When you get married, you don’t stand in front of all of your family and friends expecting your relationship to end. Unfortunately for half of us, that’s exactly where our lives take us. As if a break-up wasn’t hard enough; it’s not always just the dissolution of a marriage, but also, sharing kids.
I don’t know about you, but sharing has never been something that I was great at. I like it when things go my way. I enjoy being in control of my life. I have a specific way I want my kids parented and letting go of the reigns on that is, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Making choices about education and medical decisions have been easy. We usually agree on the big things. Luckily, our kids are young enough to have had outstanding resilience in the face of our split. The challenges are still there, though. Behavior issues, stress, and adding step-parents to the mix have kept things interesting.
When my ex and I first split, we shared our family home. The kids did really well with only having one parent home at a time. When our oldest was done with school for the summer, I moved 15 miles away. We split custody 50/50. It worked out decently during that time. My kids adjusted to having two blended families and a new home part of the time. Eventually, it was time for school again and life became really stressful.
Over Christmas break, my ex and I came to a conclusion that the back and forth was very stressful for the kids. We were getting a lot of backlash with acting out, sleep regression, and eating issues. As hard as missing them would be, my ex agreed to only have them every other weekend for the school year. It really helps. I am grateful to him for putting their well-being first.
It isn’t easy and there isn’t an instruction manual for navigating Co-parenting. We try to stay civil and we try to compromise for the sake of the kids. My hope is that with the passage of time, instead of having a split family, we just have an extended group that shares a love for our kids.
