Nice Ass...but are you a good Co-Parent?

Getting married comes with some surprisingly bad odds. The odds your marriage ending in a divorce depend on your age, how many previous marriages you’ve had, your parents’ number of marriages and so on. Having children during your marriage increases these odds from bad to worse.
Given that the odds are against us from the moment we say “I do”, perhaps we should examine how our future partner act as an ex and as a co-parent.
From your first date, you are analyzing his looks, his manners, his financial status, how he makes you laugh. But what we should really be analyzing is how will this person treat me when we are no longer enamored with each other. Is he selfish? Does he take accountability? Is he kind, even when he’s not getting his way?
Having to co-parent with someone who is a giant toddler that rants in anger when inconvenienced will lead to a disastrous life for both you and your children.
We are told that we should be optimistic, look at our glass as half full. This may be true in every circumstance except marriage. We need to visualize how our partner will treat us if we become the opposition. How do we do this? We observe how he treats others. How did he react when he got laid off? Did he bitch and moan and complain that life isn’t fair? Or did he take accountability for the fact that he could have pulled his weight better and focus his energy on getting hired again? How did he respond to the waitress that completely fumbled his order? What advice does he give to his best friend who is already going through a divorce? Does he advise him to have compassion, or does he advise him to wreak havoc? Stop paying so much attention to how he treats you and more attention to how he treats life.
I did not realize this when I was going through my divorce decades ago. I was fortunate to have married and then divorced someone who respected my decisions, put our child first, and to be honest, someone who let me be the alpha. I too am attracted to a manly man, a man who is assertive but when it comes to breaking up and co-parenting, how well will that characteristic work for you?
To really grasp this concept, you have to visualize your marriage failing. You have to visualize your spouse as a co-parent. Do you want them to make all of your child’s decisions? Do you want to have to caress and baby him whenever you need to alter your schedule? Do you want to beg him for child support? Or do you want him to consider your feelings, your child’s feelings, what is best for everyone, not just him? Then you cannot get lost in humor, macho attitudes, emotionally immature partners, or a nice ass.

---