Birdnesting: meet the Londoners still sharing a home with their exes to keep their family together after divorce
Why some exes are making co-parenting work for them and easing disruption by keeping the family home alongside a smaller property
With 42 per cent of marriages now ending in divorce, âBirdnestingâ â when a separated couple maintains one family home and another smaller house or flat, which they can swap into when itâs not their turn with the children â is becoming increasingly popular with parents wanting to minimise the disruption of a split.
âMy ex-husband and I maintain one family household for our childrenâs stability, but itâs not quite the traditional ânestingâ one understands,â says Farhana Hussain.
The 46-year-old and her ex-husband put their own spin on the birdnesting trend after divorcing in 2020: âI was against a ânestingâ arrangement, where you swap houses, as I didnât want to go and stay in his house.â
Instead, the SEN co-ordinator turned divorce doula lives with her three teenage sons in a family house, in Tonbridge, Kent, which the couple bought together after their split.
Hussainâs co-parent lives in a studio nearby.
âHe comes and goes throughout the week and makes himself dinner and has dinner with us once a week. One or two weekends a month, he comes and spends the weekend here and Iâll go off somewhere else. He has keys and lets himself in, makes himself at home and makes himself food.â
It has taken a long time and a lot of effort to get to this point, and initially the family tried a more traditional set-up, with each parent having 50/50 custody.
âIt was very quickly obvious that it wasnât going to work, as the boys were really upset with being with their dad. After a month, we adjusted it to every weekend and that didnât work either. At the weekends, the kids wanted to be at home where their friends were.â
After six months, the couple finally settled on Hussain having the kids 100âper cent of the time but with their father regularly visiting and staying over.
âNow they can see dad throughout the week and itâs not a big deal for the family not to be together because weâre still together.â
Farhana Hussain
Now, every month, the couple go through their diaries and work out who will be in the house on which weekends.
âThe kids always said that they hated going to stay with dad and having to drop everything to do things with dad. Now they can see dad throughout the week and itâs not a big deal for the family not to be together because weâre still together.â
âThere were teething problems â at the beginning, he came over every Tuesday and Thursday and he wanted special time with them. The boys said: âDo we have to roll the red carpet out every time dad comes over?â I live with them and rarely see them; as theyâre teenagers theyâre up in their rooms most of the time. My ex had to get used to the fact that when he came round to the house, it was just to be with them rather than do anything special.â
Hussain admits that there are other sacrifices he has had to make: âItâs not his stuff here and heâs not in his house; itâs hard if itâs getting late as he needs to go home (unless heâs here for the weekend).â
She has found other elements of their birdnesting model tricky herself: âOne thing I know I need to work on is, when I come home from being away, the mess⌠Iâll now spend the first hour back tidying up, when before it would have been a storm. Iâve learnt to let go.â
âIt was an acrimonious divorce⌠There was a time when we couldnât be in the same room together.â
Farhana Hussain
Despite the difficulties that their unusual living situation throws up, Hussain is pleased with the arrangement.
âIt was an acrimonious divorce⌠There was a time when we couldnât be in the same room together, but weâve been through an awful lot,â she says. âYou find things that you thought you would never do but you do them because of your kids. It could work for anyone if both people are on the same page for their children.â
In fact, Hussain has also used the experience to pivot into a new career. âI wanted to create The Divorce Doula to help with emotional healing and to bring a practical element to splitting up.â
Birdnesting
How to make it work
- Communicate clearly and regularly with your co-parent. If youâre not open and honest with them, itâll make things challenging and create issues.
- Implement a parenting plan, covering how the household chores will be divided.
- Agree a minimum term, after which the set-up will be reviewed.
- Accept that you will lose a degree of privacy.
- Talk to a financial adviser about how to organise your outgoings jointly.
Hussain is not alone in prioritising her childrenâs desire for stability over moving on.
Journalist, broadcaster and activist Anna Whitehouse, aka Mother Pukka, and her husband Matt Farquharson recently revealed theyâd set up a birdnesting arrangement at their London home, and family law barrister Samantha Woodham says sheâs seeing more couples asking for a similar arrangement.
âFive years ago, nesting was seen as really âout thereâ and judges discouraged it, as they wanted the divorce to be a clean break, but itâs now more common.â
âFive years ago, nesting was seen as really âout thereâ and judges discouraged it.â
Samantha Woodham
Woodham believes in an amicable approach to divorce and co-founded The Divorce Surgery, which sees couples share one lawyer when reaching a settlement.
If her clients are considering birdnesting, Woodhamâs job is to help them structure it legally and she cites several things that couples need to consider: âAre you planning to have joint names on the mortgage? You might need both incomes to have the mortgage in the first place, or does one of you own the family home and one owns the flat?â
As well as the big stuff, Woodham says you need to think about the mundane. âYou need a parenting plan: who does the laundry and homework? What if one of you likes to whack up the heating? You need to work together in terms of house rules.â
When it comes to the âtypesâ of couples wanting to go down this route, Woodham reveals it tends to be parents of school-age children âwith a certain degree of affluenceâ.
Not only do you need to be able to afford to maintain a family home, but you also need to buy or rent a smaller flat as well. The 2021 census recorded just under 62,000 second homes in the capital as a secondary parental address, one-quarter of all second homes in London. While these might not all be divorcees, they are being used by parents who arenât living together.
âTwo people getting divorced are not at the same stage â one might have been thinking about it for a while and be further along than the other one.â
Samantha Woodham
For birdnesting to be a success, Woodham says both parents have to be fully committed to it. âItâs got to be bilateral. New relationships are often a trigger [for it ending] as youâre starting to move on.â
She suggests agreeing a minimum term, for example 24 months, after which, if one of you wants to exit it, you can make the arrangements.
âWhen you talk to couples who want it, it might not necessarily be for a super long time but itâs a transition. Catchment areas are important, if the kids are at a good state school; theyâll stay in the family home until the kids go to secondary school, others just need time to process. Two people getting divorced are not at the same stage â one might have been thinking about it for a while and be further along than the other one.â
As far as her own future goes, Hussain says that things will change once her sons finish their education.
âThe plan is that Iâll move back to London when the boys finish school. My ex might keep the place [in Tonbridge], as the boys might want to come back here. It will be nicer once theyâve left home as we will have options.â