2 - You Can't Negotiate With A Terrorist

I remember the first time going to family court - the Judge looked at both of us and said, "the goal here is to get this to a place where you'll both want to dance with each other at your kids wedding". That stuck with me - I wanted desperately to compromise and do the right thing for my kids. After all, this was their Mother. They should have a relationship with both of us equally. We got married for a reason. We had kids together for a reason. Surely we could amicably come to some sort of resolution for the sake of our kids. We had it drilled in our heads by the Judge that we had to do things in the "best interest of the children". She must be thinking like me. Right? She decided to break up our family. She decided to cheat. She decided to pawn our wedding rings. She even asked me not to disclose the physical abuse I was subjected to by her.

Even with all that, she must still want me in the kids lives, right? Wrong.

After that court date, she BEGGED me to drop the court action. Promises to work together. Promises to be peaceful. Promise after promise after promise. So I dropped it. I just wanted it to be done so we could move on and divorce amicably and co-parent. I learned very quickly, co-parenting involves two willing parties who want to make it work for their kids. If one wants to go rogue, they will. I learned very quickly - you can't negotiate with a terrorist. EVER.