Having a child and starting a family is one of the most beautiful things you can do in your life and sharing that child with someone you are no longer romantically involved with can be one of the most difficult things to manage. I started my co parenting journey at 21 when I met and fell in love with my husband and his 4-year-old daughter. I knew very soon into the relationship that we were going to be a family, I was raised with a his-hers-ours family so I was no stranger to step siblings and step parents, I knew I could handle the dynamic of the new relationship I was in. What I was not prepared for was the manipulation, the constant power struggle, and the lack of conscious effort to be better people for the tiny human we were raising.

My new husband and his ex-wife shared custody of their daughter and when I became a more permanent fixture in their lives things went haywire. There was jealousy, hurt, manipulation, blatant lying and disrespect and it was taking a toll on everyone. I was never properly introduced to my husband’s ex-wife; she had no desire to meet me. And rightfully so, she did not agree to share her child with another women; one day after hours of back-and-forth text fighting between my husband and her, I knew I needed to help facilitate change in the relationship. I sent her a private message and told her how I was feeling, I told her I was not here to replace anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable, I told her that I loved her daughter, and I would do everything in my power to keep her safe happy and raise her to be a smart well rounded young woman and that my goal was to create a family that could include everyone. At the end of that message, I said “If I knew my daughter was spending a week at a time with another person, I would want to know that person really, really well.” I extended an invite to have lunch or meet for a drink and she took me up on the offer. That is when things changed for the better. I started acting as the mediator between my husband and her, it kept my husband calm and it helped me form a relationship his ex-wife that would turn into a friendship.

This relationship was one that took work, I spoke to her every day, multiple times a day, we discussed our daughter and all that she had going on, we discussed our lives, and we discussed ways to help each other. Over the years we eventually ended up with full custody do to living arrangements, and I thought, naively, that would make things easier on us and our daughter, less back and forth, more structure and routine. Boy was I wrong. As humans we are innately designed to be tied to our families, namely our parents. We have this drive to have their love, affection, approval and support. When that is missing there are strong emotional tolls taken on our hearts and minds. My daughter was struggling, she felt abandoned, she felt unloved; all the things I never wanted her to feel, she was feeling. And not because we were not giving her what she needed but simply because she was missing her mom, she was missing the family she knew.

Relationships by nature are hard, add several adults and kids to the mix and it becomes even more challenging. What I’ve learned from this was my needs, my hopes, my plans for what the future looks like are not up to me. The focus should always be the kids, and how we can work together as adults to create a life they don’t have to recover from. We need to put the hurt relationship feelings aside and focus on how we can give our kids what they need.

Over the years we had family dinners together that included my daughter’s mom and her siblings that were from other relationships. We went to their birthdays, graduations, extra-curricular activities. We were present in each other’s lives for the sake of our shared daughter. They came to our house for holidays, my husband ex-wife and I became friends so we could raise our daughter and give her the parents she deserved.

Every single co-parenting relationship is different, but this is the same for everyone, the focus is the children. How can we love them and help them grow, how can we model communication, boundaries and respect?

Probably not by fighting and picking each other apart, not by using them as pawns, and not by talking negatively about their other parent. We can do better for them, and that starts by loving everyone involved, by showing kindness and respect.