People get divorced every day. Some handle the “uncoupling” well. Most do not. Having exclusively practiced family law for almost 30 years now, one of the greatest mysteries that remains to me is why people keep fighting long after they are living two separate lives, particularly when there are children involved. When parents break up, they often claim their separation is to spare the children from living in a toxic environment that exists when they are living under the same roof as a couple. The parents promise the children that it will be better for them to live in two happy homes, rather than one unhappy home. However, very few couples keep this promise to their children.

I often see two households where the children are schlepped back and forth and the parents keep fighting. The worst offenders cannot even exchange the most basic of pleasantries at a custody transfer or at a little league game when they run into each other. They fail their children on a weekly basis. Often, in my initial consultations with clients I recommend that, if they cannot find a way to change that dynamic and rise to a new level of cordiality for the sake of their children, they should just stay together. The only thing worse for these kids than listening to their parents constantly fighting in one home is having them navigate fighting across two households. Remember: the children did not ask for this, yet they are the ones who are inconvenienced. Try living between a hotel and your house for a few weeks to remind yourself what it is like to manage all of life’s pressures while being uprooted every few days. Moving between two households wears on children, and the least parents can do is deliver the closest thing to a “silver lining” that they can … two happy homes and cooperating parents who rediscover the respect they once had for each other when they first met and actually liked each other.