Co-Parenting…Against the Odds!

    Sometimes, it doesn’t work out.  For a multitude of reasons, it just doesn’t.  However sinful, however shameful, however unaccepted it may be, sometimes it just doesn’t.  So then, we find ourselves in a predicament.  Among the statistic that hovers over us, what do we do now?  We have a baby, but we don’t have a marriage.  We have a child but we don’t have a home.

Just a small back story on me, for some reason, I always thought I’d be a divorced mother of two.  Highly likely because that’s what my mom was for a long time.  She did the best she could with what she had as my dad wasn’t always around.  I knew I’d never succumb to the statistic.  To the “norm”.

So when I found myself 22, divorced, with a child….I went into what I like to call, “my survival years”.  Just doing what I can to get by while not knowing what in the world I was doing.  Unfortunately, they were also my, “have the fun young mothers don’t get to have” years.  Luckily, though, they didn’t last more than a year or so.  Then I met my, now, husband.  We fell in love, got married, had a baby, all the works…  But I still had an ex.  I still had my first child’s father.  We were civil, but we weren’t “one”.  Who is?  Who really has a close relationship with their ex?  Their baby’s daddy?  Their co-parent?  I didn’t, for a while.  But I wanted one.  I longed for one.  I knew I would have one!

It took a bit for my, now, husband to get on board.  He thought it was super weird that I wanted to attend my ex’s family holidays, family functions, etc.  However, it didn’t take long before he was up for it.  He knew, coming from a “complete family home” that it was beneficial.  So we put a 150% conscious, intentional effort into “befriending” my ex and his wife.  At the same time, coincidentally, my ex and his wife did the exact same thing!  It was ON after that!!!  We were, and still are, defying the odds.  We have lunches, we partner together for the holidays, we pray for each other, we communicate weekly with each other, we truly LOVE each other!

Something happened, when the four of us put ego’s and “normals” and statistics aside.  Something about when four parents of one child pray with each other and for each other, respect each other, love each other, and commit to HELPING each other raise a child…..it creates this incredible force that NOTHING and NO ONE can infiltrate or defeat.  It’s surreal, at times, the magnitude of our relationships.  Our common goal is the child, but, in finding that, we found such an admiration for one another and a longing desire to help each other succeed that we truly become close friends in the process.

How amazing is that!?!  It’s so much more fulfilling and beautiful for everyone involved to look for ways to love than for ways to hate.  Grudges and resentment hurt you and hurt the child. Allow yourself to forgive and move forward! Forgive others and forgive yourself! The enemy seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.  He seeks to steal our motives, to kill our relationships, and to destroy any perseverance that we exude.  What’s amazing is, God is with us!  Every. Step. Of. The. Way.  God has been with us since day 1!  We just didn’t realize it for a bit!

I care about their children like I care about my own.  They care about my children like they care for their own.  Their family has accepted mine as theirs.  My family has accepted theirs as ours!!!  From aunts and uncles to grandparents and cousins.  We are such a big, unpredictable, super natural, unique, amazing family!

His wife is one of my best friends.  My husband helps him whenever, wherever needed.  Not only have we made the commitment to our daughter but our spouses have gone ALL IN!!!

I encourage you to put “the norm” aside, put your differences aside, GET OVER YOURSELVES when at all possible and open yourself and your heart up to the idea and the possibility that maybe, just MAYBE, you can raise your child up together and not apart.  Stop worrying about child support, spousal support, who cheated who….Keep the kids as the priority and DEFY THE ODDS! BE PARENTS!  Be trend setters!  Increase the other side of the statistic spectrum!  Why not?  Nothing to lose, but a better life for the child(ren) to gain!

I know it’s not always possible.  But, if it could be….let it be!

Bye for now!

RR (and Scott and John and Tammy and Emma and Brooke and Hayden and Shelby and Grayson and Hazel)