When You Love Your Kids More Than You Hate Eachother

It is a myth that you can't raise successful children in a divorce without co-parenting. It's completely possible, it just takes a little more of an effort. My children's father and I are the poster couple for parents who love their kids more than we hate each other. We cannot get along, and that makes it impossible to co-parent effectively. Instead of co-parenting, we both invest as much of ourselves into our kids as humanly possible, and keep the kids out of the fighting. 

This is how we do it:

We don't co-parent, we just can't. Every single one of our discussions devolves into bickering, gaslighting and blame games. For that reason, we ONLY communicate through one medium- email. We don't talk in front of the kids, we don't talk on the phone, and we don't text. We never tried the parenting apps, but email works well for us. I'll only call him very rarely, and only when it's absolutely necessary. If one of us does something the other doesn't like during an exchange, we don't discuss it in front of the kids, and will email each other about it later.

He has final legal decision making, but the wording in the Custody Agreement is very clear that he has to include me in every step of the decision making process, and inform me of everything. When he doesn't do that, I point it out. Not in a dramatic way, but in a polite, assertive way. I'll usually say something like "I noticed that you did X, but I was not included/informed. Please don't forget to include me in the future." It requires me to constantly be on top of things, because if I slack, I know it can easily slip into me being left out. He's not going to do me any favors and would probably rather not involve me, so I am the one who needs to make sure that I'm kept in the loop. 

We never involve the kids in the fighting. Kids are very perceptive, and they pick up on small things very easily, but at least on my end I try to shield them from our disagreements by downplaying things that upset me or changing the subject. I don't grill them about dad's house, or tell them what's going on between us. I save my frustration, and talk to my therapist or my friends, instead of my kids.

I don't sweat the small stuff. I let go of 90% of the things that bother me. When the kids are sent in raggedy clothes, I shut my mouth and quietly discard the item unless it's really gross and then, and only then, will I say something to him about it. When the kids tell me something I don't approve of, or I see something I'm not happy about, I zip it unless it's really bad, and then I say something. I dread confronting him with things that bother me because I know he will either dismiss it, gaslight me, or outright deny it. 

I once had an issue with something my daughter told me that I knew I couldn't talk to him about, so I asked the children's therapist for advice on how to proceed. That turned out to be a disaster because the therapist accused me of trying to instigate, and low key threatened to call CPS on me. I then told my daughter to talk to her therapist about it, and she said the therapist asked her if mommy was trying to get daddy in trouble. I quickly learned that the therapist was not a safe person to talk to or trust. From then on, I just kept my mouth shut and think long and hard before bringing up an issue.

When our conversations devolve, I try to nip fights in the bud. I do that by not engaging in the instigatory issue, and focusing on the important stuff. If he really goads me, I just tell him that email is not a court of law and I don't need to prove myself, and if he has an issue he can take it to court. There is no reason to engage in fights, because they aren't productive.

Despite our interpersonal struggles, we both invest a tremendous amount of time, money and energy into our kids. We hate each other, we hurt each other, but neither of us wants to hurt our kids. One can argue that hurting each other hurts the kids, and to an extent it does, but for the most part I feel like our children are minimally impacted by our fighting. 

Despite our feelings towards each other, we both promote a healthy relationship with the kids and the other parent. I make handmade gifts with the kids for him, and I act overly impressed when they tell me good stuff that happened at his house. It makes the kids feel good. They love to talk about their dad, and I encourage it. My acceptance of this makes them feel happy, confident, and comfortable. I often say things like "wow, you are so lucky to have such an amazing daddy!".

It takes a lot of discipline and self refinement to get to this point. It doesn't happen overnight. I've had to train myself rigorously and toughen up a lot. I used to be very reactive and very emotional, but through practice, I've learned self control in our interactions. I'm also laser focused on ensuring that our kids are happy, healthy, and thriving and that keeps me from engaging in frivolous fights and petty arguments. I keep my eye on the prize, which is having our kids grow up into normal, emotionally healthy, well-adjusted adults.