Vacations with your ex-spouse?

Lately, I’ve come across a few blog posts that suggest, encourage and even advocate for ex-spouses spending time together with their children of divorce. Some even suggest vacationing once a year with the divorced family. They feel that doing so will be beneficial to the kids because it’s one time of the year or week when they don’t have to choose between their parents. Interesting- I thought to myself. I’ll be the first to admit that there isn’t a one size fits all approach to blending a family and what works for one family may not work the other. This approach definitely wouldn’t work for mine.

Although the posts suggest that this idea is beneficial to the children because it’s one day of the week or one time of the year when the child faces no loyalty binds, I’ve seen the exact opposite in my family. For example, my ex, his wife and my husband and I get along pretty well. I’ve been invited over to their house for different gatherings and they, including their son are welcome in my home as well. And although my son loves the fact that we all get along, in the beginning, I could sense the awkardness and level of discomfort he experienced when we are all together. It actually put him in a position of having to choose because he didn’t know who to gravitate to in that situation; his bonus dad and I, whom he is very close to, or his bio dad and bonus mom, whom he was developing a connection with. I could tell that he didn’t want to hurt any of our feelings and vowed to never put him in that situation again. I wanted him to develop a positive connection that was independent of me with his paternal side of the family. One that I always encourage, but don’t necessarily actively participate in. Meaning, it’s not necessary for me to go family trips, attend holiday gatherings or spend time with their family. As a matter of fact, it’s healthier for my son to develop these relationships and connections with his dad and stepmom without me.

Additionally, my son has no desire to spend time with my ex and I. It feels awkard to him, like everyone isn’t in their rightful place. Yet, he is still aware that his mother and father love him, but are just with different people now who also love him. As such, he doesn’t feel as if he’s missing out or that he has to choose between any of us. We all encourage our independent relationships with him as well as act friendly towards each other when in his presence. This has been enough for our son, who is a well-adjusted, high-achieving, compassionate little boy. It didn’t take weekly dinners between my ex and I and yearly vacations for us to achieve this. It took us all working together, in a friendly manner that is based on mutual respect, love for our child and lots of communication.

Also, taking a yearly vacation with your ex-spouse and children of divorce can be quite expensive and unrealistic if you both are remarried. Why? Because my husband and I also take yearly vacations with our family and so does my ex and his family. As you can imagine, unless you have an endless pot of money at the end of some rainbow, this can be quite costly. I’d be going on a vacation with my ex and our son, my husband would go with his ex and their son, and then we’d all go with our blended families as well.  Whew! That’s a lot of vacations during the year! This may work for divorced couples who don’t have any commitments to other spouses, their children together, etc., but it would be rather difficult for ex-spouses who are both remarried and have children with their current spouses. Yep, kind of difficult. Ideally, it sounds good, I guess, if you want to further confuse the child about the divorce in the first place, but it isn’t realistic.

Bear in mind that this is my opinion based on my experience and maybe it’s different with boys versus girls. But I know that my husband and his ex-spouse attempted this whole let’s do everything together for the sake of our son thing (before I came along). They even moved back in with each other after they separated for the sake of their son or pure convenience, and for YEARS all my bonus son dreamed of was them getting back together (and they weren’t even together for 3 years of his life prior to their separation and his parents argued ALL THE TIME). Kids don’t understand words, they understand actions. And you can tell them all day long that mommy and daddy are divorced and we do not plan to get back together, but if you’re still taking vacations together and living in the same house, trust me, they are not paying attention to what you say, but what you do.

On the other hand, my son adjusted well to his biological parents not being together (and we were together for almost 4 years of my son’s life AND WE DIDN’T ARGUE) and was more accepting of my husband when he came along. He saw it as an added bonus instead of a threat to this fantasy of his mom and dad being back together. We’ve [his bio dad and I] always reinforced our love for him and have encouraged him to love his step-parents as well. We’ve told him that we will always be there for him, but have never wanted to confuse him by still playing house even though we weren’t together.

As a result, based on my experience and statistical research, I will have to conclude that this idea of vacationing with ex-spouses and/or spending weekly  time together with the children is not a very good idea for most. In most cases the very thing that divorced parents are trying not to do (hurt and confuse their children), they just might end up doing anyway, as in the case with my bonus son. Overall, parents should be careful in allowing their emotions or intellect to guide their decision for their children of divorce. Make sure it’s something that your children will benefit from in the long run and not something you think they want because it’s what you want.

What about you BFSO readers? How many of you vacation with your ex-spouse and/or have a weekly dinner or lunch with him or her and your children together? How does this arrangement work for you? How do you explain it to your children? We’d be interested in hearing if and how it actually works for other families.

Disclaimer: For the record, I am not telling families who do participate in these types of divorce rituals that they are wrong and should do things my way. I am simply stating that, according to research and based on my personal experience, that it didn’t/doesn’t work for my family. As I stated in the beginning of the post, I’m aware that there isn’t a one size fits all approach to blending a family. That being said, Idon’t want women or men to feel compelled to take yearly vacations with their ex-spouse because they think it’s the ONLY way the children will be well-adjusted. This is certainly not the case.