Yep, no doubt it can work. But it isn’t easy, its going to involve sacrifice. I’ve never personally seen it work, but I believe you have it working - and good for you (sincerely, it has to be a pain in the butt and you both do it anyway).
Yes it is a pain in the butt lots of times. Only 2.5 years left.
Because the mom is the one who is already taking care of the kids. Not always, but it does seem to be the default.
Has anyone found evidence or studies done (non-biased) about joint physical custody?
As a father who loves his 7 year old daughter desperately, and probably going to be going through a similar situation soon, I can’t imagine a scenario where she would be away from her mother most nights.
Traditional gender roles? Yes. Gender roles largely still followed? Yes.
And to follow up on child support, you will always pay to the custodial parent. Always. If you make $20k/yr and she makes $6 million/yr, due to the “income shares” model, your contribution will be substantially the same as if she made $20k/yr as well.
The court defers to the mother because, chances are, before the divorce raised it’s ugly head, she was their primary caregiver. Yes, there are exceptions. But usually, especially if there is more than one child, it’s the mother who stays at home.
Now you find yourself in divorce court, the first thing they will see is that this was his chosen primary caregiver for his children for X years. Less change being better, absent abuse, it’s easy to see why the court favours the wife.