by Lisa Shaver

Created on: August 08, 2009

We have all sang the childhood song, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage." However, that song should be sung, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby or three and then comes divorce and single parenting".

Not everyone is as lucky as my cousin and her husband, their divorce is going smoothly. They are still friends and they get along very well. This is certainly not the norm, but when children are involved it should be. The children are the innocent ones in this mess and as their parents it is our responsiblity to get along.

When you get divorced and have no children there is no essential need to get along with one another. You literally never have to see one another once everything is finalized. With children involved you need to be in contact with the other parent until the last of the children becomes 18 years of age. Parenting does not end when the marriage/relationship breaks down. The two of you are still morally and financially obligated to the well being of those children.

My marriage has not been finalized for a full year, even so I can tell you that I have learned so much since we separated. At first I was very bitter and angry. All those emotions were and are still hard to put aside even for the well being of my children, yet I still have to do this.

Personal thoughts need to be checked at the door. The biggest thing that I have learned is to keep personal feelings and thoughts to myself and keep the communications solely about the children. My ex-husband and I live 3500 miles away from one another and this makes co-parenting that much more difficult. Every Sunday I send him a weekly update on all our children. This cuts down on the communication between us and it allows him to put in his opinion when he responds. We also only really communicate via email. You must put away your hurt feelings when dealing with your ex otherwise your words and your tone are going to be harsh and negative instead of productive and civil.

Pick your battles. As with children, you also have to do this with an ex. It seems that once we separated my ex and I; who always agreed on parenting methods or at the very least compromised on the ones we did not agree 100% on; no longer agree and even though I have kept to our parenting methods, he has decided he no longer wants to agree with them. This is where I have learned to pick my battles. When our oldest child was little we agreed on no scary Halloween

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