People Who Co-Parent Their Kids With An Ex Are Opening Up Honestly About The Positives And Negatives Of This Dynamic
If you co-parent your children with an ex-partner, there will likely be a wide range of experiences you encounter, both good and bad, throughout this journey.
There are positive elements to co-parenting, such as working things out so that your kids are able to have plenty of quality time with both you and your ex.
It's also certainly not uncommon to go through difficulties as you co-parent with an ex, like facing miscommunication, disagreeing on how to raise the kids, or encountering lingering resentment between the two of you.
I recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who co-parent with an ex what the pros and cons of this situation are. Here are some of the insightful responses we received.
1."There is one huge pro to co-parenting: Unlike traditional nuclear families, the child has support even when you can’t be there for them. Co-parenting makes business trips and family emergencies easier to cope with since there is someone who you are already sharing custody with. When I had to manage the untimely death of my sister, my children were able to miss most of the trauma, and I was able to grieve. I could also plan social outings around when the child(ren) will be with the other parent. I didn’t have to introduce my children to someone until I was ready. Regrettably, the number of cons heavily outweighs any positives."
"The big con I had was when my co-parenting partner would get into a new relationship with someone who decided that I was an inconvenience, or worse, a threat. There were no rational discussions about shared parenting. It was always a fight. For example: I did not want braces on our child. I had poor experiences with them when I was 10, and I expected that our child would too. My co-parent and the stepparent completely ignored me. Our child is still dealing with the dental fallout of orthodontics. I have dozens of experiences where, as the 'ex-wife,' I was somehow not supposed to have my own opinions about how the children were raised. I tried to pick the battles carefully. It was incredibly frustrating and hurtful, not just to me, but also to our children.
My children have both had therapy with my co-parent to work on their adult relationship. At 18, they both chose to distance from my co-parent and their stepparent because of the issues about co-parenting. I am glad to say that at 24 and 28, things have improved. But as both kids have said, nothing can restore what was lost by the fighting during their childhoods.
It’s inconvenient and maybe not what you want, but when you force the issue, you are harming the very child you think you are helping."
2."The most important pro to co-parenting your child — putting your child's needs above your own." —staceyleighk
3."Pro: No other man is ever going to love my babies as much as their father. Although we may not agree on much, we both have that one common goal at heart. Con: We are no longer together for a reason, a lot of them in fact. So it’s incredibly difficult not bringing up those issues in my own mind when he does or suggests something that I just do not agree with." —m12345es
4."Pros: My son now has FOUR parents, plus lots of extended family, and also a bonus brother! There are so many people that surround him with love. We don’t use the word 'step'; we say BONUS. Bonus mom, bonus dad, bonus brother. More perspective means more solutions on how to raise him to be a good human. Cons: not having my son at my house every night? But even that isn’t so bad sometimes because I have a scheduled night (or nights) that I know I will have time to do things I may not be able to do with my son in tow. My ex-husband and I have always been good at parenting together; we just weren’t good at being married to each other. We never let any of our adult issues spill over into how we are raising our son with the help of our new partners."
"If you have to co-parent, the most important thing is to always have it be about the children. What the other person is doing in their free time is no longer your business or your concern, and any of the problems you had when you were together are no longer relevant. Move on and focus on your children and their well-being. Show them what it means to be an adult and have healthy relationships with those around you. Set the example, break the cycle, etc. Just be a good person, and raise your kids to be good people!"
5."Pro: We can communicate and brainstorm solutions when something is going on with one of our kids. We both want what's best for them, so it's nice to have that second person's ideas sometimes. Con: We aren't together for many reasons, one of which being we don't agree on parenting styles. It's frustrating to try to fix learned behaviors (like telling my 4-year-old it's NOT in fact funny to give everyone the middle finger) when those same behaviors are being encouraged at the other house." —audreyunashamed
6."It's a lot, especially when there's barely any help." —stylishbook28
7."Pro: more time to do things that you want to do that aren’t kid friendly, such as see a 21+ concert at a bar. Con: You can’t control what your co-parent is doing when the child is with them. In most cases, this is probably OK. But in some cases, the co-parent will do things that you don’t think are in the child’s best interest, and there’s not much you can do about it." —alexl42ed382ce
8."I got insanely lucky — my ex and I are better co-parents than we ever were as married people. The biggest benefit for all of us (I think) is the equity of time. I guarantee you, if we'd stayed married, I would have become the default parent, and all of our relationships would have suffered for it. My ex and I arrange our schedules in a way that allows each of us to work, travel, and pursue our interests without sacrificing time with our kid."
"We can make plans with friends, take time to ourselves, and not feel like we're neglecting our kid or asking too much of the other parent. It doesn't fall to one of us to handle all the school stuff, extracurriculars, medical visits, vacations, holidays, sick days. We're both active participants in our child's life in a way I don't think we would have been otherwise. And it makes us so grateful for the time we have! It's always hard being away from your child, but it's also great for them to build a strong, unique bond with each parent."
