6 year old son

[seeking_solace]

My BPDw and I are separated.  It's been two months and I am planning on a divorce.   We have been sharing custody 50/50, three days on, three off.  I just dropped him off at her house, our home together, and he absolutely lost it.  She has been emotionally unavailable to all of our kids for some time now, but it is still heartbreaking to see him struggle.  He and I have always been close as we share a lot of common interests and he is my oldest.  Any thoughts on what I can do to help them reconnect?  He was screaming don’t leave me as I was walking out the door.  It pains me to put him through this but I can’t stay with her anymore.   

[Free One]

It's so hard to see our kids struggle. From my experience, this is what I can offer:

1) Be careful what you wish for in terms of him "reconnecting" with his mother. I pushed my ex for this before the divorce, and it came back to bite me. Now he "acts" like the good father to save face, but you can tell it's superficial. Had I not pushed things, I feel like my ex would have taken a less active role in our son's life (at least for the time) and my son would have more stability now.

2) Don't focus on their r/s. Yes, it hurts to watch your child hurt and you want to do everything possible to fix it. As a parent, it's a natural feeling, but taking action on it is not always the healthiest choice. Work on your r/s with your son. Get him to talk about his feeling, validate him and make sure he knows he is loved by you. That's really all you can guarantee, is that you love him. His mother will suffer the consequences of choosing not to be available to her son. You will be the parent he needs to know will always be there and will always love him.

[yeeter]

One quick additional comment.  Unfortunately, any precedent you set now in terms of sharing time, will factor into the long term consideration during divorce agreement. Judges don't like to change anything if it's currently 'working'. 

[seeking_solace]

Thanks for the thoughts.  My feeling is, long term she will abandon our kids.  Very sad.  I only see 50/50 as an option to avoid a lengthy divorce.  She can't seem to handle any pressure at all.