Co-parenting is the process of becoming a partner with the other parent of your children. It begins the minute you discuss having children. The co-parenting agreement should span a lifetime, including what happens in the case of divorce. Start at 50/50 shared parenting? Agree to 50/50 shared parenting in divorce. Become great co-parents. Equals. Allies. Focused on your children and how you can support each other in the difficult journey ahead.
Even if your ex decides not to co-parent collaboratively with you, they are co-parenting, but in a negative way. You want what’s best for your children. You want a good co-parenting relationship. You want your kids to love you both. Weaponizing co-parenting is a toxic move. Stay positive. If you can’t co-parent nicely, then co-parent without negative inputs.
It only takes ONE PARENT to hold a positive post-divorce relationship. The enlightened parent can lessen the conflict at every stage of co-parenting. When I learned that positive only was the track I was on with my ex-wife, my co-parenting success was no longer tied to her poor behavior.
I hope she's happy. It doesn't seem like that's the case, but what do I know? I only know that she's shirking on her responsibility to be an available parent to my daughter. That's okay, I guess. That's where I step in as an available parent.
I don't think my ex-wife or my ex-girlfriend derived any positive benefits from attacking me. And perhaps, their momentary feeling of superiority and vindictiveness was worth the price. But both these women attacked me and took actions to hurt me and my future prospects.
While my co-parenting efforts have been shunned by my ex-wife, I have never failed to ask to be included in all parenting decisions. It's in our parenting plan, the one we both signed when we agreed to our divorce documents. Even when my co-parent refuses to co-parent, I can be a great co-parent. My kids deserve it. My ex is frustrated by it. And I am at peace with it.
With one phone call, my ex-wife could take the jackboot of the AG's office off my credit and financial life. But why would she do that? In some universe, my ex-wife still feels justified in turning me over to the AG's office for collections.
I often pontificate that my ex-wife is angry because she didn't get the happiness she imagined by moving her cheese from one man to a different man. She got everything she wanted in the divorce: the house, the child support payment + insurance for the kids, and the 70/30 parenting schedule, and still she's not happy.
As divorced parents with kids we all need to work together to support the system. I am not part of his family system, but he is part of my family system. I suppose in his mind they do not overlap. He is incorrect. He is also an ass.
My ex-wife is pressing me for money, not because she needs it, not because she thinks my son needs it, but because her brain is wired to think about money first, before all else.
Don't let you custodial mom walk all over you. Just because she's got the state's attorney's behind her, doesn't mean she can disobey the law. In my ex-wife's case, she simply didn't show up to some of our Attorney General's appointments.