Parenting stripped away

I would hear from family, friends, my kid's teachers and coaches, pretty much everyone, "Oh, you guys are doing such a good job with co-parenting your kids. You should be very proud!" And up until a year or two again, I believed it. I believed that co-parenting with my ex, would be the best for our children, and I thought we were killing it!  I made sacrifices in my life, trying to get everything right for my kids. Hindsight; I revolved my work, my social life, and everything else around my ex husband's wants and needs; "to keep the peace." My work schedule was even around my ex's schedule. I thought this was the right thing to do.

Like most co-parenting situations, in our divorce decree we agreed that once our kids hit a certain age they would be free to choose whom they would reside with, or to continue to have shared residency. My first born son, stayed tried and true sharing homes, up until he was 16. Once he felt the freedom of being able to drive himself around, he chose to live with his father. My heart broke into a million pieces.

My second son didn't waste any time. I believe he tried to share his time equally between his fathers and my homes, but slowly and surely he ended up at his father's. 

I could not understand why my precious sons did not want to be at my house anymore. I did everything under my power to be the best mom that I knew how to be. I went to every game. I went to their parents teacher conferences. I took them to their doctor appointments. I was the one to pick up the slack when their dad failed. I always made sure to include not only my kid's father, but his wife as well. I told them everything going on in the boys life, I asked them when we were going out of town, I reminded them of meetings and events, and even though it killed me in anger and sadness having their step mom call my boys, "hers", I let it go, I let her have her pride while I put mine to the side, where it eventually got trampled on.

I went through months and months of grieving my kids choice to live with their dad. I was heart broken, angry, depressed; all I wanted was time with my kids. It wasn't until months to years later, when I started to heal from everything in my past, that I realized exactly why my kids probably made the choice they did.