Okay, had a big long post written out, but here’s what it comes down to.
My ex and I (separated about a year ago, divorced about a week ago) have a four year old daughter. I’ve been trying to get us all to go out once or twice a month to dinner. I think it would be great for her to have family memories growing up, my wife is convinced that it could screw her up seeing her parents together.
So my question is, is it better for the kid to have some time with both of us together or can that make what’s already going to be a tough childhood even harder?
I’ll mention here that we are still totally civil with each other and in fact still work together very closely (small place about 15 employees). I keep telling her we should take advantage of the fact that we are civil and remain friends. Some of her classmates will no doubt have divorced parents that can’t even be in the same room together, I figure we should make the best of crappy situation.
Kids harbor fantasies of their parents getting back together. It’s just what they do. Going out “as a family” will confuse your daughter because it will conflict with the message that that is no longer how your family is arranged. This will delay her acceptance of the situation.
You can take advantage of the good situation in many other ways that will only help your daughter.
My son is now 19, his dad and I divorced when he was 6.
Over the years, we have appeared together at parent-teacher conferences, sporting events, graduations, communion parties, family parties, etc., and we have been gracious and friendly to each other. I think it is helpful to kids when their parents can behave this way, because there is no anxiety over these events that are supposed to be enjoyable. I’m sure when/if he gets married, we will both sit at the parents’ table and have a great time.
That being said, I think it’s significantly different for you to expect your ex-wife (and you refer to her in your OP as your WIFE, even though you are divorced) to sit through a one-on-one dinner with you on a regular basis; that seems a little TOO much. If your daughter is having a dance recital and you all decide to go out for ice cream afterwards to celebrate, that seems reasonable. But regular “Family Date Night” is pushing it a little.
If you truly want to show your daughter that mommy and daddy can still get along, then you can do that every time you exchange custody, talk to mom, talk about mom to her, etc. by being respectful, polite and friendly NO MATTER WHAT. Show her that these exchanges do not have to involve anxiety or drama - you don’t have to go out to dinner (especially since Mom has already said she is not interested) to accomplish this.
Divorce is hard. PM me if you want to talk about it.
I loved the rare occasions when my mom and dad did things with me together, but they *were *rare, and I never entertained any fantasies about them getting back together.
We’re facing the same decision right now with our 5 year old. I have no problem with the four of us all going to the school recital kinds of things, in fact I quite enjoy it. Just last night, we went to my ex’s Housewarming/Birthday party, with our daughter, and we quite enjoyed ourselves. As long as there’s An Event involved, we do quite well.
But…
Something is holding me back from accepting these “family date” ideas that my ex keeps coming up with. It’s an inarticulate unease at this point, but I’m going to keep refusing until either I can articulate a reason, or I no longer feel the unease.
Whether or not a happy family outing would be good for your daughter, I think there’s another fact to consider: it won’t *be *a happy family outing unless your ex is comfortable with it. It will be strained and awkward, and your daughter will pick up on that, and that can’t be good.
I am both a child of divorce (when I was 10) and the parent of two children of divorce (when they were 2 and 3). DivineComedienne has hit on everything I wish my parents had done and everything I wish my ex had cooperated in doing with my kids. Be polite and courteous and matter of fact about what’s happening in her life. Let her feel comfortable and never never ever let her hear you making negative comments about her mother. If you can manage this she’ll be miles ahead of most kids of divorced parents.
Spending one-on-one time with your daughter. Your relationship with your daughter is what’s most important now. As you and your ex are on civil terms you don’t have the troubles of many non-custodial fathers as discussed on this board, for example, here.
As a young girl, I envied my friends whose parents were divorced, as they got to spend time with their dads that I didn’t. We had family time, but I can’t think of any time when my dad and I did something as just the two of us.
Also, you can demonstrate that you are a child-rearing team by trying to set consistent rules and practices between the household where possible. You can show that you’re willing to freely communicate so her ability to pit you against each other is severely reduced. We haven’t had to do this for a long time, but my ex and I have even given privilege-removal punishments that apply to the other’s household!
One thing that my ex and I do is call our son every evening when he is at the other’s house. Which means that we have a brief chat when the other answers, even if it’s just “hi, how are you.” Again, that’s an opportunity to demonstrate civil behavior and parenting cooperation.
