When Cordelia Newlin got divorced about three and a half years ago, she and her ex-husband made an agreement. They would keep their daughters, now 14 and 17, in the family home. Newlin and her ex would rotate in and out when it was their time with the girls.
“We did this for the kids,” Newlin said, who previously wrote about her experience for Business Insider. “We owed them as much effort as possible to make this as painless as possible for them.”
At the time, Newlin didn’t know any other families who had tried a similar living arrangement, which has become known as “nesting.” While the idea of nesting after a breakup or divorce can work well for some, family and relationship experts who spoke with Business Insider caution that it can be difficult to pull off in practice because it requires a high level of trust and communication.
“It really only works for a very slim margin of people,” Olivia Howell, cofounder and CEO of Fresh Starts Registry, which helps people navigate divorce, said.
Intentional planning is critical
Aurisha Smolarski, a licensed family therapist, decided to get divorced quickly. She was concerned about the abruptness of the transition for her daughter, who was 6 years old at the time.
She and her ex-husband tried nesting. Like Newlin, they also didn’t know what it was called when they started the arrangement.
“I don’t regret doing it slowly for her, and I believe it set her up for success when we moved into the new home,” Smolarski, who is also the author of “Cooperative Coparenting for Secure Kids,” said.
However, nesting “just didn’t work for us in the long term,” she added.
She and her ex-husband were still arguing, and they eventually realized that their daughter could overhear. That made them very concerned and led to the realization that their new arrangement, designed to benefit her daughter, wasn’t actually helping.
It underscores a problem that Smolarski sees professionally with nesting.
“Often, people will roll right into it with the old habits that may not work, or may never have worked,” she said.
Not only should exes consider where they stand with each other, but counselor Bonnie Scott also said that parents need to coparent together really well in order to consider nesting.
“If you can keep a really good coparenting relationship and try out nesting, it’s worth a shot,” Scott said. “But if the coparenting relationship would be better with the traditional setup, that’s really the more important factor.”
Parents should also consider their custody split. Nesting might work well for a 50/50 split, where each adult feels equally invested in the family home, but less well if one parent only has the kids every other weekend, she said.
Nesters need to work together to handle logistics
Newlin credits careful planning for making her arrangement work long-term. She said she and her ex spent nine months and many therapy sessions (apart and together) before their divorce, hashing out the details before they moved forward with nesting.
“We really thought it out and planned it carefully,” she said.
At the beginning, that included formal weekly check-ins over Zoom, where they discussed everything from upcoming school events to whose turn it was to take out the trash. These days, it’s more fluid, she said.
“We only check in when we see big issues that we don’t already have an agreed way of handling,” she said, like how their daughter would celebrate her quinceañera — a milestone birthday in Mexico, where they live.
People who are considering nesting with an ex need to consider many logistics, right down to who will handle chores, buy food for the home, and pay for necessary maintenance.
Newlin said she and her ex worked these details out up front. They both stay in the same bed at the family home, so changing the sheets between occupants is essential. At first, the person departing was responsible for changing the sheets, but they later found it worked better to have the arriving parent change and wash the sheets.
She also said they always make sure to leave each other with grocery essentials like milk and eggs, and they maintain a shared grocery list via an app called To Do. The goal is to prevent resentment between the partners, she said.
That’s critical for nesting, Scott said. She also recommends talking about worst-case scenarios, such as what will happen if the nesting situation is no longer working for one or both people.
“The stability of the situation lies in the adults being able to work together,” she said.
If it’s not a healthy situation for the parents, it won’t be for the kids
Many people choose nesting to benefit their kids. However, Howell said it’s important that parents consider their own mental health and comfort level, since that often impacts children too.
“So much of the divorce process is the healing process after,” Howell said. “You can’t do that if you don’t feel safe and regulated.”
She emphasized that people who are nesting need a deep level of trust. You need to know that your partner won’t go through your private items when you’re not in the home, for example. Oftentimes, factors that contribute to divorce — like lies, infidelity, or addiction issues — mean that trust just isn’t feasible, Howell said.
All three experts — Howell, Scott, and Smolarski — agree that whatever makes your coparenting relationship the most healthy is also the best option for the kids.
“If you’re going to move forward with the idea of nesting, you need to do that because it feels right for you and for your kids,” Scott said. “Ultimately, if it’s not right for you, it’s not right for your kids either, and it’s not sustainable.”
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