Here is a little fact you may or may not know about me… I actually like my Ex! Not all my exes and trust me I have a few, but I really like my sons father!

I would never have thought I would be one of those people that would be able to get along with their exes. My parents were awful to each other and my ex and I were awful to each other when we were together. So I just didn’t think we could actually be friends, especially not 2 short years after we split up.

We are friends though, not the kind that talk about our new love lives or anything weird like that! I don’t think I will ever be totally cool with that, but friends enough that we can have a couple beers on Halloween and hang out with the kids after. Friends enough that we can talk about our custody without a lawyer and friends enough that we can chat for 10 minutes at drop offs without wanting to punch each other,  well most drop offs!

It’s funny when you are out of all the turmoil of the relationship how you can look back and really see what you did to cause its demise and t. It’s an even better feeling to look back on his actions and see them with compassion and be able to forgive.  For a long time I thought it was all him,  that however was not the truth! The last year we were together (9 months of which I was pregnant) all we did was fight. I felt alone and unloved and I am sure he felt very similar things. Men and women handle their fears differently nut when it was all said and done we both hurt each other very badly. I have told him how sorry I am that things didn’t work out and I know he knows I mean it. I also know how sorry he is!

Now here is the important part though, the point to all of this… We have a child together! The sweetest, happiest, funniest little shit you will ever meet! We made this little ball of awesome out of love! We wanted him, we made him and now he is here.  My ex and I also have a child each of our own, and this is our family. Our babies didn’t choose for us to be dinks to each other, but they did choose us as parents. So our job as grown up adults is to keep the love flowing and our personal problems out of the mix!

I know it sounds easy right.. But for all you split up parents out there you know it’s not! My Ex and I also know it’s not, there are times we most certainly do not like each other. But we keep our crap out of our kid’s lives. As parents it is our job to do the absolute best for our kids. Give them all the opportunities that the world has to offer and pray to god they don’t need thousands of dollars in therapy as adults. So that means my Ex and I, well we put away our pettiness and we just get along!

In the times that I find it hard to like him, or want to lash out, I remember the love we had when we decided to have a baby. I remember that half of him is inside this tiny little life I care for each day. I see the good in him again through the good in my child. Lashing out at him by holding back my kids, or screwing him out of his hard earned dollars will piss him off in the short run, but in the long run it will destroy my child. It will also destroy how my children look at me as they get older. I don’t want my sons to grow up and think all women are vengeful, gold diggers. I also want my baby to love all of him and that includes the parts of him that are just like his dad!  I want them to be full of confidence and love no matter what life throws at them.  I also want him to know when shit hits the fan his dad and I are on the same team and he isn’t getting a free pass from either of us.

I know how hard it can be people to put the hurt aside and trust me our hurt runs deep, deep, deep. As a child of a broken home whose parents were awful to each other, I can promise you the long term effects of your hatred for each other will only hurt your children not your ex! I’m not going to give you a “5 simple steps” to get along with each other because really the process is different for everyone. I can give you what worked for me and that was LOVE! The unconditional love for my children and remembering the love I had for him once.

So to my ex… THANK YOU! I know it’s not easy to get along with me sometimes, but we do a pretty damn good job and I couldn’t be prouder of us. Thank you for our beautiful boy and even though it’s not how we planned to do this, Thank you for being a parent with me.

Rachel