One Cannot Live by the Parenting Plan Alone

It's enough to drive you to drink.

When I went through my divorce the toughest part of negotiating the split involved putting together a parenting plan that worked for both of us, and for our son. After much struggle we pulled together what we thought would work....until he turned 18. Boy were we way off base.

A year later his dad moved. Two years later we moved. And the re-negotiating began (with 2 lawyers present). Six long hours were spent in a room going through the proposed changes to said plan to come out with what we believed, again, to be a solid plan to work with until the kid was grown and out of our homes.

The reality soon set in that in order to do what is best for our son we often times have to negotiate a little bit more. There are birthday parties, and holidays, and school breaks, soccer trips and family vacations. And somewhere in between school, homework and friends.

Trust me, when we are angry with one another the negotiating doesn't go so well. We both like to say now - for lack of better terms - to piss the other person off. But when we are thinking straight and focused on B we make collective decisions about early pick-ups, switching days and juggling school, social and emotional needs.

I'm guessing that this will only continue to be more complicated as we enter middle school and high school and I sincerely hope that we can continue to keep our wits about us as we continue this work (yes, you might be divorce but you still co-parent....so I call it work) together.