Who Takes Care of You?

The quality of your most important relationships is a direct reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

Not your intentions, or your effort.
Not how much you love your kids or how hard you're trying to hold things together.

Yourself.

I learned this the hard way.

I was 40 and when our relationship ended, and I really didn't know who I was.

I hadn't been happy or fulfilled for a long time, but I couldn't exactly tell you why.

Somewhere along the way, between moving countries, moving cities, having no family support and a young child, building new friend groups, finding a new job, I had lost myself.

I was performing. I was putting a brave face to the world while avoiding my own pain.

Looking back it's easy to see I was clinging to a false sense of self-control.

What I was holding together felt incredibly fragile, a house of cards, and I was afraid it would all come crumbling down.

The idea of asking deep reflective questions about who I am and what I want was too scary, too much of a risk.

So I did what I'd always done. I took care of everyone else. I put their needs in front of my own.

Something I thought was honorable at the time.

I wanted the people around me to feel seen, cared for, prioritized. It was the one thing I knew I was good at, the one place I could see the result of my effort.

I was in service. But it was a distraction.

Without really knowing it, I had crossed a line years before, where I had made meeting the needs of others my meaning, my identity, a validation of my own worth.

I know it wasn't the reason my marriage ended,
but it contributed to the dynamic where it couldn't thrive.

And as I poured more and more into people and didn't feel it come back, I became angry, resentful, and a victim of my own choices.

That's where this all starts.

And if you're in the middle of a break up, a divorce, or somewhere in the long difficult stretch of co-parenting that follows, I share this:

You're allowed to feel all of it.
The grief. The anger.
The disorientation of watching the life you built come apart.

None of that needs to be rushed or bypassed or fixed before you can move forward.

But at some point, and the sooner the better, you have to look inward, prioritize you.

Ask yourself the questions you've been avoiding:
Who did I become in my last relationship?
What part of its ending was mine to own?
Who do I want to be in what comes next?

That's the work. And it's the only work that actually changes anything.

The most impactful thing I ever did for my co-parenting relationship was the work I did on myself.

Years in therapy. Journaling. Self study. Working with a coach. Attending workshops, course, and communities. Excavating the patterns I'd been running on and slowly, painfully, building something more authentic.

None of that happened by accident.
I made a plan and I worked on it.

I enjoyed working on it. And I still do.

I've spent the last decade learning who I am, so I don't lose myself again.

I choose to evolve. I'm intentional about it.
I'm genuinely curious about my own life, about people, about what brings me joy and why.

That curiosity has changed me.

I'm far more in control of how I respond, far less ruled by my reactions.

I'm not telling you to walk my path. But it was this work, this commitment to understanding myself, that brought me back.

You don't have to answer these to anyone but yourself.
Start by taking the one that lands and sit with it.

1. Who have you become, and is it who you want to be?

Not who you're performing. The person actually living your life right now. Do you recognize them? Do you like them?

2. Where in your life are you performing instead of living?

The brave face. The fine you say when you're not. What would it cost to stop, and what is it already costing you not to?

3. What would need to be true about you, not your circumstances, for things to change?

This question doesn't assign blame. It help to reclaim agency. If the answer starts with someone else, start over.

I didn't become a joyful co-parent overnight — and if you're in the middle of this, you probably won't either.

I share my journey to connect with others working through the same confusing transformation.

It might be exactly what they need to hear.

Thank you,
Justin | The Joyful CoParent

PS: I aim to respond in 48hrs, I do read everything, but please be patient with me :)