In Episode 8 Tracey talks about her initial attempts at coparenting with Gary and how things didn't really go as planned at all. To learn more about Tracey and the podcast visit the Finding Your Best Self website. Once there you can opt in for access to special episodes and updates, and join the Finding Your Best Self Facebook page, a special community just for women who are striving to find the best versions of themselves. You can also support the podcast by shopping with one of our many affiliates. Each time you make a purchase through an affiliate partner, they make a contribution to Finding Your Best Self which helps us to keep producing podcasts for you. Do you love what you are hearing so far? Leave us a review on iTunes! It is the best way for you to help others find the podcast. Also, Tracey loves to hear your feedback. Just click here to leave feedback, ideas for future episodes, or to share your personal story. Show Notes: Co-Parenting I was recently interviewed on a podcast about loss and grief Check it out here!. During the interview, the lovely podcast host asked me if it helped to write about what happened to me all of those years ago when I went through the terrible loss of my marriage and the way of life that I thought would always be mine. And the truth is, it really does help, but all of that stuff that I have talked about, all the stuff that has happened between Gary and I is really so long ago that I am over it. Sure I get riled up telling the stories, and it churns me up a bit when I have a friend or one of my besties from my Facebook group contacts me and are going through the same thing, but overall, I have come out the other side. I’m good. Really. There is one exception to that rule though. The part that isn’t behind me yet is the part that pertains to my kids. Although my marriage was dissolved in a courtroom after two and a half years of battle almost six years ago now, I am still the mother of these two amazing people, and he is still their father. And co-parenting with Gary, well it has never been easy. I have been putting off talking about this, because it is still really real, and really raw. And while talking about everything else is easy, it’s old news, talking about my kids and what they are currently going through is fresh, and it’s painful. I can be somewhat impartial with the rest, but with this stuff, this is not something I feel magnanimous about…I will do the best that I can. Custody situations can vary. I was lucky enough to be awarded sole physical custody of my kids and only joint legal custody. Legal custody relates to decisions surrounding healthcare, religion, and schooling. So a few years ago when my son was being brutally bullied in school and I wanted to pull him out and let him do school online, I was vetoed and there was nothing that I could really do about that. But the sole custody part was a huge bonus for me. And a real life saver, which I will explain here in a moment. But first let’s go back to 2009. The very first weekend after we moved over the river and through the woods to the poopy brown house, the kids had their first “visitation” weekend with Dad. I was kind of a wreck and couldn’t wait to get them back. And before I even went to pick them up I got a call from my then best friend, who lived across the street and had spent some time with my daughter when she had come over to play that day. She warned me that I was going to hear some news from the kids that I wasn’t going to like. While the two little girls were chatting and playing, my daughter, Samantha, had told hers that she had “had a sleepover “ at daycare. Which, if you will recall, means that she spent the night at Carol’s house. I didn’t think too much about it because Carol, if you will also recall, was married. My friend, we will call her Janet, wanted me to know, and I thanked her. So when I picked up the kids that evening, the first thing they both blurted out was that they had spent the WHOLE weekend at daycare. I called Gary. We talked civilly. I explained to him that I felt it was important for the kids to spend some time getting used to living in two homes before he started diverting their attention with Carol, if that was what his future was going to hold. He assured me that there was nothing going on with Carol, but in the end, he agreed that the kids should have some time to adjust first. When I tucked the kids in to bed that night, my son, age 9, said, “Mom, I think Carol is going to be our stepmom!” And I cheerfully agreed that “maybe she is”. I should mention, that I was not unhappy that he would choose to start a relationship with Carol after we split. And I also was not yet clear that she was the catalyst of the split. Carol had been our daycare provider for a number of years at that point. She knew my kids and I believed that she cared about them. They knew her and they trusted and cared for her as well. My guard would have been up had she been a stranger…but she was Carol…I felt okay about the idea that if the kids wouldn’t be with me, they would be with someone who understood my parenting style and who also cared about them. Two weeks pass and the kids are back with Dad for another weekend. They spend another weekend sleeping over at Carol’s. During the weekend in between her husband had been given his walking papers and he was now moved out. My kids would continue to spend almost every night spent with their father in sleeping bags on her basement floor until we got to court over a year later and I got the judge to assert that he would not have visitation with them unless they had beds to sleep in. So we got off to a rocky start parenting together from the very beginning. The first agreement that we make on behalf of the kids is violated when he doesn’t keep the kids separate from his “friendship” with Carol. But things are weird all the way around. He barely seems like the same person. And the kids start to notice. When we were together, Gary would play video games with our son, Jake, and it was kind of their “thing”. Jake loved that time with his Dad and they played games that I didn’t always think were appropriate for Jake’s age group but my boys were happy, so I was happy. Jake loves guns. Both Gary and I are from an upbringing that hunt and guns are a part of our culture. Jake had toy guns ranging from a realistic cap gun to Nerf guns. He also had a fascination with knives and had his own pocket knife that he had been taught to handle safely. Once Gary started spending all of his parenting time at Carol’s all of the rules changed. Jake was not allowed to have any guns as toys there. Carol did daycare and she would not allow it. When I did daycare we kept my kids’ toys separate—guns were for the weekends or after all the daycare kids had left. They weren’t outlawed. Jake was told that this was not an option at Carol’s and to leave the guns at Moms. Knives were definitely not allowed, which was understandable. But what poor Jake did not understand though, was that suddenly the rules around video games changed. First, Dad no longer wanted to play video games with him. He was busy hanging out with Carol. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Jake was no longer allowed to play any of his games that he was used to playing with Dad. The M rated games were all gone. And he wasn’t allowed to play the T rated games either. It was G rated or nothing, and I watched as Jake’s love of video games died off. The following Christmas Jake asked for a bunch of games and got a couple of them from myself or grandma. When Gary saw them he was livid. Why would I buy our child T rated games when he said no? Well, because you used to let him have them…and no one understands why that has changed. Another thing that changed after Gary and Carol started hanging out is that he started going to church. When Jake was a baby, Gary’s parents pushed for us to get him baptized. Gary and I dragged our feet. Although we identified as Christians, we didn’t go to church and I wanted to find a place that we liked before we baptized our baby there. I asked him repeatedly to go with me to check out the churches in our town. Gary could not be bothered to get up early on a Sunday to go and attend church services with me. Well, once Carol was in the picture, they were going twice a week. AND requiring the kids to go with them. Our kids had never had to sit through a church service other than a random funeral or wedding and suddenly they were going twice a week when they were with Dad. Jake didn’t like it. He doesn’t believe the way that we do and I accept that he has his own opinions. His father does not and it has caused problems between them. Then there was talk of having Samantha baptized at Carol’s church…but not really to me, rather around me. That still hasn’t happened yet, but I am fairly certain I won’t be invited when it does. And yes, doing that behind my back is a direct violation of our court order. There are more tales of parenting woe like when Gary decided to take Samantha to get her ear’s pierced and I said no but he did it anyway, because he said Carol deserved to have that special time with MY daughter. Or like the times that he and Carol would decide to go out of town and leave the kids with Carol’s mother instead of allowing them to just stay with me. Or the dozens of times they took my two kids and her one child and left the three of them in a hotel room at the casino overnight so they could gamble on the casino floor all night long, a nine year old in charge of two other kids 6 & 4. Or how he stopped bringing them to visit his parents as much or accommodating his parents vacation schedules so that I