9."There are not really that many pros. I guess some could be that you have two households (and possibly four incomes) to share the financial costs. If you can get along with each other, which my ex and I mostly have, the pros are obvious for the kids as they can avoid some of the damage of divorce and continue to have stable home lives, even if in two different locations. Cons — well, for the kids, that they have nowhere to permanently call home, that they're always going back and forth."
"For me, that I have lost so much time with my kids. I have 50/50 custody with my ex, and I make sure to show up at every one of their events so that I can also see them often on their dad's days, but it still breaks my heart. My oldest is in college now, and I've often thought of the missed time when she was still growing up. There's the issue of new relationships. My ex went through several long-term new relationships with women who then vanished from my kids' lives after breakups — it messed them up."
10."I've been divorced for three years, and I have tried my damndest to make co-parenting work for my son (who's almost 13 now). The problem is that we have such vastly different parenting styles, our home environments are different, and I generally have a closer relationship with my son. Whenever we have tried to work together on parenting decisions, it just seems to surface many of the old conflicts that led to our divorce to begin with. Thankfully, we exclusively communicate via text or email, which minimizes a lot of the conflict, but it's just not really possible to co-parent effectively in a way that's civil."
"We couldn't agree on a lot of parenting decisions when we were married, and it seems foolish to think we could have made it work divorced. At this point, I am pretty much doing my thing as a dad and not getting her involved unless it's a major decision or something we need to share expenses for."
11."I get a break. If we were together, I’d never have free time or be able to get things done for work." —ik8792
12."Pros: Co-parenting harmoniously can actually be pretty healing, even if the divorce was ugly. It hurt like hell that she just dumped me after 12 years, especially for a woman I believed was my friend, but I found I felt better when I put that pain away when it came to co-parenting."
"Our adult crap had nothing to do with the kids! I don’t call the person I was married to my 'ex' because that only describes the relationship that was versus the one that is. I call her my co-parent, and that feels really good. NOT saying what she did was OK or even that all is forgiven. Just that parenting was such a happy, copacetic part of our marriage, and it makes me so happy that we didn’t lose that too. I realize that in situations where parenting was already really tense and full of discord from the outset, all of this may be completely unrealistic."
13."Con — you have to battle someone constantly who will use your child as a weapon." —rns305954
14."Pros: child-free adult time when the other parent has your child. Caveat: not really the case if you have other children. Other than that, I can't really think of any pros. Cons: If your parenting style clashed before you divorced, then that will still continue."
"For example: I have a 9-year-old. I limit screentime in my house and have a bedtime range even on weekends and in the summer (a later bedtime than school nights). However, the other parent lets our son stay up until early in the morning, they eat fast food most meals, and our son gets near-unlimited screentime. When my son comes back home, he's tired, overstimulated, cranky, and lashes out. It's difficult to get him back into the home/school routine after extended periods at the other parent's house."
15."I’m a stepparent. When my stepkids were younger, we were the residential parents (which just meant they went to school in our district). The kids spent a week with my husband and a week with their mom, whose new husband lived an hour away. She rented an apartment in our town for the weeks the kids were with her. That was fine until she ended up getting pregnant, and the new husband put his foot down. For a year, the third- and seventh-grader were getting up at 5:30 a.m. every other week to go to school. It permanently damaged the youngest’s academic habits. I was so glad when they finally came to us full time." —kimharmon04kh
16."I am the bonus mom. We used to have my stepson every other weekend and once during the week. Then the mom moved an hour away (she was 15 minutes away) to live with a boyfriend, and weeknights were no longer feasible with work. She's now married to the boyfriend and moved two hours away from us. This is incredibly difficult for my husband and me (we have a baby of our own now) because we don't get to go to any school events, take him to school, etc. We see him four days a month."
"The worst part is how she parents him. He's 7 years old, and the majority of his time is spent on screens: iPad, computer, or TV/video games. She plies him with Roblox cash at his every request. He does not hear the word 'no.' She literally does not cook for him or anyone in the house. My stepson eats fast food every night and for every meal on the weekends. We've called him three nights in a row, and his dinners were Taco Bell, pizza, and Panda Express. One day he had Starbucks for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and Taco Bell for dinner. This poor child has ballooned in weight because of his forced upon fast-food habits (he is now addicted); dessert is an expectation every night, not a treat. And he has little to no physical activity in his everyday life.
When he comes to our house, we make it a point to give him home-cooked meals as much as we can and get him out of the house and active. We just have very differing views on his well-being it seems.
Lastly, they give him godawful haircuts. If we have a special occasion or if it's truly ragamuffin, we will get it cut as we see fit.
Of course the bonus is he is loved wherever he goes. We all have a mostly cordial relationship."
17."Con — when my kids aren’t with me on the weekends I have constant anxiety because my ex-husband and his wife are not the brightest. So I am constantly worried about their safety." —morganp46e8de781
Note: Some answers have been lightly edited for length and/or clarity.