia patients express that their difficulty sleeping began when they were young. Brought on by intense stress, depression, anxiety, and overall, deep emotional turmoil.

Complimentary studies have also reflected that these emotional effects on children of military divorce are seen in much higher frequency, due to a range of lifestyle factors present in children of military servicemen and women.

In Conclusion

Anyone who suffers through a divorce or separation will indeed, to some degree, be going through a unique situation. However, that doesn’t mean that nothing can be learned from the countless examples that come before.

With the information outlined here today, covering the causes and effects of military divorce or separation, we hope you have a greater understanding of the struggles military marriages face and their children in the event of a divorce.

Never forget that there is support out there for you and your family. Don’t hesitate to reach out to those you trust.

Roughly one in every three children will see their parent’s marriage fail.

Divorce is increasingly common and does leave an impact on kids that are directly involved. The biggest impact on a child is the custody arrangement as they may need to change their daily routines. This is why it’s so important to understand custody evaluations.

Custody evaluations are there to determine the best interest of a child. This evaluation takes a wide range of factors into consideration to help draft a solid parenting plan. This plan is designed with the child in mind, not the parents.

Want to learn more about child custody evaluations? Read on for what you need to know about the types of custody arrangements and how a decision is finalized.

Types of Child Custody Arrangements

There are a few unique custody arrangements that you should know about. These arrangements range from legal custody to joint custody where both parents share in daily responsibilities. Here’s a quick look at the various custody arrangements.

Legal Custody

Legal custody is full custody of your child. This kind of custody goes further than physical custody as the parent is able to make long-term decisions about the child’s well-being. This includes decisions about education, medical issues, and even living arrangements.

Physical Custody

Physical custody is full custody of a child without the ability to make long-term decisions. This means that you are in control of where the child lives along with the day-to-day activities. Major decisions like moving to another school or city will still need to be agreed upon by both parents.

Sole Custody

Sole custody is where one parent gets full custody of the child. This kind of custody arrangement is given to people with abusive partners or where safety can’t be guaranteed for the child. The safety and well-being of your child are always the main priorities.

Joint Custody

Joint custody is the most popular custody arrangement for divorced couples. This custody arrangement gives both parents the ability to have a say in the child’s future. Decisions for the child are the responsibility of both parents, including finalizing living arrangements.

In most cases, the child will stay with one parent during the week and with the other parent on weekends. However, the ultimate decision does lay with both parents.

Determining the Best Interest of a Child

There are a few major factors that come up when discussing child custody. At the end of the day, all of these factors are looked at to determine the best situation going forward. Here’s a quick look at these factors.

Child’s Age

Your child’s age is an incredibly influential factor. Young children require more care and attention than older kids. This means that judges are more inclined to give custody to the primary caregiver.

When it comes to older children, the court may take their personal wishes into consideration. As long as their decision does not contradict the other factors, the court is likely to side with the wishes of the child.

Consistency

Courts will always try to make the child’s life a priority. This includes keeping the child’s daily routine as consistent as possible. From living arrangements to school and external activities, the least number of changes the better.

Parental Ability

Parental ability is a major factor when deciding who gets custody. This ability includes providing the child with physical and emotional support. However, it also includes financial support such as shelter, food, medical care, and education.

This is not to say that the wealthier parent will always get custody. Instead, this requirement is just to make sure that the child will maintain their lifestyle with the parent that gets custody. This is to make sure that the child is not impacted by the transition.

Changing Routines

When it comes to making a custody agreement, the judge will try to limit the changes that impact the child’s daily life. This means that the child’s typical routine is taken into consideration to determine where they should stay.

General Safety

The general safety of your child will always be taken into consideration in family court. If there’s any indication that your child may not be safe with one parent, the judge will take all necessary steps to ensure the child’s safety. This could be denying custody to that parent or setting limitations for the custody agreement.

Creating a Parenting Plan

Creating a parenting plan is essential to help you co-parent successfully. This plan should include time for family activities with both parents. However, this is still dependent on the custody arrangement that has been agreed on.

The best way to manage your parenting plan is to have a shared calendar. This calendar can help plan activities and schedule when your child will visit each parent. Cloud-based calendars are the best option as both parents will be able to contribute to your child’s schedule.

This is also great to help inform both parents of any changes so that they can prepare in advance.

Let 2houses Help with Your Parenting Plan

As parents, you want to give your child the best foundation possible. Even though a divorce can cause some disruptions, a solid parenting plan can ensure that your child is taken care of properly. Whether you have shared custody or weekend visiting rights, it’s important to have a solid plan so that there’s no confusion for your child.

2houses offers convenient, comprehensive tools to help you create and manage your parenting plan. The platform lets you create a simple, cloud-based calendar along with messaging and financial tools. Learn more and start your free trial today.