How to Survive As A New Coparent

The first time my wife experienced it, it saddened her. We had just spent a week with my daughter, and now it was time for my daughter to go back with her mother, my ex-wife. My wife said, “I know what you meant now. I’m sad to see her go.”.

Sharing custody is hard. In the beginning, it’s going to hurt. Every drop-off day will be sad, and your house will feel empty when your kids aren’t around. It will take you a couple of days to adjust to the quietness.

You’ll probably start to wonder about the impact you’ll be able to have as a “part-time” parent (there’s no such thing). You’ll probably wonder how much your children will love you or even if they love the other parent more. You’re human, and these feelings are natural.

Nobody marries and has kids with the intention to divorce and share custody.

Things can be even more difficult if you don’t have a good relationship with your ex-spouse. You’ll add whatever issues you and your ex-spouse have on top of the sadness that comes with custody sharing. It can be a nasty mix.

The good news is, like many things in life, it gets better as you get used to it. You’ll get settled into the new routine and learn how to thrive.

You’ll learn that there are some positives you hadn’t considered.

These are some of the biggest struggles I and some other co-parents I’ve known over the years have faced.

Sadness/loneliness when they are leaving/gone

This was by far the toughest for me. Every new co-parent feels this. Even after 12 years of shared custody, it still pops up occasionally. You’ve had your child around for a week, and you’ve had a great week. Or maybe they’ve been sick, so you haven’t been able to do much or feel like you haven’t had enough time together.

Now it’s time for them to leave and go with your ex-spouse. That’s it; time is up.

Evenings and weekends were the toughest because I couldn’t occupy myself with work as a distraction. I did the wrong thing the first few months and sat around wallowing in awfulness. That just made it worse.

The sadness and hurt you feel are both natural and valid. It will take time to adjust, and it will get easier. That doesn’t mean you will enjoy it, but it won’t be such a big deal eventually. Remember that loneliness is a feeling. You might feel lonely, but odds are you have friends and family to spend time with to keep you occupied when your kids aren’t around.

You’ve probably not seen them enough if you’re coming out of a marriage, so now is the time to get out and be more social with them. More on this free time later.

Worrying About Your Child Loving You

This is related to the time you’ll spend with your child. My daughter was very young when my ex-wife and I split up. I would miss so much of her life due to the shared custody. I was worried that maybe she wouldn’t love me as much because we didn’t get much time together. Or, worse yet, perhaps she would love my ex-wife more as if it was a contest.

They are valid feelings.

I can assure you it’s not a contest, and your child will love you plenty. Children spell the word love as t-i-m-e. You don’t need to outdo the other parent. All you need to do is be fully present in your time. That might be getting down on the floor to play, going outside to kick or throw a ball around, or putting your phone away and having a one-on-one conversation about life.

Someone I met a while ago put it perfectly:

Presence over presents — James Lopez, aka Fatherhoodislit on Instagram

How Will I Survive the Holidays?

Holiday scheduling is different for everyone. Some people rotate a year on and a year off. Some people have it set up as half the day for each parent. You might not see your children on significant holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Initially, my daughter would split half the day with each of us, but that fell by the wayside as she got older. She became interested in Black Friday shopping with her mom, a big tradition in her family. Her mom also has an enormous household on her side, so on Christmas day, my daughter wanted to be there on Christmas mornings to open presents with them instead of showing up later and opening presents by herself, which is entirely understandable to me.

I learned early that Holidays aren’t about what specific day they fall on. The true spirit of the Holidays is spending time with your family. Make up a new tradition. Celebrate Christmas with your children on a different day, like Christmas Eve. This is what I currently do.

Would it matter if you ate a Thanksgiving meal on Thanksgiving Day? Does it matter if you eat a traditional Thanksgiving meal? What if you celebrate Thanksgiving the weekend before, and you and your child have a few people over to celebrate and have steak and lasagna instead?

You’re still getting the essence of that holiday, and you’ve just made a new tradition your children will never forget.

I’ll Always Have to See My Ex, and I Hate Them!

Divorces rarely end on a positive note. Unless it’s a movie, one of the spouses will be hurt and angry at the other. With shared custody, you’ll have to see your ex-spouse quite often. It’s better for everyone if you are civil.

I was the hurt one, but I managed. It was never hard to be civil because our issues were between my ex-wife and me. That is where we kept them.

We didn’t love each other anymore, but we loved our daughter. We knew that she deserved access to a loving mother and father. How we felt about each other didn’t change that.

Some will avoid having anything to do with the other parent by using the children as messengers. Do not do ’t do this. Reframe your relationship with your ex-spouse as all business if you must. Keep it all about the children — nothing more and nothing less.

The Silver Lining

This will sound cliché. Give yourself a couple of weeks or maybe even a couple of months. Then it will sink in. You now have some free time due to custody sharing. You can do whatever you want to do. All the things you’ve wanted to do but didn’t because you were married with children. All the things you didn’t have enough time for. All the healing and self-development that you’d be wise to do.

Now is the time. You won’t be able to sit around and think you’re way out of this. You’re going to have to get up and do it. Keep yourself occupied and busy by throwing yourself into your improvement.

It will keep your mind out of the negative traps caused by suffering silently and alone.

Look, when you’re going from being with your children full-time to anything less, it will suck. I wish there were some magic solution I could give you to make it easier. The first time is the hardest. I’ve written about how my first custody switch had me pulled over on the side of the road bawling.

Don’t judge yourself for being human. It will get easier and become routine.

The best thing you can do is find other co-parents to hang around with. They can relate to you. You’ll then see you aren’t alone, and things will be okay because they will. You will still be a good parent. Your children will still love you just as much, maybe even more than they would have. And you can have the type of relationship you want with them and be the positive influence they need to grow and thrive.

Worst case scenario, they might end up in a similar situation when they grow up — going through a divorce with shared custody. But they can look back at you and see that all hope isn’t lost. They survived it with you before, and they can survive it now.

Knowing you’re not alone and everything will be okay can cover up many situations we perceive as horrible.