Christine McGuinness says she doesn’t want her children to live between two homes
Watch: Christine McGuinness says she doesn’t want her children to live between two homes
Christine McGuinness says she doesn’t want her children to go back and forth between two homes as she continues to co-parent them with her ex-husband, Paddy McGuinness.
The model and TV presenter, 36, divorced from Paddy in 2022 after 10 years of marriage. The pair share three children, all of whom have been diagnosed with autism, which Christine was also diagnosed with as an adult.
Speaking on Loose Women on Friday 3 January, Christine explained that she and Paddy still live in the same house despite being divorced, so their children’s routines remain uninterrupted, particularly over Christmas.
She said: "A lot of people are like, ‘How can you have Christmas with your ex-husband?’ But we live in the same house so I can’t just kick him out for Christmas Day. The children don’t know any different - we’re family, mummy and daddy obviously are there at home for Christmas. We just try to keep everything as normal as possible."
Explaining how she and Paddy keep their schedules separate, she continued: "We’re both in and out of the house. We’re trying to plan to make sure that we can both be there when we need to be.
"But most of the time, he’ll block his work and I’ll block a bit of something in. I don’t want the children going to different houses when they come home from school. They struggle with change anyway, I want them to know where their home is.
"It doesn’t matter if mummy or daddy is there, they just want to know that after school they’re going back to one home," she said.
Christine also admitted that she would not like to come home to an empty house "because it might be [Paddy’s] day with the kids" if they were to live in separate homes.
The Real Housewives of Cheshire star previously spoke about spending Christmas with her ex, telling Woman’s Own last year that the "last thing we want to do is upset our children over Christmas".
"We always try to keep it quiet, because the children can get quite overwhelmed with the changes. So we try to keep it like a normal day but with presents."
She added that her and Paddy’s unusual living arrangement "really works" for them, and said: "We are very close, we’re family no matter what."
In a previous interview with Best magazine, Christine shed some light on how she and Paddy navigate lives as single people despite still living with one another. She revealed that they have a policy of not discussing their love lives unless it involves the children.
"We don’t discuss it an awful lot, as we’re trying to be respectful to each other," she said.
Meanwhile, Paddy has also shared his perspective on his and Christine’s living situation. He told The Mirror: "We get on well, we live together and co-parent. We get the lawyers back and forth but that’s separate. If Christine met someone else, I’d be supportive.
"For now, we’re happy with how things are, living together and helping each other balance work and kids."
Read more about parenting:
How to start co-parenting, as Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury split (Yahoo Life UK, 6-min read)
Children of parents not in a romantic relationship are just as happy as those in nuclear families – new research (The Conversation, 5-min read)
Billie Piper admits 'enormous difficulty' of co-parenting with Laurence Fox (Sky News, 2-min read)
