When I was 19 years old I married Travis. He was 21 and we were both were stubborn enough to believe all we needed was love. 2 1/2 years and a beautiful 5 month old baby boy later our divorce was finalized.  Although the material divorce was quite simple, the emotional compromises we faced regarding our son was horrific.  The first time I was my son being held by another woman, potentially a future step mom, I found that I regressed into childish temper tantrums. In the divorce we had joint custody and it proved to be much more difficult than we envisioned.  After a couple of years we realized the friendship we valued and we came to terms with honest communications and expressing feelings of hurt, rather than anger about the handling of our son. We started to not be in competition with one another, but cheered on each others successes.  Travis and my son were the only ones at my college graduation and they both were wholly supportive of me while in school.  I found it odd that we had a better friendship than ever a marriage, and our son noticed it as well. If a movie came out that our son wanted to see, we would all go see it together.  We have since both remarried and to this day we will ALL go out to the movies or functions that would otherwise be split up. It was a feat to find partners that valued and appreciated the friendship Travis and I maintained without getting threatended and feeling jealous.  Today, I am able to talk with my sons step mother as if she is a close friend, and in fact, she has joined the rest of my friends on girls nights and showers. I have great respect and trust in her, which as a mother-that peace of mind goes a long way. My husband and ex husband go golfing together and are at ease talking to one another if they have any issues about our son.  In fact, it was my ex husband who drove me and my current husband, Al to the airport for our honeymoon.  Al has full custody of his 7 year old daughter, Brooklyn, and has raised her by himself,.  Both myself and Al have small families, mostly living in other states.  My former husbands family is very large and close and because of our interaction his family has "adopted" Brooklyn as one of the cousins.  She looks forward to sleepovers and birthday parties where she can play with everyone and my son has a feeling of more continuity amongst his family life.  I'd have to say that the hardest part of going through raising a child in a divorced family is who each person decides to remarry/get in a relationship with.  We found that if we were dating someone who was threatened by our close interaction they would try to install a negative view and get angry if the view was not adopted.  Now that we both have found such supportive spouses it makes it that much more easier to take care of and make decisions for my son, as well as maintain/grow very positive lifelong friendships amongst all of us.