What you see in this picture is my ex-husband and our kids. Yesterday was his 34th birthday and our son wanted to bake him a cake and celebrate his birthday. What you don’t see in this picture is my husband and step daughter sitting on the other side of this table. All of us singing Happy Birthday to my ex-husband.
Yep, you read that right, my husband and ex-husband and myself with all the kids sitting at one table celebrating my ex-husbands birthday. ALL the kids even made him Birthday cards!
We split almost 9 years ago, it took us a few years to file for divorce and when we did it was uncontested and simple. Our divorce was finalized in January of 2015. Of course there were some hard feelings when we split, things weren’t just simple right away. But we talked, we decided that regardless of our emotions and our feelings we would not let those come in the way of what was best for our kids. What was that?? Two parents who communicated calmly and acted civilly with one another, we both realized and knew our kids would be far better off if we worked together. We knew that if we tried to hurt one another and let our emotions control our actions that the kids would suffer and neither of us wanted that. So we set our feelings aside and did what we had to do for our kids.
There was no dragging anyone through courts for custody or child support, there was no threat of keeping the kids from one another, there was no talking down about each other to or in front of the kids. We’ve had our disagreements over the years, we’ve had arguments but very few. Let’s be real, you’re not always going to get along with anyone and disagreements are normal and they’re bound to happen. However, we NEVER let those disagreements disrupt the kids lives, we never let those disagreements hurt our children, we never created chaos for one another because of a disagreement because again; we both knew it will hurt the kids more then it would hurt either one of us.
You see divorce doesn’t have to be bitter and filled with hatred and nastiness, it doesn’t have to be filled with petty actions and distasteful words. Your ex spouse moving on doesn’t mean you have to act like a child who didn’t get their way, it doesn’t have to be a jealousy filled fire. You don’t have to attempt to drag your ex through the mud because you’re angry, insecure, or jealous. Remember, every time you do something negative to your ex to try to impact them and their lives, you are thus doing something negative to your children and negatively impacting their lives and well being.
I remember the day my ex-husband basically gave me his blessing with my now husband, because he saw how well he treated me and he saw how well he treated our boys and how much he loved them like his own. We have all sat down and had dinner together, we all stand on the side line and support Brady during his football games, we’ll sit and bullshit during pick ups and drop offs. My husband and ex-husband are friends, they laugh, they joke, they talk. More importantly we all work together to benefit the kids.
Now here we are, I am remarried with 2 bonus kids, sitting at the table in mine and my husbands home with my ex-husband and all of the kids, celebrating an important life moment together. This is how it should be and I am oh so grateful for these moments where we can all be together, celebrating, loving, smiling and enjoying one another. It doesn’t have to be messy and nasty, instead it can be beautiful and simple, like this. We’re all family and we like it like this!
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