I've been talking to a friend this week about some stuff on my mind and it's been...okay. We've been getting into some topics I'd rather not bring up again but I'm hanging in. I've written about relationship patterns before and how I've often repeated the same behavior in different relationships. It was almost like a script, I knew what was going to happen from the beginning. Obviously the most significant of the relationships I established during the dark ages is the one with the mother of my child. We'll be a part of each other's lives for the rest of our lives and now that we've both realized that, we've decided to act like adults and figure out how to navigate all of this. And honestly, there are worse people I could be in this position with. At the end of the day we were (and in some ways still are) very significant parts of each other's lives. I've always cared about her a great deal and I will always love her as the mother of my child. We used to be in a very good place and we're working to get back there. It definitely helps the cause that I've become less stubborn in dealing with things involving our girl and that she's stopped dating idiots.
Over the holidays we had a long conversation about what we both want out of this whole co-parenting thing. We just want what's best for our child, that's the number one thing. But we agreed we need to learn how to communicate better about what we think is the best thing for her. It definitely has to be a team effort, especially since no one but the two of us can make decisions for her (until she gets older and rebels against us, that is). Our most recent convo was about how our relationship played out when we were together. I've documented a lot of it here; we dated once back in 2003 and started hooking up again in 2007, then came baby. Neither time we dated was all that good, in hindsight. We fought about so many pointless things but the biggest was that she expected me to cheat on her because it had happened before and, although she denied it at the time, she didn't trust me at all. So we'd argue and it'd get loud and I would wonder why I stayed. Eventually I decided it wasn't worth the fight and I'd lay down my arms and try to move past it, which is when she'd say the most hurtful things. It's like she was waiting for that moment so whatever she said would have maximum impact. I told her all this recently and she said I was right (knock me over with a feather); that she saw her chance to land a punch and she took it every time because she was sure what we had was never gonna be "enough" for me. Her point of view was that if I was just gonna leave anyway then what was the point in ending the fight and salvaging what we had?
We got into a long discussion about things we got right and what we did wrong and concluded there's nothing to fight about anymore. It's about the kid now, not about how we feel about each other now or what we did to each other in the past. And I'm so glad we cleared it all up. It feels a little awkward at the moment to be in this place, but I know it'll become the norm as soon as we all adjust. And really, who needs that kind of stress everyday anyway? Things would be a lot different if either of us thought the other wasn't a fit parent. But she's an awesome mother and a great person. I am VERY thankful this is going to settle soon.
