How Joint Child Custody Changed My Life

After a lengthy child custody dispute following my separation and divorce from a husband of ten years and a marriage fraught with escalating domestic violence, I found myself left with an order for joint child custody from family court. As my attorney explained the details of the child custody order to me all those years ago, telling me that I would have custody of my children a little over 50% of the time–Periods of Responsibility (PORs) is the official term in the child custody agreement–I was engulfed in a type of black and dark grief I didn’t know was possible. I felt that the court was taking away half of my motherhood with the child custody agreement. Joint child custody had stripped me of my role as my kids’ mom.

I’d carried and given birth to my precious boy and girl. I’d been their primary caregiver their entire lives, juggling telecommuting from home as a full-time web developer so I could be home with my children, plus taking care of the bulk of the household chores and a spouse who didn’t see child-rearing as part of his responsibilities.

The court agreed that I was an excellent parent. They acknowledged that my ex-husband had hit me, although the police in our small town had been unwilling to send him to jail because of his socially prominent family and the appalling lack of welts and bruises on my body. Thankfully, he never hurt the children. The fact that he’d had multiple extramarital affairs was not taken into the equation in my “no-fault” state. We’d both been court ordered to Domestic Violence Counseling. And yet the state was ordering joint child custody, taking away almost half of my time with my own children, because I chose to no longer live in a situation where I was physically abused. I’d made the decision to get out of an increasingly violent marriage because I felt that my life was in danger, and I wanted to live. My grief quickly morphed into a strong sense of injustice. After all, I wasn’t the one who’d done any hitting. I hadn’t sent anyone to the emergency room.

To add insult to injury, the professionals within the court system made it abundantly clear to me that I was somewhat “suspect” because I’d lived with the abuse for so long, which contributed to their decision about my child custody situation. They didn’t seem to hear me when I told them I was a devout Christian woman who took her marriage vows seriously. When considering the child custody issue, they didn’t seem interested in the fact that I’d stayed as long as I could and tried to make things work until I began to wake up in the middle of the night with my husband glaring down at me from the foot of the bed where he stood with clenched fists while I pretended to sleep, praying with every cell in my body that he wouldn’t hurt me. Although I’d had the sheriff come and take away my husband’s firearms once the court removed him from the house, the court that made the decision about my child custody didn’t seem concerned that I’d found a gun I didn’t know my husband owned hidden in an antique sewing machine cabinet in the master bedroom.

I chose life over being a full time mom.

This is a life change of a quantum order, and the only way to survive it and then to crawl on top of the choices I’ve made and actually live in the here and now, at this present moment with joy and a sense of peace, is through acceptance.

Not the roll over and die type of acceptance. I’m far too spirited for that. But the type of acceptance about which the Buddha speaks–

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many? Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

It’s not easy. I’ve had to work each and every day for years on this life-affirming type of acceptance I’ve found in the wake of joint child custody. My child custody circumstances nearly overtook me with all the force of a tsunami, leaving me drowned.

I don’t accept being physically abused. I never will again. I would never accept the mistreatment of my children, but I do recognize the importance of a dad, even a highly flawed one in a child custody agreement. Almost a decade later, I’ve grown up and I accept that the world is an imperfect place. I accept that things are not always fair. I accept that what I want is not always the best thing for everyone. I accept joint child custody, because in an imperfect situation, it’s what’s good for my kids. I accept that people can change.

And with this type of acceptance comes a life worth living. Even when my part of the child custody agreement is fifty-percent, I’ve learned that I’m a mom 100% of the time and I always will be, joint child custody or not.

Acceptance also opens the doors for the very excellent things I never expected, like a wonderful grown-up husband of six years for whom violence is never an option, who loves my two kids like they were his own, and who’s my very best friend.

I choose life.