This post is part of a series on Nesting, the solution that Darth (my ex-husband, a pseudonym) and I chose for how to live during the liminal time and space between when we separated and when we officially divorced. I don’t recommend it for everyone and I don’t necessarily think it’s the best solution for you. This series will discuss how we set up our arrangement, how I managed during the process, and things to think about as you determine your own living arrangements post-separation.
Nesting Instead of a Two-House Solution
It’s happened: one of you has said the words, “I want a divorce.” Or, someone has walked out. Or, someone has been kicked out. Or, something has happened that has wreaked havoc in your marriage to the extent that at least one of you has decided that you can no longer live with the other anymore.
As if that weren’t messy enough: now throw children into the mix.
However your separation happens, one of the trickiest things to handle once you have decided that you are getting a divorce is how to arrange your living situation. In many situations, once the decision to split has been made, it becomes impossible to share a home together anymore. The thought of sharing a bed, or sitting together on the couch, or sitting together at the dining room table – even though you have done so for years, or even decades – somehow becomes unfathomable.
Or, you simply know that you cannot be in the same room together without breaking into a shouting match.
That weird thing happens where your spouse is all of a sudden less appealing than a random person off the street. They have chicken pox, scabies, and the stomach flu all at the same time. There’s no way that you’d spend another night under the same roof.
But the divorce proceedings haven’t even begun. You don’t have the money for two homes that would accommodate you and the kids, and you don’t want to move the kids out of their home yet.
What do you do?
This was the situation that I found myself in five years ago. My husband decided that we would never spend a night under the same roof again, together. So we happened upon the solution of nesting, or birdnesting. (If you decide to Google it to look up other people’s experiences, it goes by both names).
Think shared custody, but of your house. You get the house Sunday through Wednesday, your still-spouse gets the house Thursday through Saturday. Or you switch off every day. Or you switch every two days. Maybe you get weekdays and he gets weekends. Whatever schedule works for you.
When you are not in the family home, you stay somewhere else: a relative’s house, an apartment, with a friend, maybe you travel for work, maybe you already have a new significant other. Some couples actually rent one apartment and then they share it: whoever is not in the family home stays in the apartment.
And the kids? They stay in the house. They sleep in their beds. They play with their toys. They live close to their friends. Despite the fact that your family is going through chaos, the kids get to keep the stability of staying at home. Familiar. Safe.
It worked for us for two and a half years while we tried to figure out the terms of our divorce.
Not a Perfect Solution
There’s nothing rosy about it, though I have read Pollyannaish tales online of couples that blissfully birdnested for years, even after their divorce, to keep things stable for the kids. But if you are putting your life on hold to make things stable for the kids, you are still losing something.
The downsides of nesting, from my experience:
- The parents need somewhere to stay during the time when they are not in the home. To save money, I stayed with my own parents on these “off” nights. My parents live an hour away from my family’s house. Luckily, my work was halfway between the two houses. I put lots and lots of miles on my car during those years.
- If I wanted a clean family home, I had to clean it.
- None of the projects we wanted to complete on the house moved forward.
- There were lots of opportunities to fuel the fire of our anger at one another – he would leave unfolded laundry on the bed or beard hairs in the sink. I would be 10 or 15 minutes late vacating the house during a transition.
- Transitions are difficult. Honestly though, they still are.
- In our case, because I was staying so far from home, it was difficult to get together with friends on my “off” days. Outside of online support groups, I had no social life to speak of.
- When everything around you seems the same, it’s easy to stay “stuck” in old feelings, patterns, and habits. I don’t think I ever truly believed that my marriage was over when we were nesting.
- Nesting probably drew out our divorce proceedings. Because I was at peace with our situation, I wasn’t in a rush to finalize the paperwork. (This one could either be a pro or con, depending on your own divorce proceedings!)
- Nesting was very hot/cold. If I was in our family home, I was “on” as the parent constantly. Belle and Bugg were 4 and 7, so this was time consuming and could be tiring. When I was with my own parents, I zoned out, slept, and tended to my introversion most of the time.
- The worst one: I missed my kids terribly. I would cry just about each time I drove away from our house.
A Phoenix from the Ashes
Despite how uncomfortable nesting was, I still believe it was the right solution for our family in the end. Once I had some tools for coping with the constant transitions and got used to living in two homes, there were a lot of things that I appreciated about this choice.
The upsides of nesting, from my experience:
- Nesting allowed our young kids to feel safe. There was very little change to their day-to-day life. During times when I was the “on” parent, their dad would often come over for dinner or put them to bed while I went out for a jog. We had often switch-hit parented before, so it wasn’t a major disruption to their lives.
- Because I have great parents, I was able to rest and heal on the days that I was with them. My mom cooked for me, and someone always asked me how my day was when I came home. I found that I was really grateful for the extra time with them that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
- Nesting meant we were still existing as a family unit, and it forced Darth and I to be cordial to one another some of the time. We still did things together with the kids, something we never do now that we have our own homes.
- I had way more time to myself than I did pre-separation. Parenting young children with no childcare was really hard on my introverted nature.
- Parenting separately made it clear which parent was the “go-to” parent. Like many moms, I often found myself the “default” parent when I was around. So parenting separately meant parenting more equally.
- I developed yoga, meditation, and exercise practices. I even had time to do a triathlon and marathon.
- I read tons of books, something I had not done for years, and I truly believe that it saved my life.
Something to Consider
It’s definitely an itchy solution, particularly if you and your ex are feeling pretty sour at one another. It takes a lot of self-check ins and awareness of your feelings, because if you’re like me, they will swing a lot during the transitions. Nesting brought so many triggers that would set me off, usually into sadness or depression.
But once we committed to it, it actually became pretty easy. For my part, just having more mental space in my life made so much possible that had not been possible before. Living part of the week with someone other than my spouse or kids gave me a support system that helped me see the realities of my marriage. And, parenting my kids solo on my parenting days was great practice for when we eventually split into our own homes.
If you can’t afford to immediately move to a two-house solution, or if your kids are extra anxious, or very anchored to their living space, nesting might be something to think about while you work out the next living situation for your family.