Acknowleging Is The First Step

The photo of my kids and I at the top left of the blog is our Christmas photo from last year. My divorce was final last November (2006) and it was important to me that I had a photo of our new family of three to send out. I hadn't sent any Christmas cards the year before because I was just too involved in my personal crisis.

I went onto Shutterfly last night and ordered our cards for this year. It had been on my mind and I'm into easy and love doing things from home. Now I can check that off my list (don't you just love checking things off of lists!). As I was downloading photos and deciding which pix would make the cut this year, my daughter walked up and pointed out that she and my son needed to wear their North Face jackets when they went with dad on Friday this week so that they could take their Christmas picture.

Of course, that struck me as just plain weird since their dad moved in with this woman in May and they have been dating a little over a year. Now, they're sending out these family photos like they are this married couple. I'm not bothered because I am jealous that I'm not in the photo. It just felt odd and somehow not appropriate. I on the other hand, consider myself pretty hip and am not too bothered by strange relationships and non-traditional stuff, so I guess why do I care? Normally I wouldn't, but my kids are involved, so that's why.

My point is that I'm learning to acknowledge when I'm affected by things. Acknowledging when I get that funny feeling in my gut. Once I've acknowledged it, it just seems easier to let it go, move on, accept it, whatever. As I've said before, so much of co-parenting with a former spouse is about realizing and acknowledging that you are not in control of a lot of situations. Every time my kids go with their dad, I have absolutely no control over what happens. Freaking out and worrying over that just takes too much energy, so I'm learning to just let it go.

To your new life...
Claire

Tags: | Co Parenting During Divorce | Divorce And Communication | Divorce

Perception vs. Reality

Tonight was a perfect example of how communication is so important when co-parenting. My former spouse puts his first initial on the insides of the kids clothes that he buys. Not sure why it's so important to him, but it is. Anyway, he was convinced that I had a bunch of 'his' clothes at my house and wanted them back because there wasn't much for the kids to wear when they were at his place. I get that.

I went through things this morning and found a couple of things and put them into a bag for him to get when he picked up the kids this afternoon. I got a text message while he was out with the kids stating that there were a ton more clothes at my house still. That was obviously his perception.

To make things easy on myself, I just had him come into my house when he dropped off the kids this evening (he only had them for 3 hours) and go through closets to see what he was missing. The reality was that he only found about 4 more things. Not a 'ton'.

One quick sidebar, he had mentioned that he had asked my daughter to collect the clothes and he was frustrated that she hadn't done that. I was polite, but made sure that it was clear to him that it is not her job to take care of this type of stuff. It's ours as her parents. She doesn't need to be in the middle of clothing distribution.

Because there's always two sides to every divorce, perception and reality often get mixed up. It's our jobs as co-parents to clarify and resolve any confusion regarding both sides. When parents can work together, the kids are the big winners, for sure.

To your new life...

Claire

Tags: | Divorce | Co Parenting During Divorce | Divorce And Communication