From lovers to exes to healthy co-parents

Robert Burale is single and the father of a 12-year-old daughter. The motivational speaker and emcee is more than familiar with the complex dynamics of the relationship that co-parents have. He and his daughter’s mother are good friends. “The other day I took my daughter to the salon and her mother and I sat there and chatted for three hours.” But it didn’t start out like that. “It took a lot of prayer and humility (to become friends with my daughter’s mother),” he says, “Every time a relationship ends, you feel like a failure. You wonder why it didn’t work and sometimes you blame the other person. Sometimes you can use children to hit each other.  Reconciliation takes admitting your mistakes and making amends. But I believe that if you can be naked with someone, have sex and have God give you an offspring, surely you have it in you to forgive that person. You can’t say you love your children if you mistreat the person who gave birth to them.”

Bernard Ndung’u* is a 46-year-old single father of two children – a 23-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter – from different mothers. More than 15 years of working and successfully reconstructing his relationship with his first born’s mother has taught him this truth: “As you grow older, you realise that in a world of seven billion people, there are very few who you get to interact with to the point where you share a child. In the long run, all these small problems of whom did what to whom stop mattering. You realise this is a special relationship and that it is stupid it is to hold grudges against someone who gave birth to your child.”

Burale underscores the importance of going through the healing process for personal wellbeing as well as for the children. “If you forgive each other just for the kids, it’s bound to be cosmetic. You will only be pretending when the children are around, and children can pick up on that (disingenuous) energy. So, first, forgive each other for yourselves. Today, if my baby mama calls me, I pick up the phone and she can talk to me about anything – it doesn’t have to be about my child.”

THE LONG ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION

Time, Ndung’u says, is a healer. His marriage fell apart as a result of his struggle with drugs and alcohol. He and his ex-wife had been together for seven years. Three weeks before their wedding, he went on a drinking bender and disappeared for days. The wedding never happened. Ndung’u spent the next few years in the depths of addiction while trying to make his relationship with his ex work. “In moments of brief sobriety I would be present, then I would relapse and she would go into anger, shock, bargaining, trying to be an extraordinary woman … just like stages of grief. Then eventually she became flat out unresponsive and gave up. Then we were no longer a couple.” Soon after, she was transferred to another city. It would be seven years before Ndung’u and her would begin to rebuild their relationship.

“I was sober in the last three of those seven years,” he says. “It was hard at first, especially because she was in a new relationship, but now I understand why she was difficult. I was not stable and it was her job to provide stability for our son. Her attitude shifted when I became more consistent in my sobriety and in communication. When it started to look like I had broken my destructive pattern, the visitations increased gradually.”

STILL HAD BAGGAGE

In those earlier days, he admits he actually found it easier to deal with his son’s step-father than with his mother. “We still had baggage; I still harboured some resentment towards her and perhaps she still was skeptical about whether I had changed. We fathers developed a cordial relationship. Sometimes they would drop him to together; sometimes he would do it by himself. I have a lot of respect for him. He played a big role in the growth of my son. After all, he is the father to my son’s siblings.”

 “When she (baby mama) is in Nairobi, I pick her up from the airport. I give her my car to use. When I am in her city we go out for coffee. When her children are here they visit me, because you know, I can’t be a father to my son and nothing to her other children!” With their son currently at university in Nairobi, Ndung’u is the more present parent. “Our roles have changed. Also, the more he has grown up, the more the other father has shifted to the background. But I always insist that he maintains his relationship with his parents – I am always asking him: ‘Have you called your father? When are you going home to see your parents?’ That’s important.”

Their blended family works well. “When my ex’s mum died, we were all together at the funeral,” Ndung’u says. “I was not up there at the main dias with the rest of the nuclear family, but they knew I was there and I supported them where I could. Don’t get me wrong – we are not like what you see on TV. We keep what I would call a respectable distance, but we are in each other’s lives.”

HE COULDN’T SEPARATE

When she was 19, Julianna, now 28, gave birth to a son. Although the new father didn’t deny paternity, he was not interested in taking responsibility. Three years later, they got back together and tried to build a family. “He was an excellent father but a crappy husband. He was abusive,” Julianna says. “After five months, I wanted out. But he said his role as a father came as a package deal – that he would only take responsibility if I was (in a relationship) with him.” It has been five years since she walked away from him. “In this time, he has only sent me a WhatsApp message once, asking for a picture of both of us! Why was he requesting a picture of both of us?”

Asking her how she feels about his absence, Julianna responds, “I resent him because who says they don’t want their child unless they have the mother? Who does that?! I thought about suing for support but I felt as if I would be getting half the deal for a lot of hassle. Being a father is not just about money. It’s about him being present.”

Presently, Julianna, who is engaged to be married, is confident in the male figure that her fiancé affords her son. “We don’t talk about (the absent biological father) much because by the time we met he was not in the picture.” But Julianna is assured that if the biological father ever wanted to play an active role in his son’s life, the step-father would be okay with it.”

Inasmuch as he admits that matters of the heart are complex, Burale notes that it’s possible to separate the parenting role from the ex-partner dynamic. “I think one of the reasons it’s difficult to get there is evident in co-parents saying ‘I don’t want my children around another woman/man’. When such things happen, it is hard to move on and friendship between the exes is almost impossible.”

And speaking of dating other people, Burale says, “Two things must be very clear when I start dating someone: that I have daughter and that I respect her mother. I once met someone who thought I was talking about my daughter too much. I didn’t even think twice about ending that relationship. I didn’t even want to compromise by wanting to see where she was coming from.”

As the primary custodian to his six year old daughter, Ndung’u has had an almost similar experience. “A year or so ago I dated this girl for about three months and I think it really destabilised my daughter. It just seemed like they were competing for my attention – they were like two children fighting. I also think she overrated herself and thought I could choose her over my daughter. But my daughter always comes first. So unless I meet someone truly exceptional, I am staying away from relationships – at least until she’s 10 or 12 – at which point she might be the one trying to figure out how to hook me up with someone,” he concludes with a hearty laugh.