I'm Okay, You're O---Obviously Nuts

How does one remain calm, cheerful and at peace while co-parenting with an ex-spouse? In the first place, I wouldn't recommend HAVING an ex-spouse to begin with. In the second place, if you must have an ex-spouse ideally they should live on one side of the planet and you on the other. You retaining placement of the children of course. Please, before some of you go all preachy and superior on me, think about it. You have an ex because you're divorced. You're divorced because one or both of you decided you shouldn't stay married. Since you're not married you probably aren't living together, nor should you want to. You are co-parenting because the two of you had children together and since you are now, most likely, not living with the other parent, you want the kids to be with you. The other parent wants the kids to be with them. It comes down to where, when and how to "share" the children. In all likelihood since you're not married anymore you're thinking "I don't have to try and please this person anymore and I don't even feel like being that nice since I don't really care about this person anymore". I'm not saying anything you're not already thinking. I'm just not being fair or politically correct. It's my right. The truth is, in the end you DO have to sometimes do what the other parent wants and you DO have to TRY to be nice for the sake of the kids. And it sucks.

On one hand I think I have it pretty good. I don't live in the same town as my ex and his new wife. In other words, we're not running into each other at the grocery store or the post-office when I'm wearing the same sweats for the third day in a row AND my son gets to live the majority of the time with me. On the other hand take my fake-husband's ex. We live in the same town, we share the kids equally (two days here, two days there, alternating weekends) and we try to be pretty flexible and accommodating with regard to the other parent. Sadly when the other parent doesn't have the same sense of right/wrong, fair/unfair, reasonable/unreasonable, appropriateness/insanity, boundaries/in your face, business, life...you get the picture. Anyway, tempers can flare, words can be exchanged and grown-ups don't always play nice. Again, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. What I do want to leave you with is this. A wise friend who also knows the afore mentioned other-parent, once told me about a person in her life that was cuckoo/nuts/crazy AND evil. Whenever she would try to have dialog with this person, communication would quickly deteriorate because this person was completely illogical and unable to see anyone else's point of view. Whatever this person did was completely acceptable but if my friend did anything similar it was tantamount to the most obscene indiscretion imaginable. This friend of mine said, "the sooner you realize that she is mental, the sooner you'll deal with her in that context. Don't try to reason with her, she's irrational, you won't get anywhere and you'll only succeed in feeling frustrated, disappointed and depressed."

Wow, a formula for how to deal. It was inspired AND she was right, it works. If you approach every conversation or encounter with the mindset that you're dealing with someone who is mentally ill (the trick is not to let them know that's what you're doing) you'll feel more charitable, confident and in control. Try it.