Divorced and co-parenting through the coronavirus pandemic: 'One of the most challenging times in my life'
Love in the time of coronavirus is one thing. But ex-loves — and co-parenting — is quite another.
As the pandemic has canceled school, trapping kids at home with stressed-out parents who may be working from home or wanting for work, family tensions have ratcheted up. And that’s been especially true for ex-spouses who co-parent, many of whom have very different notions of social distancing and appetites for risk. It’s also thrown exes who are in civil relationships more closely together, as they choose to include each other in their tightened circles for the sake of the kids.
Sometimes that can actually look pretty idyllic, as with exes Denise Albert and Jordan Fisch, who spoke to Yahoo Lifestyle recently about their modern-day isolation setup with five others, including a new spouse and her ex, plus three children. “Everyone is really pitching in and really respectful of each other,” Albert explained.
Similarly, Instagram influencer and Brooklyn writer Molly Rosen Guy of Stone Fox Ride has been posting #divorcestories — as she typically does — but specific to social distancing, together, with her ex-husband and kids, including a jokey post of her and her ex driving around together, and a video of her ex singing “Love Hurts” with their two daughters.
But plenty of former spouses who struggled to interact with each other even under the best of circumstances are finding this to be one of the most challenging times ever in their co-parenting experience.
“The issue is I can’t control what he does with them — I can’t tell him what to do,” a Detroit-area mom (who requested anonymity) tells Yahoo Lifestyle. She shares custody of 7-year-old twins with her ex-husband who works in food delivery and, says of her daughters, “he’s taken them to a gas station to buy Slush Puppies, a completely unnecessary thing to do, and he takes them to the grocery store when he has the entire week to shop without them.”
But the courts there have made it clear that they are not open to considering changes to child-custody arrangements at this time, she says, adding that she knows she’s not alone because of a divorced moms Facebook group, where situations get “really messy,” and, in some instances, “the partner is defiant almost on purpose.”
That’s definitely something Zena Polly, a Portland, Ore., a court-appointed custody evaluator and a psychologist with expertise in divorced families, has been seeing, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “Some parents feel like they can’t believe the other parent, and think, ‘Is my ex exploiting the risk of exposure as a means of not returning my child at the right time?’ With courts open, this would be such a different picture. But it’s like the Wild West now, everybody making things up as they go, without the backup.”
This coronavirus crisis, Polly adds, “is a terrible opportunity to have to learn how to trust each other when you hold the view that your ex does things that endanger your child. It could be difficult with any circumstance, but now, with the virus, it’s a given that we’re living in these times of endangerment.
To help mitigate those chances for endangerment, one mom (who requested anonymity), of New York City, has opted to move out of her studio and back into the house that she shared with her ex-wife during their 20-plus-years relationship. She did so for the sake of their 17-year-old son, who has developmental disabilities, and who, before this new arrangement, spent equal time between the two homes. But it’s been anything but easy.
“It was only two and a half weeks ago, but feels like it’s been months,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, explaining that she and her ex have “differences in how we communicate, process and express our emotions, and parent,” and that these issues “have always been the biggest challenges in our relationship.” Now they’re feeling those differences tenfold.
“We get along best when we aren’t physically near each other,” she says, so, “The living situation has been one of the most challenging times in my life thus far. It is a nonstop trigger for the two of us to fight,” between the constant shift in power dynamics and “need to communicate, parent, negotiate a physical space we long shared but haven’t in years, and prioritize and meet [our son’s] needs in an unprecedented time with no other support,” all while working from home. “It is super stressful and anxiety-producing.”
Still, she explains, they made the decision based upon the needs of their son, who is “mostly non-verbal, on autism spectrum, intellectually disabled, has ADHD and involved sensory needs, and is not independent in any age-appropriate way.” Between his needs, challenging behavior and “no school, remote instruction or therapies such as speech, occupational and physical therapy, and each of us working from home… we thought this is the most supportive and safest living arrangement for him.” Still, while there are a lot of fights, she says, “we also have had breakthrough moments of honesty and vulnerability that we’ve never had in the 27 years we’ve known each other.”
Polly says that, similarly, through her private practice, she has seen people in mid-separation having to halt the process and establish separate quarters in their house, indefinitely postponing the moving-out date. “It takes tremendous emotional energy to stay in that limbo… Those are statistically high-risk times where, if there’s going to be violence or at least explosive arguments, it will be then. [And it’s] certainly the hardest on the child, who will do better when there’s a new equilibrium established.”
As for exes moving back in together, whether it’s idyllic or hellish, she says, it “may be more a reflection of the parents own anxiety or not being able to trust the other. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong hard and fast rule, but it is important to consider: If I’m going to upend my child’s routine, is it for my child’s benefit? Or is it for my anxiety?” It also doesn’t take much to alight a child’s “magical thinking” that the parents will get back together, and so sometimes, she says, “what they think is reassuring can give their kids a whole new layer of loss to resolve for themselves.”
There are certainly no easy answers, and every family is different. But in order to help those she counsels through these extra-difficult times, Polly says, “I try to help parents put their focus on the thing they have in common — which is how much they love their child — and kind of bring them away from their entrenched conflict with each other… and emphasize that they have a mutual investment in their child being OK.”
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