Module 5 · Parenting in the Fire · Lesson 2 of 2
The mother of your child
You may never fix this relationship. You can still stop it costing your child.
Module 5 of 12
By the end of this lesson
- State the difference between what happened with her and the job of raising a person
- Answer honestly whether you have used the child to win
- Send one message containing nothing but the child
There are two relationships here and men collapse them constantly.
One is whatever happened between you and her. Hurt, betrayal, disrespect, history. That one may never be resolved and it may not need to be.
The other is the working arrangement for raising a person. That one has to function whether or not the first one ever does.
Most conflict between young parents is the first relationship bleeding into the second. Every schedule conversation becomes a referendum on who wronged whom, and the child pays for both.
This is the line, and it is not negotiable no matter what she does.
Do not send messages through them. Do not ask them what happens in that house. Do not make them choose. Do not let them see you use money as leverage or access as punishment.
A child used as a channel between two adults learns that their job is to manage grown people's emotions, and they will carry that into every relationship they ever have.
If she does it, you still do not. You are not matching her. You are protecting them from both of you.
Keep it boring, keep it written, keep it clean.
Agreements by text so there is a record. Money paid the same way every time so it can be shown. No abuse in writing, ever, whatever arrives at your phone at midnight.
This protects you legally, which matters. But that is not the main reason.
The main reason is that one day your child will be old enough to look at how their father conducted himself in the worst season of his life. You are writing that now, in every message you send while angry.
Sometimes it is not both sides. Sometimes she is blocking access out of spite, or lying, or using the child as a weapon, and that is real and it happens.
The response is still the same, which is the hard part. Documented, consistent, non reactive, legal where it needs to be. Because reacting is exactly what turns a situation where you were wronged into a situation where you were both wrong.
You will want to be understood. You will want somebody to acknowledge how unfair it is. That will probably not come, and waiting for it will cost you years you should have spent being steady.
Do it right anyway. Not because she deserves it. Because your child does.
The relationship may never be repaired. The arrangement still has to work.
The workEight questions
Three are answered in your head and never collected. They are marked, so you know before you start which is which.
Write the two relationships separately. What happened between you and her, and what the working arrangement needs to be.
Which one are you actually arguing about when you argue?
Have you used your child in this, honestly?
- AYes, as a messenger
- BYes, by asking questions about her house
- CYes, by using money or access to make a point
- DNo, and I have had chances to
Write what arrives from her that you have been reacting to. Then write the response you will send instead, or the decision to send nothing.
What do you want her to admit?
What is your record like right now?
- AClean. Everything documented and civil
- BMostly clean, with some messages I would not want read out
- CBad. There are things in writing I regret
- DThere is no record. It is all verbal and it is a mess
One day your child reads how you conducted yourself. Write what your last ten messages would tell them about you.
Write the one thing you are changing about how you communicate with her this week.
DeeperThree reflections
Longer than the questions and harder. Nobody reads these but you. Write them anyway, because the ones you would not say out loud are the ones doing the damage.
- 1
Write everything you have never said to her, here, where it cannot do damage. Then decide what, if anything, is worth saying properly.
- 2
Write about what you did in that relationship that you have never owned. Not what she did. What you did.
- 3
Write what you would want your child to understand about this season when they are old enough to ask.
Hold this
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everybody. Every word in that is a concession. It does not say make peace. It says do your half, and understand that your half may be the whole of what is available.
Romans 12:18
Before you close this
The relationship may never be repaired and the arrangement still has to work
Men hold those two together and then decide that because the first one is dead, the second one is impossible. It is not. There are thousands of parents raising decent children while feeling nothing warm toward each other at all.
What that costs you is the satisfaction of being understood by her. Name the cost, accept it on purpose, and then stop paying for it out of your child’s account.
Send her one message this week that is only about the child. No history, no defense, no tone. Logistics or information only. Do it whether or not she answers, and do not follow it with a second one.
Written for fathers who are still fighting.
Legacy · Module 5.2