It is generally best not to put the children between you and your ex when you’re getting divorced. You don’t want to make them choose where they want to live or make them feel like they have to pick sides between their parents.
Instead, it is far better to work together with the best interests of the child in mind. You want to seek a solution that will be best for their future, and that may mean compromising with your ex or agreeing to some things that you don’t consider to be optimal.
How do you decide what is in their best interests?
While all cases are unique, there are a lot of different factors that courts will generally look at to decide what is in a child’s best interests. If you and your spouse can’t agree, the court may use these factors to make a decision for you. But you can also look at them if you’re using mediation or simply trying to work together through the court process. Some factors include:
- Whether or not the child has physical or mental health issues that need to be addressed
- What age the child is during the uncontested divorce and what their gender is
- If one of you, as a parent, was the primary caretaker during the marriage
- If the child has a stable and safe living situation with both parents
- Where the child’s friends live and where they go to school
These are just a few examples, but you can see that the goal is to help the child have a more stable life after the uncontested divorce by keeping things similar for them. As you and your ex work through this and come to a solution, take the time to consider your parental rights and all the different options that you have.