One often overlooked aspect in the divisions that occur with a divorce is that of continued participation in the church the family attended. While certainly there’s a possible outcome where both spouses continue to attend the same church post-divorce, for many families that’s not ideal or possible. It becomes all the trickier when there are minor children. Is it possible for divorced parents to continue to sit on the same pew with their children every Sunday? Certainly, and it could well be an idyllic co-parenting relationship.
Very often, though, the idea of who continues to attend the same church is worked out by the couple themselves, often early on in the process. Which is wise, as the Judge won’t be able to dictate who gets to attend a certain church (or more accurately, deny someone the ability to attend a certain church). So the couple often reaches an informal agreement on their own as to who continues to attend that church and who has to find a new church home.
Much more formally, when determining tie-breakers for Joint Legal Custody, one parent will have tie-breaker on religious upbringing. This particular one causes a great deal of confusion. If you have religious upbringing “tie-breaker”, you don’t get to dictate if/when the child goes to church if they’re with the other parent. But you do get the ability to decide what religion the child is raised in and what religious ceremonies the child takes part in. In many families, this can be rather a non-issue, even if, for example, the parents both attend Christian churches, but of different denominations. It becomes much more critical if a parent decides they want to change religions. We see this often in cases where “Spouse A” was raised in one religious tradition but changed to worship in the same religion as “Spouse B.” After the divorce, that Spouse A may well wish to return to the religion of their upbringing and the question becomes – how is the child exposed, if at all, to either religion? Or Spouse A gets remarried and changes their religion to their new spouse’s. If Spouse B has religious upbringing tie-breaker, they can decide if Spouse A is allowed to expose the child to Spouse A’s “new” religion or not. This could be critically important to Spouse A, Spouse B, or both. But far too often, it is glossed over in the development of a Parenting Plan.
Hiring an experienced family law attorney means having someone on your side who can explore these options with you now rather than being caught off-guard down the road if your ex decides to change their own religion.