Fully expect to be told I'm unreasonable. My ex dh and I share a ds13. We split up when he was 1 so have always co parented. Before my ex remarried he had a messy few years. Sofa surfed a lot, always skint, never paid maintenance or had a car or any of the things ds needed, had a string of girlfriends that he introduced baby ds to against my wishes, lied a lot and was quite aggressive towards me at times.
Things settled down and he got his act together, married his now wife who is lovely and had two more dc. I remarried and had another child too and overall we all get on well. Ex has consistently seen ds EOW and once during the week for several years.
In the beginning I was always very anxious of ds spending time away from me mostly because he was so little and because of my ex's unstable living patterns at the time, but also because he can be impulsive and at times volatile (bad temper). Over the years he has mellowed and ds enjoys going there. Ex does a lot of Disney dad stuff with him.
But even now he's a teenager I still worry. I miss him terribly. I worry about what he's doing when he's not here. When they go away I worry about him travelling and being safe in new places. I worry about him getting ill or having an accident. This isn't me saying I don't trust my ex and his wife's parenting it's just a sense of lack of control about being far away from my son. I really thought after all these years it would have gotten better but it doesn't.
This alongside the upcoming abroad summer holiday they're going on plus the endless negotiations over Christmas and birthdays and never being able to plan anything without consulting someone else first is just getting me down. I know it's the reality of co parenting but I just feel like I miss out on a lot of time with my son who I love so much. I think having my youngest has opened my eyes to how much time I'm missing. It has to be this way but it still sucks. And I do sometimes look back to how shit my ex was at the start, and how his temper can flare up sometimes (partly why we split up all those years ago) and wonder if ds ever bears the brunt of it.
Does anyone else feel like this even after years of co parenting?