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Make the most of your limited time.
The house is quiet, no children’s voices or children running up and down the stairs. You’re alone in the house. Is this what your future holds?
The children are with their mother in your once jointly-owned home. Still, you don’t have to worry about the school run, or getting them up for breakfast. But you miss the banter over the breakfast table.
Thankfully, though, your ex-partner, their mother, is enlightened enough to realise that the children still need to see their father, so despite the original difficulties over your immediate divorce, you do have contact arrangements set up with your children.
Planning quality time with your children now has real meaning. You have a timetable, which people expect you to keep, especially your children. There is very little flexibility built-in. The upside is, providing you’re planning has been thought through, you will not be disturbed. You will have their undivided attention, more so because of the circumstances. It’s a different environment for both of you and they will feel strange, but you are still their dad. One thing you don’t do is sit in front of the TV with them.
I have been a contact dad now for over 15 years and have never had a TV, so we do things together. And that, more than anything, brings home the term…