Custody Fights and Parental Guilt

I find myself wondering how many custody fights over children in a divorce would not occur if guilt could be removed the picture.  I believe that most mom’s and dad’s sincerely love their children and have a burning desire to maintain a loving bond with them.  Mom’s and Dad’s tend to have different ways of keeping that bond but it would seem to me that they both believe that their ability to do so is dependant on how much ‘face time’ they have with their child And when custody fights come into the picture, one of the first things that come to mind would likely be how the loss of face time would mean a loss of that bond between the two of you.

Good parents want what is best for their child.  I want what is best for my child.  But any arrangement that has Daughter spending far less time with me seems wrong.  I’m sure divorced parents who live in different cities can attest to fact that there isn’t much choice in the matter though.  The child either lives with mom or dad and either way, one of them is missing out.   The other parent starts to think about all the milestones they will also miss out on as their kid is growing up, such as the first day of school, first loose tooth, first date and the many other firsts.  It’s not a stretch to understand how alienated the other parent may feel from the whole process of raising a child.  As a result, guilt or anger or both take over and the other parent panics.  Heated phone conversations between the two parent commence and before they both know it, they’re sitting in a court room wondering what the fuck went so wrong.

Personally, I’ve been wrestling with my own personal guilt of missing out on those kind of things, as though by doing so I’m somehow a horrible father.  I’m starting to understand how the world is not a black and white place though.  The perfect little nuclear family is a myth.  No family is perfect, whether the parents are divorced or not.  No custody arrangement is perfect either.  Daughter has been raised, thus far, by separate parents in separate houses and she’s doing great.  My Daughter will continue to grow older and I will continue to adapt what I consider to the practices of a good father so that they work for whatever custody arrangement may be in place.  Daughter will grow older and make her own choices about how she feels about spending less time with her father because her parents live in two different cities.  And when she starts asking questions, I will answer them as truthfully (and gently) as I can.  I will tell her that I will, as I have always done, do my best to be there for her whether she is in my house or mom’s.  It would seem as though I’ve found peace with the matter.  I’ve started to sift through all the doubt and guilt that has been clouding my mind and most importantly, stop beating myself up for things that I simply cannot control.  I take solace in the fact that atleast one of Daughter’s parents are able to this which will (hopefully) reduce the overall drama.

I’m curious to find out what other divorced dads, faced with this situation, opted to do.  What was your basis for making the choice that you did?  Any regrets?