How Co-Parenting Turned Out Better Than I Expected

She Might Staff

11/6/2024

Based on an interview with Annaliese Corace

Like Taylor Swift said when it comes to relationships either “it's gonna be forever or it's gonna go down in flames.” These are pretty much the two options for a romantic relationship. But if you have kids, the flames of a breakup are hotter and burn deeper, right?

Parenting with an ex-partner can be incredibly difficult. You both want what is in your children’s best interest but it is often hard to visualize how to make shared parenting work in reality. Can co-parenting really be 50/50?

I was talking to my friend Annaliese Corace and she told me that her co-parenting situation turned out to be far better than she expected. In fact, it has allowed her to pursue her dream career and still spend quality time with her daughter.

Every relationship is different, so maybe not everything Annaliese has to say will help you, but she offers tips for communicating and creating boundaries with your co-parent, shares her struggles, and explains the ways co-parenting has turned out well for her and her daughter.

Co-Parenting: An Equal form of Parenting

Annaliese grew up in a divorced family. She was with her mom on the weekdays and her dad on the weekend. Her parents didn’t really like to communicate, and she did not feel equally cared for by her father.

Annaliese and her partner had an unplanned pregnancy, and after looking into abortion and adoption, they decided to continue the pregnancy and try raising their daughter together. She and her partner broke up when their daughter was around a year old. Annaliese knew she wanted her daughter’s co-parenting experience to be different from what she was raised with.

“Since day one, we literally take the week, and he gets 3 ½ days and I get 3 ½ days. It is truly as 50/50 as you can get. It is not just weekends or alternating Wednesdays for her dad.

I realized that it’s special to have such an amazing co-parent who wants to be not just a big part of her life but a permanent 50% part of her life.”

Equal Financial Responsibility

Child support can become the sticking point in many people's divorce or separation. Annaliese and her co-parent came to a 50/50 parenting relationship between themselves rather than going to court. They have split all their co-parenting duties down the middle, including time, finances, and childcare.

“We never got a court order, or anything like that. So, financially we have always split it right down the middle.

We also switch off years claiming her when we file taxes. He claimed her, and received the Covid-19 stimulus relief check with the additional money for having a dependent. So he gave me half of that. It has been 50/50.”

Equal Childcare Responsibility

Annaliese and her co-parent both work full-time jobs, so they had to figure out how to split childcare responsibilities. Annaliese gave me an example of how she and her co-parent problem solve daycare issues when they arise.

“Last Tuesday, unfortunately, one of the children in our daughter’s class tested positive for COVID-19. So, the entire daycare shut down for two weeks. The most important thing is that, you know, we all got tested and are all safe, but that left my co-parent and I having to coordinate childcare.

We decided that he would take care of the days he has her and I would take care of the days I have her. I've contacted some of my family members and he contacted his. Our community is important to our success.”

Parenting Communication and Boundaries

She said the key to their success in co-parenting are the three C’s: collaboration, communication, and community.

“I always try to collaborate with my co-parent and I always try to communicate everything that I'm doing. If my daughter ever gets sick or I'm nervous that something might be up, he's the first person I turn to to ask questions and to gain support.

I think at the end of the day it's a community, you know, it really is a village, raising a child so even though she isn't being raised in that traditional two-parent-household, she still has that community”

Expectations for Communication

Communicating with an ex can be difficult, even if you are trying to put your child’s needs first. There is heartbreak, anger, and sometimes trauma that you have to overcome. These are real challenges that co-parenting couples have to grapple with. While communication is key, so are boundaries.

“We have definitely learned to say “I need to take space.” The majority of time that we communicate now is through texting. We've gotten to the point where if I'm particularly stressed or he's upset we can say, “I can't talk right now, I'm really frustrated, but we will talk this out.” It's almost as though we have better communication being two separate parents than when we were in a relationship together.”

Annaliese knows that communicating with her co-parent, even when it is difficult, is healthy for her daughter to see. She also wants to model supporting her co-parent so that her daughter's relationship with him will be independent from her own.

“We try really hard not to use hurtful words because, as we all know, hurtful words might not seem like a big deal to us in the moment, but they can really stick with a person. So we try our best to build each other up, not tear each other down.”

Expectations for Dating

They also created expectations for when they had other romantic relationships. Any relationship a parent has can have an impact on their child. Because of Annaliese’s childhood experience, she wanted to have firm boundaries for her and her co-parent to abide by.

“I took this boundary from my mother. Growing up my mom used to go on dates, I know she did, but I never saw it.

After we ended our relationship, my partner and I decided our daughter will not meet anyone in the first year of dating them and/or we feel as though we are going to get engaged to that person. So my daughter has never met either of my or his significant others.

It's truly one of the things that I'm really proud of, because it was something I always respected about my mother.”

Realities of Co-Parenting

Struggles with Loneliness

Co-parenting, like any form of parenting, does have its downsides. Annaliese confessed to me that even though she has a parenting partner, she is lonely and sometimes wishes she had support.

“I come home to my apartment on Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday and it's very quiet in my house. That kind of makes me sad.

My daughter's two and a half, so when she's with me it's constant, ‘Mommy, let's do this. Mommy, let's do that,’ which gets tiring. But there's nothing better than, ‘Mommy, I love you’ before night time.

It’s bittersweet, right, there are some nights where I love being able to go to sleep and just know I can sleep through the night, and there are other nights where I FaceTime her because I miss her so much.”

Struggles with Parenting Styles

Another struggle that she has faced is creating a consistent form of discipline between the two households.

“My daughter tries a thousand-and-one tricks with me that with her dad she would never try to pull. I see a vastly different child than my co-parent.

That behavior can happen in other types of households too. In two-parent households, moms can be more nurturing and dads can be more of the rule followers. I just think it's a little bit more exaggerated because she's growing up in two different households.”

Helped Launch Her Career

But overall, co-parenting has turned out much better than Annaliese expected. Sharing responsibility for her daughter actually helped her complete graduate school.

“I would almost argue that co-parenting helped me more than if I was married, or in a relationship. And I know that sounds kind of trippy but hear me out—when I was in school, our schedule was a bit different, but essentially the days that I had classes, I did not have my daughter. And while I did miss her at night, because you always miss your child, the ability to go home and write a term paper until 3 am helped me do well in school.

And in so many ways my daughter encouraged me and pushed me to finish my master's degree, but it was also nice to know that these are the two days that I can set aside to fully focus on work, so that on the days I do have her, I can fully focus on her.”

Considering Co-Parenting?

If you are considering co-parenting, it could be a good option for you and your child.

Annaliese is proud that they found a way to live out 50/50 co-parenting. It was difficult at first, but they had to start with the goal of equal parenting and work hard to obtain it.

“To all those out there who are thinking about co-parenting, I will say I was nervous, I was definitely nervous to end the relationship. And sometimes it's not your choice to end it and sometimes it is.

I knew staying in the relationship simply for my daughter was not enough of a reason, and I knew that we at least had to try co-parenting to make everyone happier, and ultimately it did.”