07/09/2026
Me, Aya, & her dad. 2 people who loved each other once, who created this incredible little human together, & who now have to navigate something SO much more complicated than staying together or walking away completely.
Co-parenting is anything but a clean break. Itās showing up to birthdays & events with the person you used to build a whole future with & feeling the flicker of what was, even though you both know why it couldnāt stay that way. Itās loving someone & knowing, with complete certainty, that you canāt be together. Different values. Different principles. Different paths. Hereās the thing nobody tells you, knowing why it didnāt work doesnāt make it hurt less
Itās missing half of her firsts. Half of her ordinary Tuesdays. Half of the small moments that make up a childhood, because love for our daughter meant choosing 2 homes over 1 house full of tension.
The hardest part of all listening to your daughter ask why mummy & daddy canāt be together & live happily ever after. Watching her not understand why she has to be torn between 2 homes, 2 bedrooms, 2 versions of ānormal.ā Holding her while she misses daddy when sheās with me, & knowing sheās missing me the same way when sheās with him. Thereās no fixing that ache for her. You just hold it with her, feeling it to over& over, hoping your love is enough. Reminding ourselves her Soul chose us as her parents, for who ever reason her soul needs to move through this and navigate this just like ours šŖ¶
This isnāt something we deal with once & move past. Itās daily. As is triggering eachother. Itās the next 20 years of our lives, MINIMUM every birthday, every holiday split down the middle. This is the long game now. itās hard and itās complicated.
But we keep choosing this. Not because itās easy itās not but because Aya deserves two parents who show up for her, together, even when together looks different than we once imagined.
Not a broken family. Not a perfect one either. Just two people, doing something hard, out of love for the one person who matters more than either of our stories.
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