In a society filled with divorce horror stories, my ex-husband and my method of co-parenting can seem almost surreal or, as one friend told me, “something that only exists in Fantasyland.”
Four years after he moved out, we have been able to stick with our original plan of not letting the end of our marriage mean the end of our family. We’ve weathered the awkward dinners with extended family members uncomfortably trying to pick a team even if we weren’t playing. We’ve thrown birthday parties for our children that included not just our own family, but new partners and friends who don’t always quite know what to make of this situation. Both of us have always been on hand first thing Christmas morning as wrapping paper is ripped and thrown with abandon. We take the kids trick-or-treating together. We sit next to each other at performances, Little League games, and parent-teacher conferences. We’ve even vacationed together, dividing up to conquer Disneyland.
He and I are not extraordinary people. Our divorce was fraught with tension and anger. I felt betrayed. He felt relieved. There were times our behavior more resembled our toddler and Kindergarteners than the adults we claimed to be. But no matter how we argued over division of household goods and how much child support is appropriate, one thing we’ve always agreed upon was how much we love our children.
That love caused me to bite my tongue when I wanted to scream, held my pen when I wanted to fight for full rather than partial custody, take long walks when anger made my hands shake, and deep breaths when I wanted to make him hurt as much as he’d hurt me. He and I have finally reached a point where the anger is cooling lava under a forming new friendship and I’m glad for the times I didn’t act in anger.
People ask me how we co-parent through the holidays and are surprised when I say we communicate, talk, set expectations. We sit down, a month before the holidays and outline our dream scenarios – Christmas parties with friends, holiday dinners with family. And then we do something that might have served us well in our marriage: we try to make the other person’s dream true while not giving up on our own.
It’s not perfect. There are always long quiet nights when I want nothing more than my children tucked in their beds rather than on an adventure with their father and his family. He feels the same way, looking at pictures on Facebook of his rosy cheeked kids getting their pictures taken with Santa, my grinning face next to theirs. In the end, though, as we sit together around at Thanksgiving and my son tells me he’s most thankful that both his mom and his dad are at the same table, it’s worth it.
– Mandy Dawson is the creator of In Mandyland, an almost daily blog recording her adventures in juggling a full-time job, two active children, four arguing hens, a fluffy bunny, and one ex-husband. A self-diagnosed gardening and crafting addict, she often finds herself gluing together clay pots and trying to discover the cure for brown thumb. When she’s not writing, she can be found burning dinners while she stares off into space with a story idea. She was a regular contributor for Makes Fun of Stuff, Aiming Low, and Momtastic, and has been featured on BlogHer, Mamalode, and Mamapedia. She is an Assistant Editor for Bannerwing Books and has had her fiction featured in four anthologies currently available on Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DotT0AOHotU