I also noticed that you referred to your ex as your wife. I didn’t want to get too outside the scope of the OP, but actually, I think it’s relevant. It sounds like you’re having some separation issues that are influencing your desire to do this.
Since the split we’ve actually done quite a bit together, dinners and the like with the kid. Someone must have said something to her a few weeks ago. Also, I think a big part of it is no so much causing problems with the kid and I think she’s worried that one of her friends might bump in to us “What would they think?” is what she said “Well, they’d think that we were taking daughter out for dinner…and who cares what they think?”
Also, you answered my other question as well, she’s been dating someone that my four year old seems to like* at some point I’ll be dating someone as well, what about all of us doing something together. I did mention that I’d like at some point for us all to be comfortable enough to be at a party together and the like, I REALLY want us all to be able to be friends (which will be awkward for everyone since I’m sure she knows that I know she was cheating on me with him).
Part of my wanting to do this, and I told her this is that I’m trying to keep communication open between us. I feel that a HUGE part of why the marriage didn’t work out was bad communication and I don’t want things to get screwed up going forward for the same reasons. I want us to, for example, discuss taking her to an eye doctor/orthodontist/piano lessons/etc and not “Here I took her to _____, you owe me for half of this” She chuckled and agreed last time I mentioned it.
So now, since she’s right, I think I’ll text her and let her know that I did some research and maybe it’s not a great idea, so don’t worry about it and we can talk more later.
*Kind of a kick in the balls the first time my daughter said “Mama and Donny took me to a movie today, Donny is my best friend” (everyone is her best friend, but it was still weird).
Absolutely. But I think it’s probably better if these conversations are had at pick up/drop off or over the phone. Think of it as a business - the business of raising your daughter together. While business dinners are possible, they’re usually used to court new clients, not deal with existing accounts.
Heh. I think I might have freaked out my ex’s partner last night, when my daughter ran up to her, saying, “Momm—I mean…” and I laughed and said, “No, Mommy’s here. That’s Other Mommy!”
Really, we must have a Parent Meeting soon to figure out where everyone’s comfort level with names is. She’s starting to slip up more and more (which I see as a great sign that she’s developing filial feelings for our partners) and I think we need to let her know what we’re okay and not okay with her calling everyone. I’m fine with Mommy, Mommy Lisa, Daddy and Daddy Dan, but I don’t know if Lisa, Daddy and Dan are.
I am not divorced, nor the child of divorce, but I teach a lot of kids who are, and here is one thought I have: it’s good for there not to be a complete separation between the two households.
I have taught several kids in shared physical custody relationships where it really seemed to affect the kid’s sense of personal integrity–not in the moral sense, but in the sense of wholeness. “Mom’s house” and “Dad’s house” were such different worlds that they were really completely different people in the two places. And I don’t just mean things like bedtime and chores–I mean fundamental differences in the culture of the two places.
Some of this is normal in life: kids learn, for example, that at THIS grandmother’s house it’s ok to correct an adult if they get the score from last night’s game off a bit, but at THAT grandmother’s house that kind of behavior is rude and confrontational; they learn that at THIS grandmother’s house it’s ok to talk about poetry but sports are a tad uncouth, but at THAT grandmother’s house it’s more interesting to talk about sports and poetry is pretentious; they learn that mildly racist jokes are all in good fun at THIS grandmother’s house but in extremely poor taste at THAT grandmother’s house. We roll our eyes at taking vitamin C at this grandmother’s house, but we take it at the first cough at that grandmothers.
This sort of level of identity-shifting can be difficult for children in 50/50 custody relationships. There’s no “real”–both identities get equal time, and both are represented by a parent. I don’t know if it’s possible to prevent it, but the more “in tune” the households are with each other, the lower the level of cognative dissonance the kid will feel when she moves back and forth. This isn’t an inevitable problem, but I’ve had 2-3 kids, one in particular, where this really seemed to be a huge problem that left them a little hollow inside, a little more relativistic than I was comfortable with.
Hang in their Joey P… similar situation here involving my ex and a 13 yr old boy and 11 yr old girl. My ex and I get along pretty well… and since the boy is involved in travel basketball we are in situations where we have dinner together. Every know and then an awkward spot will be touched, but with a line of no BS communication things can be worked out. I try to think of whats best for the two of them and then follow that with consideration of the ex.
