atypical family configurations

mentioned on the mom+dad poll... when i was growing up my parents got separated. each month one would live in the house with my sister and i, and then the next month they would rotate. on their off months, they each lived with their parents. this continued through my college years, up until just before i moved out for good. at that point they decided to both live in the house, with separate bedrooms, which has been going well for a few years now.

i know i had some kind of problems with this as a kid because i didn't talk to people about it for years, but i can't really say why now. on balance i think it worked well. it was stable but i also had a built-in break from each parent. i have a feeling the hidden cost was leveled on my parents, being single people in their 40s-50s who lived with their parents 6 months out of the year. they have never ever even hinted at being frustrated by that though, and i've never asked, so who knows?

plz share your atypical family config, your imaginary ideal config, or just rant about the misery of the nuclear family model if u want

four boys, bipolar alcoholic mum, dad that worked abroad 2/3 of the year.

not a single living relative in my family is married out of one brother, two parents, three aunts and three uncles (7 divorces between them). not sure how common this is but it bums me out.

bi-polar cheating father

A friend of mine is divorcing now and she and her ex will be co-parenting their two young kids. Am interested to see how they do it, since they're pretty much totally unconcerned with what a "normal" family is supposed to be, as opposed to what works best for them. It seems like such a good thing, presented in a good way (that is v different from the "normal" way that, like, parenting manuals would recommend), that the kids are so far totally un-fazed.

What was it like, al3x, when the month was up and the parents switched? And did you plan stuff like, I'll do this in April when Dad's here, but will wait until May for that when Mom's back?

sort of... they had different routines to adjust to - e.g. dad played tennis monday nights, mom worked tuesdays, so those would be the best times to play video games for hours or get high or whatever. was generally harder to get away with stuff on mom's months, since she was more vigilant and the lighter sleeper. on the other hand, it was pretty much wall to wall hamburger helper and jarred spaghetti sauce on dad's months

also xp that sounds great laurel, i hope they figure something out. how old are the kids?

Young, not even close to adolescence. But this is someone else's sitch and it involves young children so I don't want to say more. Just that right now I think my friend is being an awesome model for modern relationships and re-prioritization.