About Rebecca Eckler
Since becoming pregnant with her daughter Rowan, Canadian journalist and author Rebecca Eckler has penned three hilarious books, including the best-selling Knocked Up. Catch Rebecca’s weekly unique perspective on motherhood and single parenthood.
I met my boyfriend through a divorced friend who had gone on a date with another old friend of mine, who is also divorced. They are now a solid couple and have dated for a year. It so happens that my old friend is friends with my (now) boyfriend, who was separated. I was separated, and my old friend thought it would be great for us to go on a blind date.
Ten months and going strong, my boyfriend and I both thank our divorced friends for introducing us. We would LOVE to thank them in PERSON but this doesn’t seem to be in the cards. We never see them. We’ve tried to figure it out, but the scheduling conflicts are more than a hurdle!
It has to do with divorced people’s schedules and their children. More and more fathers are getting (and wanting) 50 per cent custody.
Because my friends have 50/50 custody and my boyfriend has 50/50 custody, my boyfriend and I will never see our friends.
My boyfriend’s weekends with his kids are the exact opposite of our friend’s schedule with their kids. The weekends we have my boyfriend’s children, neither my friend nor her boyfriend have their children. (Good for them for working that out! At least THEY are on the same schedule!)
The weekends my boyfriend doesn’t have his children, our couple friends have their children. And my boyfriend is also on a Tuesday and Thursday ‘with children’ schedule and my friend has his children on Wednesday nights. (Wednesday nights, in my mind, have always been Divorced Dad nights. Check out any family-friendly restaurant on a Wednesday night, and you’ll see a lot of single dads with their children.)
And, I have my daughter almost every night, except when she visits her father or her father visits her. (He lives in another province.)
The fact is, my boyfriend’s schedule with his kids is the exact opposite of our friends schedule with their kids, so we will pretty much never see them ever again for a night out.
Sure, one of us COULD get a babysitter, but none of us actually WANT to get a babysitter, especially my friends who have their children only 50 per cent of the time. (I don’t even want to get a babysitter on a Saturday night. I’d rather spend it with my daughter.)
And, yes, I suppose we could just see each other on the weekends in the day. But when they don’t have their kids they want to go out. When my boyfriend doesn’t have his kids, we just want to chill.
So thank you dear divorced friends for setting us up. I would love to tell you this in person, but there are scheduling conflicts.
Are you separated? What’s the hardest part of shared custody?