"Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva... So tweasure your wuv."
"Skip to the end."
"Have you the wing? ...And do you,Pwincess Buwwercwup..."
"Man and wife. Say man and wife."
"Man an' wife."
-- From "The Princess Bride
One thing you have to remember to work on is your relationship with the other parent. Sometimes this includes just being civil with your ex-wife/husband. In my case, it means being civil with my wife and making sure we not only work at being good parents, but a good husband and wife team.
I know some couples who make such an effort at being a couple, they become horrible parents. Their kids will grow up knowing mom and dad loved each other, but questioning if mom and dad love them. I know some other couples who work so hard to be great parents, after a few years after the kids are born, they look across their dinner table one night and hardly recognize the person they married.
Striking the perfect balance is hard. Very hard. A relative of mine was talking about their marital problems with me one night a few years ago, and said in complete sincerity, "I guess our marriage isn't as easy as it is for you and Jen." My jaw hit the floor.
At what point did my marriage get easy? I didn't think I'd ever really think our marriage was easy. If marital life were a video game, ours has been on the "Legendary Hardcore All-Madden" setting since day one. Every time we get ahead, things start working against us. We have our fights, we have our disagreements, but the key is to not lord it over one another and we move on.
In the end, no matter what our disagreements may be or be about, my wife knows that I would drop everything to be there for her. I know, when push comes to shove, she has my back. It is never easy, and people who think that it is needs to be smacked in the head with an old Chuck Taylor tennis shoe (There is no worse feeling than having ones grandma do this to you, by the way).
I guess what I'm saying is, make some time to make the relationship with your kids' other parent at least bearable. If you're still married, then make it work. Get back to what made you love him/her to begin with. Save your marriage. If its too late for that, make time to make a friendship that will at least help your kid not hate that parent, too.