When i read comments like " I know she was cheating on me", and “kick in the balls” i can see that your situation is new and still raw.
If you are always her father then whatever guy she’s dating will always be second to you. And I find it a smart thing to do to get to meet my ex’s dates. I want them to know that this is the guy who’ll be coming to get you if you pull any shit.
What’s sad is that at my place of work my relationship with my ex seems to be a real anomaly. Enough of the screaming matches… (co-workers)if the two of you think of whats best for the kids things can work.
I realized the other day that this means there’s no “Kid’s house”.
Maybe it’s a semantic thing, but I’ve started referring to both our houses as *her *house. “The backpack is at Caileigh’s Main Street House” or “We’re going to drop off this cake at Caileigh’s First Avenue House” aren’t really any harder to say, and I think they help her feel like she’s got a house, two of them in fact, where she really belongs, not just Mommy and Daddy do.
Now that I think about it, my daughter has “Daddy’s house” and “Grandma’s House.” When my ex-wife moved out last August, she moved back in to her parents house. As I understand it, on nights that she has the kid, that’s where she stays (I think she more or less still lives there anyways at least about half the time).
So you ARE comfortable having dinner together but you’re not comfortable at a party? AFAIK, that’s the opposite of how most civil divorced parents feel.
As far as all of you being “friends,” What do you mean by “friends?” Do you mean hanging out socially? Again, most divorced people don’t want to do this.
I enjoy having some random chit-chat with my ex. We update each other on certain gossipy things because we each know the backstory, and he still totally cracks my shit up and vice versa. I like his new wife, and it’s possible I’d even want to be friends with her if she weren’t married to my ex-husband. But I don’t want to socialize with them unless it’s an event related to our son, and even then, I wouldn’t spend lots of time with either of them.
I think you’re just trying to justify what you want to do. It’s super-easy to maintain frequent and open communication. We have email and cell phones and texting. As I said, when you call the kid you have an opportunity to check in with the ex.
That’s not to say you should never sit down with your ex and talk face to face. My ex and I meet at the Starbucks every 6 months or so so we can sit down and go over the custody calendar. That’s easier to do face to face and without distractions. But we don’t do it with our son there.
ETA: Are you saying that you don’t know where your daughter stays when she’s not at your house?
As a child of divorced parents, I would have loved for my parents to have been able to be civil with eachother at a younger age and that some of the problems I encountered would have been a lot easier to deal with if they had. Now that they are civil with eachother, I feel like it makes my life a lot easier. As DivineComedienne says, I think going out to dinner regularly might be a bit much, but being able to be civil and, perhaps, being willing to go out to dinner together for a special occassion or being able to share certain events together, like family holidays.
IOW, I think it’s fantastic if the two of you can set aside your differences and be a good model for your daughter, whether it’s making joint decisions or both being there at her birthday party, but I also wouldn’t recommend going out of your way and having dinner all together just for that sake of that.
Either way, it’s going to be tough on the two of you, and even tougher on her, so if you two can be a team, at least for her sake, that’ll make it a lot easier for her to deal with.
Dinner would be just us and the kid, a party would involve (I assume) her BF, who not only have I not met, is the guy she left me for and was most likely cheating on me with. I’m sure I’ll meet him someday, but it hasn’t happened yet.
We are still on very very very good terms and I’m trying to keep it that way.
Yes and no. No, I don’t know where she is every moment of the day, but I know that when she’s not with me, the she is with my ex-wife, my ex-MIL or daycare. All people I totally trust. Also, she’s never more then a phone call or text away if there was some reason I’d have to get a hold of her.
Oh, wait, you said ‘stays’ I read that as where she “is” all the time. I said to my ex-wife just the other day “I assume on nights that you have her, you stay at your moms house?” and she said yes (and then went on to tell me that her bf works either second or third shift and sleeps 11 and she really doesn’t spend much time over there, which was her way of saying "I can read between the lines and you want to know if she sleeps at his house…she doesn’t). What she does on night she doesn’t have the kid really aren’t my business.
Seriously. Your daughter may be too young to understand the details of exactly what’s up, but she’s very likely to pick up on these Weird Adult Vibes when you’re around this guy if you’re constantly thinking “She was cheating on me with you! She was cheating on me WITH YOU!!!”
