WHY I AGREED TO CO-PARENT WITH MY PSYCHOPATHIC EX!

I have to say that as a mother I didn’t trust my ex to care for my children properly. (Ok, Ok, OUR children!)  I had that instinct right from the beginning.  I think it came from the fact that my ex was a bit of a mixed bag; in many things my ex was quite competent, but in others he was grossly foolish, if not dangerous to the kids at times.  This might be all right in the conduct of a business, but in the care and upbringing of children, I felt his behavior totally unacceptable.  Given this situation, it must seem amazing to anyone that I agreed to co-parent with my ex once we divorced.

Of course, I will admit that my opinions in this area could be rather unreasonable.  In fact, at one point, when my son was perhaps 4 years old, I even took it upon myself to spy on my ex when he was on his own taking care of our son, to see if he was doing a proper job.  Much to my amazement, as I peeked through the door I was hiding behind, my ex had my son set up in front of some goal posts and was playing hockey with him.  Both were enjoying each other immensely. 

Unfortunately, there were the other things he did that left me breathless with fear, like leaving the kids in the car without supervision with the keys in the ignition, crossing a street ahead of the kids just before the light turned red so that he would be on the other side of the street, while my son had to drag the younger kids back so they didn’t get run over by the cars. 

What could you say about a guy with such a spotty history, with the ability to challenge the kids to greater achievements on the one hand, and to endanger them in the next?  As a mother it wasn’t easy for me to navigate those waters, and the situation became even more difficult once I filed for divorce. 

I suppose I could have fought for sole custody, or sued for joint custody and then made it so difficult for him to see the kids that he gave up. Instead, I did my very best to include my ex in all aspects of my children’s lives, and I went out of my way to drive out of state so that he would have parenting time.  I did this even though, in many respects, as the title of this article states, I believe him to be an absolute psychopath. 

Why? 

There are two reasons.

One reason is that, as a single individual, I just did not have everything necessary to raise a child. I was geared towards protecting my children, making sure they had all the resources that they needed to nourish and grow them as individuals.  What I did not have was the ability to challenge them with adventure because adventure made me nervous.

In contrast, my ex was ready to take the kids off to climb mountains, to explore caves, to try out new skills that they’d never considered attempting before.  He would take them off to the science museum, herd them onto boats for cruises around the little islands of Boston, take them fishing (horrors) insist they try out what it was like to go skiing, try going down that big slide at the water park. 

Returning to my son as an example, I can recall when he was 4 ½ and was in the developmental clinic for the Farmington, Canton, Avon Youth Hockey League.  My ex and I took my son to the rink for the first day.  For those who are unaware, that first day of skating simply means you see a bunch of little boys out on the ice falling, getting up, falling, getting up and on and on.  For a mother it is an absolute nightmare and my immediate reaction was to just grab my child, run home, and save him from this ice fueled apocalypse.  I was just about to do that when my ex took me by the shoulders, turned me around and said, “Just go home.” 

And he was right, because when I returned a few hours later, my son was skating around like he was born on a hockey rink, and has remained that way ever since. 

My ex endowed my children with an independent, confident spirit.  As a result, when they were knocked out of the nest into the world (or rather took off, because they were quite ready to go), my children flew with strength in their wings. And why was that?  A good deal because of their Dad, I have no doubt. 

The second reason why I did not push to get rid of my ex in the lives of our children is a little more complicated. 

I will again say that I was not thrilled with my ex’s character and this is the reason why I divorced him.  He was and is a pathological liar. He was a very difficult and problematic individual who was not really capable of the kind of closeness that a marriage requires. Yet he was charming, outgoing, and pretty much able to get people to do all sorts of things for him, even when those things were illegal.  Here it is probably not a great idea to continue on because I don’t want anyone to get into trouble. 

During the divorce, it was very frustrating for me to see my ex lie and lie and lie again and get away with it.  For the better part, the Court was completely sympathetic towards him and pretty much gave him tremendous leeway to torture and harm me, and by extension my children.  The fact that I was consistently truthful and that I supported everything I said with evidence didn’t matter to the Court at all.  Of course, some of that was the family court policy of favoring fathers.  But some of it was just, as you know, psychopaths get ahead in family court and elsewhere.

This is what I learned from the experience.  Liars win a lot.  Bad people often succeed—somehow they push and bully their way to the top, and nothing can stop them.  In my own life, my brother and sister are both fairly criminal, and yet they have succeeded well beyond me.  Being tough, heartless, if not fairly ruthless, has its perks.

Of course, I consider being a good person a considerable value.  If I didn’t have children who understood how to tell the difference between right and wrong, it would deeply disappoint me.  If I had children who did not understand the important role they play in doing what is right, in giving back to the poor and needy and the disadvantaged, in participating in our political life so as to play their part in improving the world we live in, I would be broken hearted.  In the future, I want to hear that my kids participated in fundraising for charities, that they participated in town beautification projects, that they promoted policies in their workplaces that were humane and fair. 

On the other hand, I realize that surviving as a human being who is flawed among other human beings who are similarly flawed, sometimes requires dishonesty, deception, thievery, nerves steady enough to destroy an enemy when you have to, and the ability to act in ways that are sneaky and shady if necessary.  My ex learned these skills because he had to deal with the corporate world and scrabble his way to success in a way that I did not.  He had his back to the wall knowing he had bills to pay with an immediacy that I did not. 

Now I don’t want to go overboard here.  It is not as though I wanted my kids to have an apprenticeship with the devil.  On the other hand, toughen them up in the face of life’s inevitable indignities, empower them to fight back with far greater strength and persistence than their enemies have?  Sure, I could go for that. 

Of course, we had an 80/20 custody split.  I might have been considerably more nervous if my ex had more time to twist them with.  But a little bit of twisting?  I’m not sure that’s all that bad in a world full of all sorts of criminals, general pettiness, and unfairness. 

Ultimately, my hope is that in growing up, my kids have seen reality.  I hope they can tap us both for the skills and abilities they need to survive and flourish, both good, bad, and the range inbetween. That way they can make the best possible choices in life given a world that is often difficult, chaotic, and imperfect, despite its many rewards.  Skewing their world to make my children believe evil isn't out there, I believed would be to their detriment.  Was  I right or wrong about that?  Time will tell.