Not a day goes by where I don't find myself thanking the procreation gods that I get to parent with my partner. He's a wonderful human being, a fantastic father and someone I can truly confide in (which comes in handy on a pretty regular basis). We're not married, but we live together and raise a 2-year-old toddler together and have found a way to parent that works best for our entire family. However, how wonderful my partner is doesn't keep me from experiencing some of the most annoying parts of co-parenting; the parts that are necessary and not even that "big a deal," but can be a thorn in my whiney side.
I realize there are so many parents who would gladly experience the annoying parts of co-parenting on a daily basis, so make no mistake: even when I'm annoyed, I'm grateful. However, I think it's important that the collective "we" remain realistic about co-parenting and how freakin' challenging it can be. It's not easy to raise a tiny human being with another human being, whether you're married or divorced or separated or dating or not romantically involved in any way. Even if you have the perfect co-parenting relationship and you're on the same page (usually) and you're able to communicate respectfully and efficiently (most of the time), you're going to get on one another's nerves and you're going to butt heads and you're going to, well, get annoyed. After all, you're human beings.
So, yeah, co-parenting can be annoying and even when I love it, I sometimes kind of hate it. That's parenthood in a nutshell, really; the good parts and the bad parts are so closely intertwined that you can't have one without the other. So, in the name of transparency and because my therapist says airing your grievances is a good thing, here are just a few moments when co-parenting is pretty annoying: