Your marriage is over but you and your ex have children together so your relationship continues and it will continue for a very long time. You may ask, “How do I parent with my ex?”
My current guest Bill has three daughters who were all teenagers when his marriage ended two years ago. Since then he’s been navigating the co-parenting waters. Here’s Bill:
The first Christmas we were separated I took the children to my parents in Florida and that was a very, very hard for their mother. So hard that she said that it nearly broke her and then she convinced me that she would have them this last Christmas, which was again, difficult but every year it gets a little easier.
People told me this. It didn’t seem like it was ever going to in the beginning, but every year holidays come just a little bit easier and you cherish the time that you do have together and you don’t really dwell on the times that you’re not together.
I really haven’t had a lot of vacations with the kids or without them. The youngest one, I’m sending her to my parents in Florida with her friend for spring break. I was going to originally go with her but then she wanted to go with her friend and she was like, “Dad, can I just go with Molly?” I’m like, “If that’s what you want,” so that’s what’s happening.
I have a new partner that I’m very close to and we do a lot of stuff together too. My daughters like her, so I can honestly see us doing vacations in the future with the girls and her. I think it will work out.
My ex and I, we’re in contact as much as we need to be, to see the girls and really just only the girls. We’ve gone in spurts. We were trying to stay connected in communication. I had actually even suggested that we see somebody together to try to help with communication, because it had gotten so bad. She has so much anger now. I think she feels as though I’ve left her and it was just completely ironic, but again, I really believe she’s mentally ill.
I never really did the teacher-parent conferences before and I don’t do them now. My ex is a teacher by trade and then she went on and got her Ph.D., so she takes complete control.
I have helped my oldest daughter in college. I’m sort of her mentor in college and I am trying to advise the middle one, what colleges to select and how to do that, but my wife even there has taken complete control of going on visits. She’s pretty much a control freak when it comes to that stuff.
I could make a big deal about forcing myself into the middle of it, but I think, again, that would create resentment and anger within the kids. So, I try to just be supportive. I’m paying entirely for my oldest’s college and she’s always calling me and asking me for advice.
She’s finishing her second year, but through her first year she had a lot of challenges and I was there for her to help her and even my ex said, “Look, you’re responsible, you got her through that. She’s succeeding because of you,” and I take pride in that, because I think that that’s true. I think I’m that sort of the stabilizing block in the storm kind of presence now that that’s what they need as opposed to talking to the teachers in high school. Just being the person who took control of their education.
Sometimes I’m very strong-willed about things and she backs down, but more frequently than not, when she’s strong-willed, I’m like, “Look—” Again, I think the value that I’m trying to maintain is that I don’t want to put the kids in the middle. That’s more important than anything else for me. I do not want to use them as points of leverage or pawns in some sort of competitive game with her. That’s just really not what we’re supposed to be doing.
The Divorce Coach Says:
There are several takeaways in this segment.
One is that the parenting challenges continue through college and beyond. Don’t be fooled into thinking that your co-parenting relationship will end when the kids are through high school or when the child support obligations legally end.
Bill mentions his ex going on campus visits. This highlights a difference between little kid issues and big kid issues. When your kids are little it’s much easier to orchestrate two celebrations, two outings, one with mom and one with dad. When they’re older, it’s harder, if not impossible. There is only one high school prom, there is only one high school graduation ceremony, there’s one campus visit, there’s one move-in date. That means figuring out how to do these alongside your ex without making life difficult for your child.
My youngest is off to college this fall so this is happening right now to us. We split campus visits depending on our work schedules. My ex did the visit to the college where my son has chosen to attend and so I took my son for his orientation. We are both going to help with move-in and since it’s an out-of-state college it’s going to be an adventure! I would have preferred just one of us going for move-in but both my son and daughter insisted that it made more sense for us both to go. So that’s what happening and we are going to have to figure it out.
That’s the other part from Bill’s story … co-parenting after divorce is an ongoing negotiation, ideally playing to each other’s strengths to help your child succeed, being willing to back down and withdraw so you don’t put your child in the middle. I’ve found that it does get easier and I think that’s for two reasons.
Doing the work to heal from your divorce means that you do emotionally detach from your ex and that enables you to resolve issues based on what works for your child. The other reason is that with conscious and intentional decisions, you’ll find out what processes, what communications and even what logistics work for you and your ex and you use these as the starting point when discussing new issues. You may even find you become a better parent after divorce. You do fall into a pattern, just as you did when you were married and your kids will fall into a pattern too. That makes it easier.
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