JOINT CUSTODY WITH SOMEONE WHO’S DRIVING YOU CRAZY:
TEN TIPS TO HELP YOU and YOUR KIDS SURVIVE
1.Keep It in Perspective:
As you go about the business of co-parenting with your ex, and s/he is driving you crazy, remember that you probably used to love each other and you made a wonderful child together. 90% of the crap that may come up between you connects to you past history and only 10% comes from the present.
2.Practice Extreme Self Care
When you have a part of your life that is chaotic or painful, such as co-parenting with your ex, you may need to accept that this will not change anytime soon. So, as a matter of course you need to engage in emotional self-soothing, venting to a good friend (apart from kids and ex), 10 deep breaths, etc.
3.Extreme Self Care Part II
Try and get on with things. It takes two years to make a new family unit; two sets of holidays, birthdays, special occasions to create your "new" family from the old one
Set up your own traditions that reflect the new. Make it wonderful to add to your children’s cohesiveness.
4.Choose Your Battles
There can be so much to fight over with an ex who’s a jerk. Everything from how to handle first rights of refusals to asking each other for favors. So much to fight about…
and you just can’t fight them all. Remember, this hurts your children! Set your priorities and choose battles that have to do with the basic well-being of your kids.
5.Break Out of Your Pattern
- I.D. your feelings
- Do they have to do with past or present? (see #1 above)
- What triggers you? When you’re trying to communicate to ex, notice what happens that sends you off?
- When do you feel what? Take notice, right it down.
6. Break Out of Your Pattern II
When you can predict how and when you might lose it with your ex, then predict it.
When you can predict your behavior, you can better control over it.
7.Claim Responsibility for Your Bad Behavior
It takes two to tango. Almost no one is blameless for what goes wrong and you probably aren’t the saint you wish you were. (Even compared to the ex) So, even if the ex doesn’t deserve it, your children deserve you changing how you react in times of conflict and stress. Take your bad behavior and find a way to change it.
8.Learn to Cooperate
Even if it kills you, learn to co-operate with the person you made your wonderful children with. Even if the ex doesn’t deserve it, you and your children deserve you trying really hard to co-operate and maybe even compromise with your co- CEO of the corporation called, your children.
9. If You Lose It Completely, Apologize to the Ex
Work out of your higher self. You deserve how good that will feel in the long term and your children deserve how good this will feel in the short term. Remember, they are taking notes. You are their role model!
10. R-E-S-P-E-C-T: That’s what my kids need from me!
Even if its not fair (and we all know life isn’t fair or else you wouldn’t even be in this position) and your ex definitely doesn’t deserve it, you and your kids deserve the rewards you will receive from treating the Other with respect. This doesn’t mean being fake. You can respectfully disagree. All the anger, yelling, pain probably hasn’t helped, anyway. Again, you will be acting out of your higher self, which is a part of Extreme Self Care (see #2-#3). Treating the ex with respect is a way to treat yourself very well and give your children hope.
Read: Joint Custody with a Jerk by Julie A. Ross
|
