As a divorcing parent, you’ve been sharing parenting duties with your soon-to-be ex for some time. Yet divorce marks a fundamental shift in your relationship and you may need to learn new ways of handling things.
One of those is learning to let things slide. Here is why it’s important:
You and your ex have more independence than during your marriage
You probably both expressed your opinions during the marriage about each other’s parenting styles. One (or both) of you then likely made some sort of compromise to satisfy the other to maintain the peace.
Now that you will be living apart and each seeing your child without the other parent present, you need to realize that you have even less control over how the other person parents than before.
Accepting that can avoid a lot of arguments. You should certainly try to discuss the essential things, and if possible agree on how to raise your children. But, if your spouse does not agree with you about how they parent in their house, there is not much you can do to stop them from doing things their way anymore.
This only relates to the smaller matters of course. For example, whether your child has to make their bed each morning, or do their homework before they go out to play instead of when they return.
Your co-parent still won’t be able to take major steps such as change the child’s school or religion or take them to live somewhere far away without agreement from you as you will typically both have legal custody which gives you the right to a say in such matters.
But you cannot really control what goes on in their house when your child is with them and, if you want a smooth relationship, you probably shouldn’t try to.
While there are occasions when you may need to fight for your point of view, such as if your co-parent’s actions endanger your child, for the most part, you should trust them to just get on with the everyday parenting in the way they feel fit, and they should do the same for you. Taking this sort of realistic approach from the outset can make negotiating and handling custody much simpler for all concerned.