Why I stopped nit-picking my ex-husband.

My ex and I are buddies. Both engaged to be re-married to awesome people in the coming months. But I inspire a lot of anxiety in him, because for years, more than half my communications with him about our daughter and his parenting were naggy, critical, and sometimes downright hurtful.Without going into a ton of detail, my daughter lives with him full-time right now. I live 2,000 miles away for work and come back once a month for about a week and a half to live in his guest room and take over Mom-duty. I will be returning to live back home full-time this summer, so no more long-distance momming. (Yay! So glad to be coming back. This has been a hard chapter.)Her dad and I are different kinds of parents. I am definitely more Type A. Which means I have a tendency to be very critical of his laid back parenting style. He tends to just fly by the seat of his pants and trust that she is okay. I never assume she’ll just “be okay.” I assume the best, but I still work hard to keep myself in check as a parent.I have criticized him so much. I criticize for how often he leaves her with grandparents to spend time with his girlfriend or play in his band. I criticize the fact that he never volunteers in our daughter’s class at school. I criticize that he regularly doesn’t pay attention to what’s happening at her school—he forgets to turn in her library book. Forgets that it’s crazy hat day, so she is the only one at school without one. Forgets that there is no school because of XYZ observance, so one time he actually had his grandparents take her to school when no one was there. He lets her be a picky eater (he is one too) and doesn’t give her enough fruits and veggies. He doesn’t clean the house hardly at all, so when I show up, it might be filthy and her room (which I keep extremely well-organized) is trashed. He forgets her allergy meds, doesn’t follow up on doctor appointments quickly enough, and doesn’t trim her nails often enough. He has to be reminded about EVERYTHING, and will even say, “Text me to remind me about XYZ thing,” instead of just being an adult and putting a damn reminder in his phone. He is always “so busy.” He looks at his phone too much when they’re together.I have complained about these things and everyone sided with me. Including his family.But then I see her with her dad.I didn’t have a relationship with my dad. At her age, I was terrified of him. And he and I don’t talk now.But she loves her daddy. And it is obvious that he loves her. He makes her giggle and laugh every day. He plays board games with her. He listens to her when she’s mad or sad. And he supports me as her mom, too. He reminds her often how much Mommy loves her, even if she had to live far away right now. When I send home letters and gifts, they open them together. He always makes sure she and I get our 3-4 Skype-Bedtime nights per week where I read to her and sing to her.I was always so upset with him and looking for the next thing he would do wrong.I said that it’s because I want what’s best for my daughter. And what’s best for her is for her dad to change.But slowly I could see that it was eroding our relationship as friends and co-parents.And his dad (who serves as my adoptive dad) reminded me, “He’s not perfect. He’s also a very different type of parent than you are.”So, I’ve worked hard to leave my frustrations and vent with my friends and fiancé and family.I let go of trying to change and control him and put that energy into just trying to pick up the slack and work hard at lifting him up instead of putting him down.Letting go of being critical has served my daughter so much better than criticizing her dad, putting him in such a foul mood and feeling so worthless that it was harder for him to extend the patience and gentleness that our daughter needs more than she needs a perfectly spotless bathroom or perfectly manicured nails.What hurts her more? A library book that doesn’t get turned in at school? Or an inexplicable negative energy between her parents whom she loves and needs so much?I think long term, he’s going to have some unique difficulties with her as she gets older and feels like her dad doesn’t quite know or understand her. (Hell, maybe she’ll feel that way with me no matter how hard I work to mitigate that.) My ex had that relationship with his parents—they were far more concerned with themselves than they were with knowing him, and it hurt him. I can see him repeating the pattern with our daughter, where to him their relationship is “fine” and “good enough” but he still doesn’t make an effort to make many special memories with her in lieu of practicing and playing shows with his band.But I know him well enough to know that they’ll work that out later. And he will. He puts effort in to those kinds of things—cure over prevention.Anyway, I just wanted to express that. I love her dad very much. There are ways in which he is more skilled than me. And I still wanna bite his head off, often.But I’m going to put that away and give my daughter what she really needs, which is a good example.And I will just keep cleaning the shxt out of the house when I’m there like I always do, and keep my mouth shut, and say positive things. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Ebt7bS