When most parents divorce, they cannot entirely separate. Though their left hands may no longer bear wedding rings, the children they?ve borne still bring them together to share custody, provide child support, and to a degree, relive the reasons they split up in the first place.
New research shows that communication between former spouses is still important for ex-marital and parental well being, even after the divorce.
Today it is common for both ex-spouses to share legal and physical custody of children after divorcing, but little is known about how such parents negotiate the co-parenting process.
In an attempt to find out, Mindy Markham, assistant professor of family studies and human services at Kansas State University, studied the behavior of 20 predominantly white, well-educated women between the ages of 26 to 49 that had divorced or separated from the father of their children. All of the mothers shared legal and physical custody of the children with their former partners.
?The findings of this study suggest that shared physical custody relationships are dynamic and can vary greatly,? Markham said.
In the study, Markham identified three patterns of co-parenting ? continuously contentious, always amicable and bad to better ? as well as negative and positive factors that influenced the mothers? co-parenting relationships.
In the always amicable and bad-to-better relationships, mothers were able to communicate well with ex-partners. These mothers said this made discussing differences in parenting styles easier.
But for women in continuously contentious relationships, lack of communication was a big issue, Markham said. These mothers limited direct in-person or phone communication with their ex, preferring alternative methods like texting or email. They also avoided seeing their ex in person when it came time to exchange children by having them picked up at day care or school.
A number of factors contributed to the rocky relationships experienced by those in the ?continually contentious? category, including the mother?s perception of her ex?s parenting abilities; financial concerns, including the ex not having a job or not paying child support; control or abuse by the ex-partner; and the inability of the ex to separate marital ? or personal ? issues from the co-parenting relationship.
?All mothers in this type of co-parenting relationship reported differences in parenting styles and were concerned with how the ex was raising the children,? Markham said. ?They didn?t believe their exes were responsible parents.?
Markham said she was surprised by the animosity that accompanies shared custody, at least from some mothers? perceptions.
?Nearly half of the mothers in this study continue to have conflicted relationships with their ex-partners, and conversations with these women negate the notion that shared physical custody ensures cooperative, less conflicted relationships,? she said.
Some of the women in the continuously contentious relationships didn?t want to share custody of the children with their ex-partner, but most were told by lawyers or the court that they would have to do so. This was not the case among women in amicable relationships
Women in amicable relationships chose to share physical custody of their children with their former spouses. They also tended to believe their ex-partners were responsible parents, and money wasn?t a source of conflict. Such women reported always getting along with their ex-partners from separation to the present.
All mothers in bad-to-better relationships said they were unable to co-parent amicably with their ex-partner in the beginning because personal issues were not kept separate from parenting responsibility.
?Although ex-partners with bad-to-better relationships originally allowed their feelings about one another to negatively affect their co-parenting, at some point they realized this was not beneficial and made a conscious effort to change the relationship for the sake of their children,? Markham said.
In the always amicable and bad-to-better relationships, mothers were able to communicate well with ex-partners. These mothers said this made discussing differences in parenting styles easier.
Markham said the study could be useful to professionals as they help divorced couples navigate the co-parenting landscape.
?Shared physical custody is not a panacea for post-divorce problems,? Markham said, ?and that in some cases it exacerbates them.?
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