Nesting After Divorce: Co-Parenting in the Family Home

In the spirit of Conscious Uncoupling comes a guide for a child-centered approach to parenting after divorce—known as nesting—that will change what it looks like to move forward as a family after a marriage ends.

Research suggests when a couple separates, children suffer the most, as they’re typically shuttled back and forth between two different homes. When Beth Behrendt and her husband divorced, she found a better way: She gave her children custody of the home, while she and her husband moved around. After successfully implementing more than six years of what’s known as “nesting,” Behrendt has created a step-by-step guide for divorcing parents to introduce the practice in their own families. In Nesting After Divorce, Behrendt provides a coparenting program that can start when an unhappily married couple considers the pros and cons of a nesting divorce. She offers advice on deciding whether nesting is the right choice for a family and communicating the concept to a spouse, children, friends, and family. She outlines the steps for assembling a nesting “team” of legal, financial, and mental health professionals and even shows how, surprisingly, nesting is often a more affordable approach to divorce than the traditional two-home model.

Behrendt’s divorce book expands upon her viral 2017 New York Times essay “After Divorce, Giving Our Kids Custody of the Home,” and is the perfect guide for anyone seeking a healthy, amicable divorce for their family.