10 Co-Parenting Suggestions That Are For The Damn Birds
bySteph Montgomery
There's nothing easy about divorce or separation, especially when you have kids together. After separation, everyone from experts to armchair quarterbacks have advice for how to successfully co-parent. These pieces of advice usually fail to acknowledge your individual situation or history with this person that you divorced for very good reasons. So, honestly, some co-parenting suggestions are just for the damn birds, and even detrimental to surviving a situation like shared custody.
When I left my ex, I was so scared. Scared of being a single mom, scared of him, and scared of what people would think. I had always believed marriage was forever and that the end of our marriage meant that I had somehow "failed." I especially didn't want my decision to leave their father to ruin my kids' lives. At the same time, I knew it was the right decision and that we'd all be better off without him.
Although I have full custody of my kids, they do spend some time with their father. I hate those weekends. Hate them. And, I find myself having to give ground and give up little pieces of myself in order to get along well enough with my ex-husband so we can co-parent successfully. My husband has a completely different relationship with his ex-wife, with whom he shares 50/50 custody of their children.
I now understand that every divorce and co-parenting arrangement is a little different, and no advice is one size fits all. Quite frankly, most of it, while well-intentioned and ideal in a perfect world, is best ignored. Find what works best for you, your co-parent, and your children, and stick with it until it no longer makes sense to do so.