Taylor Kaspar (00:00.534)
Alright, here we are in the next mistake. And today we're talking about the fifth and final mistake I see women making in high conflict co-parenting. And that is that most women believe peace comes when the judge signs the final order. And the real reason they believe that is because they're hoping the order will finally change their ex. And honestly, I think this one sits underneath all the others because if you've listened to the last few episodes, you've
probably started to notice a pattern. We talked about believing the next court order would finally fix everything. We talked about reacting instead of responding strategically. We talked about documentation. We talked about negotiating from guilt instead of strategy. And all of those mistakes have one thing in common. They all quietly depend on the same belief that somehow, someway, your ex is eventually going to become someone different.
Maybe af maybe after this hearing, maybe after this custody evaluation, maybe after therapy, maybe after they get remarried, or break up with that toxic sick other, maybe after they finally lose in court enough, maybe after enough time passes, after the kids get older, after they finally realize what they're doing. I know that belief because I've lived it for years. I spent so much of my early co-parenting journey.
Believing that if I could just get through this next hurdle, things would calm down. If I could just get the right parenting plan, things would get easier. If I could just explain myself better, he'd finally understand. If I could just set one more boundary, he would finally respect it. And every decision I made was built around the hope that eventually he'd become easier to co-parent with. And every time that didn't happen, I was devastated.
Not because the specific disagreement mattered that much, but because it felt like I was starting over it again. I kept waiting for some moment where we'd finally become normal co-parents, where we'd communicate like adults, where we'd make decisions together, where we'd both put the kids first. And one day it hit me. I wasn't just waiting for the conflict to end. I was waiting to start living my life. I had quietly made my peace, my confidence, my joy.
Taylor Kaspar (02:21.026)
My freedom depended on someone else's behavior. And that realization was painful because I couldn't control him. I never could. There was no court order that could make him reasonable. There was no perfect parenting plan that could make him collaborative. And there wasn't going to be a text message I could send that would suddenly make him see things differently. I had spent years trying to solve a problem that wasn't mine to solve. And once I finally accepted that, something unexpected happened.
I stopped feeling so hopeless all the time. Not because he changed, he didn't, but because I stopped measuring my progress by his behavior. The hardest part about this realization was admitting that I had spent years waiting, waiting for him to communicate differently or to become reasonable.
To stop making everything a fight, for him to finally put the kids first, waiting for him to become the father I hoped he would be, and the co-parent I hoped that I could work together with and rely upon. And every time I caught myself thinking, maybe this time, I was handing him another piece of my future. Because every version of maybe this time came with the same hidden belief. My life can really begin when he finally changes.
Maybe you've caught yourself saying things like, once he gets a girlfriend or gets remarried or gets sober or the kids are older or he loses in court, or you know, if if we go far enough in the future and there's enough time that passes, things will be different. We become experts at attaching our peace to somebody else's growth. And the problem is you don't get to decide if another person grows. You don't get to decide when they mature, if ever.
You don't get to decide whether they become the parent you'd hope they'd be, and they probably won't. The only life you actually get to build is your own. That doesn't mean you stop caring, and it doesn't mean you stop advocating for your kids. It doesn't mean you give up on court or your parenting plan. It doesn't mean that you stop setting boundaries. It just means that you stop postponing your own life while you wait for someone else to become a different person. And that was the shift for me. I stopped asking, how do I finally get him to change? And I started asking.
Taylor Kaspar (04:33.218)
How do I build a really beautiful life, even if he never does change? Because he won't, right? And that question changed everything for me because suddenly communication wasn't about changing him. It was about protecting my own peace. Documentation wasn't about changing him. It was about helping me think more clearly and see what was really going on in my own life. Negotiation wasn't about convincing him. It was about making decisions I could still feel good about years later into the future.
Court wasn't about fixing him. It was simply one tool I could use when I needed it for the protection of my children. Can you see what happened? Nothing in my life actually changed except me. He didn't wake up one day and become reasonable. He's still not.
He never will be. He didn't suddenly become cooperative. He has never apologized. Not one time, other than to say maybe, maybe. I'm sorry you feel that way. He didn't become easy to co-parent with. Everything's a fight from five years ago. But my experience of co-parenting changed completely because I finally stopped waiting for permission to have a life that wasn't centered on him. I stopped waiting for permission to enjoy my children.
fully or to feel peaceful or to move forward and do the things that I wanted to do. I just moved on. And ironically, that was the moment I felt freer than I have ever felt in years. Not because the conflict disappeared. You guys, I'm in conflict and litigation right now. Right now, today as I record. But because it stopped determining whether I got to be happy
I think it's one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself. The realization that your life does not have to remain on hold while you wait for someone else to become someone they've never consistently shown you they want to be. He does not want to be that person. And in our final episode, we're going to bring everything together because by now you've probably realized that none of these mistakes exists on their own. Just like the conflict, every event and incident with your ex does not exist on its own.
Taylor Kaspar (06:47.948)
Right? They're all interconnected. They're all part of what I call the high conflict ecosystem. And once you understand how these pieces fit together and you stop feeling like you're constantly putting out fires and you start building a strategy for your life, that's when you really start to live again. So I'll see you in our final episode.
