I don't want to spend too much time on my story. If you follow this blog you already know the story. BUT- in case you don't know the story:
I married a man I had no business marrying but love and wanting to do the "right" thing as you see fit at the time can get you into a land of trouble. So, I'm at the intersection of Terrible Avenue and Mistake Drive.
I share two children with a man that I describe as a co-worker who really should have been fired a long time ago. It's like that fool in the other department that you deal with ever so often and you each time you see them you say to yourself: "I can't believe they didn't fire that @$$hole."
The hardest thing for me dealing with someone who see as irresponsible and disinterested in parenting their children is continuously attempting to work with this person although I don't even care to speak to them. My kids are at an age where they can not make arrangements with him independent of me so I am stuck contacting him which makes typically evokes feelings best described as... "extreme aggravation."
I often wonder how other's deal with co-parenting with a parent who seems less than enthused about parenting to begin with. At times, I have to look at it from his prospective and realize he may have given up on actively parenting the children because of me. I may a primary source of annoyance in his life.
Regardless of what the case may be on both parts I think the one thing I realized is that there should be very few things that you wouldn't do for the sake of your children, including working alongside the person you conceived them with in order to raise them. I am not saying that this is an easy task, but I will say that if you can effectively master the art of successfully parenting with someone you don't even like, you probably stand a better chance at making other relationships work as well.
Sometimes I wonder if my expectations of my ex-husband are too ambitious. He isn't in the home anymore, we live almost an hour away from him and he works. He is pretty much limited to being a weekend Dad (although he doesn't do that either). So resenting him for being "absent" may not be fair as it isn't very easy for him to be "present" either.
Yes, there are things he can do that he doesn't do but I am coming to realize that the dissolution of any union will also result in the disbanding of a family when there are kids involved. I can't expect a full time father for my kids when he lives in a separate home. I can't continue to blame my stresses as a single mother on him. I chose to become a single mother when I demanded custody of my daughters and exited the relationship. Many of the things I am experiencing are the consequences of my choices. Freedom does indeed come with a price.
Drawing these conclusions has caused me to believe that the first step of co-parenting with my ex husband is to extract emotion from our interactions. Unresolved anger, or disdain from the failed relationship has nothing to do with the rearing of children. When you have a poor opinion of someone elses character you will judge their responses unfairly because you will associate every action with the negative interaction you once had with them. That's called being biased folks.
Second, there is a way to keep things fair without imposing your personal opinion. Its called COURT. If you can't come to an agreement, let a judge or mediator do it for you. There is no reason to argue and go back and forth.
Last, whatever you do... remember your children. Children watch EVERYTHING you do and when you least suspect it they will call you out on your folly long after the damage has been done. When that happens, a parent typically goes through a state of shock partially due to oblivion of their children's feelings because struggling to raise them kept them quite distracted from what ironically mattered most. The next emotion would be anger because when a parent feels they did their best the last thing they want to hear is that they were adequate, as opposed to phenomenal. Then comes the hurt. At this stage, the child may end up comforting you when sadly there was no one to comfort them as they bore witness to the dysfunction.
This was tough for me to type. Why? Because I went through this with my own mother, and I very well may go through it with my own children. What consoles me is that I am working on becoming a better mother by consciously trying to become a better partner in parenting with my ex-husband.
I will never lie to you and say that this is easy, but nothing worth achieving ever is.
-effectively thinking kinky
I married a man I had no business marrying but love and wanting to do the "right" thing as you see fit at the time can get you into a land of trouble. So, I'm at the intersection of Terrible Avenue and Mistake Drive.
I share two children with a man that I describe as a co-worker who really should have been fired a long time ago. It's like that fool in the other department that you deal with ever so often and you each time you see them you say to yourself: "I can't believe they didn't fire that @$$hole."
The hardest thing for me dealing with someone who see as irresponsible and disinterested in parenting their children is continuously attempting to work with this person although I don't even care to speak to them. My kids are at an age where they can not make arrangements with him independent of me so I am stuck contacting him which makes typically evokes feelings best described as... "extreme aggravation."
I often wonder how other's deal with co-parenting with a parent who seems less than enthused about parenting to begin with. At times, I have to look at it from his prospective and realize he may have given up on actively parenting the children because of me. I may a primary source of annoyance in his life.
Regardless of what the case may be on both parts I think the one thing I realized is that there should be very few things that you wouldn't do for the sake of your children, including working alongside the person you conceived them with in order to raise them. I am not saying that this is an easy task, but I will say that if you can effectively master the art of successfully parenting with someone you don't even like, you probably stand a better chance at making other relationships work as well.
Sometimes I wonder if my expectations of my ex-husband are too ambitious. He isn't in the home anymore, we live almost an hour away from him and he works. He is pretty much limited to being a weekend Dad (although he doesn't do that either). So resenting him for being "absent" may not be fair as it isn't very easy for him to be "present" either.
Yes, there are things he can do that he doesn't do but I am coming to realize that the dissolution of any union will also result in the disbanding of a family when there are kids involved. I can't expect a full time father for my kids when he lives in a separate home. I can't continue to blame my stresses as a single mother on him. I chose to become a single mother when I demanded custody of my daughters and exited the relationship. Many of the things I am experiencing are the consequences of my choices. Freedom does indeed come with a price.
Drawing these conclusions has caused me to believe that the first step of co-parenting with my ex husband is to extract emotion from our interactions. Unresolved anger, or disdain from the failed relationship has nothing to do with the rearing of children. When you have a poor opinion of someone elses character you will judge their responses unfairly because you will associate every action with the negative interaction you once had with them. That's called being biased folks.
Second, there is a way to keep things fair without imposing your personal opinion. Its called COURT. If you can't come to an agreement, let a judge or mediator do it for you. There is no reason to argue and go back and forth.
Last, whatever you do... remember your children. Children watch EVERYTHING you do and when you least suspect it they will call you out on your folly long after the damage has been done. When that happens, a parent typically goes through a state of shock partially due to oblivion of their children's feelings because struggling to raise them kept them quite distracted from what ironically mattered most. The next emotion would be anger because when a parent feels they did their best the last thing they want to hear is that they were adequate, as opposed to phenomenal. Then comes the hurt. At this stage, the child may end up comforting you when sadly there was no one to comfort them as they bore witness to the dysfunction.
This was tough for me to type. Why? Because I went through this with my own mother, and I very well may go through it with my own children. What consoles me is that I am working on becoming a better mother by consciously trying to become a better partner in parenting with my ex-husband.
I will never lie to you and say that this is easy, but nothing worth achieving ever is.
-effectively thinking kinky
You can try as hard as you possibly can but if he is unwilling its not going to work. I agree w/ you about court. Please don't ever blame yourself for what he chose/chooses to do w/ his life and children.
ReplyDeleteWell, the thing is that I will always put forth an effort and keep the door open as far as him being present in their lives but at the same time I will not spend my time chasing him to do that. If there is anything I can do to make it easier for him to be the parent he wants to be, I will but what I will not do is chase, prod, and plead with him to be a father to his kids. Hope that makes some sense. I do think that some of my situation was by choice. I chose to leave him. I could have stayed. I didnt want to. His actions led me to desire to leave but ultimately the choice was my own. So, I have embraced the price of my freedom and its worth it.
ReplyDeletegood read. something i have to work on as well...(long story)
ReplyDelete@Virgo: It will take time for sure, but as long as your primary focus is the child(ren) you share you will always be fair in your decisions.
ReplyDelete