I was the fighting parent. I was the one without connection or compassion and I paid a high price for it. The Boy was to blame, there was nothing wrong with me… you get the idea. It took me a long time to stop fighting, to stop sweating the little stuff (and the medium stuff, and lots of the bigger stuff too).

My mother is horrified by what I “let him away with” and keeps telling me that “there has to reach a point where…” I will return to fighting with him to get him to do what she thinks he *should* do. I have stopped hoping that she will accept that I will not be fighting The Boy to get him to do stuff.

It took The Other Parent a long time to stop fighting too. He stopped fighting me first, and then it was easier to not fight The Boy.

There are no consequences or rewards in my house. We do things because it is important that we work together as a team. There are of course nice things and we go out together regularly but that is because we are a team and we like nice things.

This journey has changed my life, changed how I interact with all of the lives around me, how I see life.