Often, the most difficult parts of divorce do not make themselves known until after the divorce itself is over. For example, if you have children and are in a co-parenting situation with your ex-spouse, this can be a very fraught situation.
Moving children between two separate residences can be stressful. For this reason, some divorced families are experimenting with “nesting.” Nesting is an arrangement where the children do not move between houses, according to Psychology Today, but rather the parents rotate in and out of the family home.
How is this beneficial?
Nesting means that the children do not need to move from the original family home, which can provide a great deal of stability. Nesting is very helpful at the first stages of divorce when the parents may not have made alternative arrangements yet. In this situation, nesting helps the parents get the distance they need from each other without unnecessarily disrupting the lives of the children.
Nesting can also be helpful for families that live in expensive areas. Often, after a divorce single parents are not able to maintain households in expensive areas. If keeping your children in the same neighborhood and school district is important to you and your ex-spouse, nesting may be the only financially viable way to do this.
Where do the parents live?
In a temporary nesting situation, it is not uncommon for the “off-duty” parent to reside with other family members or friends. In a longer-term nesting situation, parents sometimes choose to rent and furnish a separate apartment so that one parent has a place to live when not in the family home with the kids.
