It isn’t uncommon for people to tell me that I’m their role-model for divorce – which certainly isn’t what I dreamt of being as a little girl, or when I graduated from college, started my business, walked down the aisle, or gave birth to my sons.  

Let me back up.

I know I’ve been underground for some time.  

I took a job that I never imagined taking and loved it more than I ever thought that I would.

So, I stopped writing.

But, as luck would have it, I have been learning like crazy.

And one of the things that has come to me is that I cannot shut this part of me off.  

So, here I am.

Thanks for being patient.

I won’t go into the details of my divorce (though you can read a little bit about it here), but this is the overview:

• We met at church and were together for a decade.
• We had a challenging pre-pregnancy and pregnancy, which, in hindsight, seems to have contributed to an insurmountably challenging post-pregnancy.
• We split when our kids were 2.
• We have been split for nearly as much time as we were together.
• In the beginning (and for longer than I care to admit), co-parenting together sucked.
• Co-parenting together now is a gift.

No one would have called me their role-model for divorce when it all first happened.

Being unmarried to someone you are trying to do your most important work with is not an easy feat.  And I was more sad than I knew at the time.  

So, we were unkind and ungracious about everything.  

If he was five minutes late, the look on my face told him that I knew it.  If I cried in the driveway when I kissed my sons goodbye for the weekend, he looked at me with disgust.  If he cancelled a date night with them, didn’t buy them a birthday card to give to me, or called to say goodnight from, what would sound like, a club, I would think to myself, “I knew it – I was right.”  

When I called from a weekend Mexican getaway, he might have even hit the “reject” button on his phone – more than once.

That’s because we were looking at each other as exes when in fact, we were so much more than that – we were co-parents – who weren’t doing their jobs.

As our boys got older, things started to get harder.  They had feelings about our divorce that they started to share – directly and indirectly.  Their behavior changed, and there was a disconnect to them.  

That’s when we were still thinking about ourselves instead of understanding that we were given this huge blessing and we were blowing it – big-time.

When Colin’s temper had me at a breaking point, I asked Kent if we could meet.

I went to his house, but instead of talking about our son, I told him that I was sorry.  

There were things that I had said to him during and after our split that simply weren’t true – and I owed him an apology.  There were behaviors I had that were selfish and unkind and born from a place of loss and fear.  There were feelings that I felt that he deserved to know about, but I had been too prideful and stubborn to say to him before.

And Colin was my living storm.

What we walked away from is gone.  

But we have so much more now.

Because after that conversation, he and I started working tirelessly together to make sure that our kids felt loved by both of us – no matter where they were or who they were with.  I talk about their dad with warmth and respect to them, and to other people.  We decide what is working and where we have opportunities, and we take action as a unit.  We listen to what the boys need – sometimes, it is more time with Kent.  Actually, typically, it’s more time with Kent which would have really sucked for me before I re-assessed my own needs.  

In the past, I required huge amounts of certainty and significance.  I wanted them to be with me all the time – so that I could do everything for them.  I wanted to be the more important parent.  The one who, obviously, loved them the most.  

That simply wasn’t true though.  When push came to shove, they didn’t want to be with me all the time, and I wasn’t the more important parent.  So, I shifted my priorities.

Now, above all else, in all aspects of my life, I value love (or connection) and contribution.

That tiny movement made a huge difference.  

I now look at “time” as theirs with us – not ours with them.  Sometimes, they want us both to be together.  Or they want to be with Domenick and Kent.  Or just me.  Or, as they are getting older, just their friends.  And being fluid and giving them what they need gives me oodles of connection and I know that my letting go contributes immensely to their development.  I’m happy, and they’re happy.  

Go figure.    

The fact that we are exes pales in comparison to the fact that we are co-parents.

Many people are divorced (honestly, I see some married people who I would urge to look at how they co-parent), and my heart hurts when I hear stories about their relationships with their ex-spouses – the parents of their children.

I watch it closely in my own life.

Parents who are selfish and rigid – who would prefer to stunt their child’s growth than defer to the other parent.  Parents who are so hurt, that they are no longer capable of meaningful guidance.  Parents who turn a blind eye, make excuses, or even feel contempt for their children simply because of who that second set of chromosomes belongs to.  Parents who take better care of the children they have with their current spouse than the children they have with their ex-spouse.  Parents who haven’t let go of what was.  Parents who hold their children back in an effort to make themselves more relevant.  Parents who are not actively contributing to their child’s maturation.  

And if I didn’t believe in God and all of His work, I would dare to say parents who should not have been parents at all.  

I know one or two parents who fall into all of those categories.  

I feel so fortunate to have him in my life.  Because if he wasn’t the man that he is, he could stand in the way of this progress.  He could hold a grudge, or move to Florida with his beautiful girlfriend, or say horrible things about me to our kids.  But more than our friendship, our business, or our marriage, these two boys are something that we both believe in.  

Sharing a dinner with our kids, sitting next to each other at games and rooting them on, or leaning on him when the boys need us both is not special.  We are not role-models and there’s nothing sexy about divorce.  

We are, however, dedicated to our children.  

We elected to put our hurt aside and look straight into the eyes of who was right in front of us.

It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen – and Colin’s carefree, joyous nature (which also didn’t happen overnight) is proof enough for me that we are doing this well.

It is my prayer that people work harder at their relationships.  That they appreciate the person that they chose to have children with.  That they dig in and do the work that it takes to make a marriage – or a divorce – work.  Ending a relationship doesn’t remove the challenges.  In fact, unlike in the marriage, being divorced forces you to face issues (and be thankful for strengths) head-on.  It’s when the relationship ends that the real work begins.  

We weren’t able to give our children the gift of a beautiful marriage, but we are able to give them the gift of a beautiful divorce.

Make your work wonderful.    

This post is about co-parenting with the biological parent of my children.  I chose not to write about our current partners because that is for another day, but their place in our lives is incredibly important and not to be underestimated.  Thank you, DC and MW for loving Colin and Sam.  More about co-parenting to come.