To my ex on Fathers Day: Thank you

I have an amazing husband, and a pretty close to perfect dad.  But I also have a complicated little family unit.  Between my husband and I, we have four kiddos.  We have his, mine, and ours.  I have two children from before our marriage, he has one, and we have our explosive red head together.  I went through some tough times in my younger years.  I was married, and had Ashlynne when I was 20.  When she was a few months old, her father left.  At that point, I met Devin, over time became engaged to him, and had our amazing little man, Gavin.  After a few years, this relationship fell apart.  But his relationship with his son never suffered for it.

In honor of Father's Day, I'm going to do something most women rarely do.  Something I wish more moms took the time, and thought to do.  Something I wish more moms would do, while taking a step back and putting their anger aside.  I'm going to give a HUGE shout out to my ex. Because he deserves it.  Yes, I want to honor this man, that I couldn't make a romantic relationship work with, for the fact that he never took our differences out on our son.  Because of the love and commitment I see him put forth into being a dad, I admire him so much.  It wasn't always rainbows and roses, in fact, it was pretty rough for a while.  But over time, I have come to consider Devin one of my best friends.  We have one very important thing in common, Gavin.

Gavin and his Rad Dad 

I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but we have a pretty good set up.  Devin and I truly do get along amazingly well.  This was something that took my husband quite some time to figure out.  We couldn't be together, yet when it came to our son, we were rarely apart.  I can see how from the outside looking in, it is a strange set up.  No, we don't live together, but he was over for every holiday, first days of school, birthdays, and any other important date.  He still comes to my parents house for holidays, and stops by my grandparents' house just to say hi.  And why not?  Isn't this best for Gavin?  It's not "my time" or "his time" with Gavin, it's Gavin's time.  He offers things that Russ and I can't, and vice versa.  He knows that if I make any suggestions, or express any concerns on anything going on with it comes from a genuine place, and the same goes for me.  We are doing everything we can to try to make the lives of Gavin, and the other kids, the best that we can.  He is still very active in Ashlynnes life, and he and Logan are buds too.  If he is going to take Gavin for ice cream, and Breckyn wants to go, he takes her too.  If he is going swimming and I can't take the other kids, he loads them all up.  In fact, Breckyn loves him! That's "her" Devin.

He had one doozy of a life.  An absent father that was never in his life, and a mother that passed away when he was 13, left him with little guidance.  He was a wild child, and made a lot of mistakes.  As far as a positive male role model goes, I guess you could say he didn't have one.  But the day Gavin came into this world, he started turning his life around.  He was not going to repeat the pattern or let history repeat itself.  So the same went for he and I.  When we split, he was a big part of breaking the cycle of those typical nasty relationships where people use their children as weapons. It took a lot of work, on both of our parts, but when we split, after both of us trying our butts off to make it work, in very short order both of us realized we didn't want it to be ugly.  Those things are hard enough on their own without creating more complications for the other person.  Neither of us needed that, but more importantly, neither did our son.

So this Father's Day, I want to give him props.  Thank you for proving everyone wrong!  Thank you for being such a good friend to Russ and I, and a good buddy/ family member to the other kids, and an AWESOME dad to Rad Dude.  While our romantic relationship didn't work out, I'm still convinced I couldn't have picked a better dad for Gavin.  And I couldn't have picked a better friend.

Happy Father's Day!