Earlier in the month, an emergency came up in my family. Everything will be okay, though our journey continues. In the midst of those beginning days, I decided to reach out to my ex-husband regarding our child.

It feels weird to write that phrase out: “our child,” because technically, he isn’t. Our child was adopted by my husband six years ago. My husband has raised him for twelve. He’s our child, day in, day out, while my ex has exchanged nothing more than a few errant texts with him over the last several years.

Yet, biology is important—genetics and epigenetics shape who we are in more ways than we know. The body keeps the score and we recreate the trauma of our ancestors until our lineage is healed.

I didn’t always think that way

I hadn’t talked to this guy in nearly three years when he was trying to discuss something over text. I asked him to call and he ended up verbally abusing me: cussing me out, yelling at me while I calmly stated a boundary, the whole nine yards. It was bizarre for what I expect from my life and the people in it now, but right on par with what we’ve done in the past, in the toxic relationship we mutually created.

The truth of it is, I didn’t have to talk to him. I was cognizant of the fact that not being legally obligated to communicate with a coparent who has harmed me and my child since before his birth is a privilege many women would covet. In an era of mask-wearing and surviving, not thriving, I defaulted to not continuing to communicate with this person. My child had a phone for years at this point. I was not obligated to facilitate their relationship, so I didn’t.

There are several modes of thinking I participated in when I was set on a certain framework.

“That’s not my responsibility.”

This is a statement I found myself saying a lot as I was learning boundaries. It was necessary. Relinquishing responsibility for certain tasks is valuable when your default is a state of overwhelm: you’ve got to learn what you can change and what you can’t, and you have to be wise enough to know the difference—to paraphrase the ol’ 12 step program motto.

Delineating responsibilities is a necessity for creating the façade of fairness.

“That’s not fair”

My friend’s ex-husband was always talking about what was or wasn’t fair. It made me so bonkers that in conversations about him I found myself repeating the boomer adage, “Life’s not fair!”. He’s a twin, so I later attributed that personality trait to how I assume he grew up: with much discussion about having one of each and making things fair between he and his brother.

Twins are likely to grow up in the same home. They come from the same womb and exit it around the same time, so the opportunity to fairness is pretty high. For non-twin comparisons, that’s not the case. Fairness is unrealistic. Individuals are born with different sets of privileges, they learn to adapt to environments that favor certain behaviors over others, and they have certain skill sets based on how those environments propelled them forward or held them back. No one starts in the exact same spot.

“He doesn’t deserve X”

“He doesn’t deserve a relationship with his child if he’s not going to remember to call.” “He doesn’t deserve for me to put in quadruple the effort so that they can have a conversation” “I’m the one who already does all of the parenting while he goes off and has more kids and abandons them.” “He doesn’t deserve to feel like he’s a part of his son’s life because he has a phone conversation a few times a year, while another man is actively fathering every day.”

Maybe those sentiments are true. Who cares? With age and wisdom, I realize that it’s not my task to determine what someone deserves based on transgressions they’ve made.

Determining what someone deserves or doesn’t is acting under the premise that everything in life needs to be earned based on good behavior. The assumption that it isn’t everyone’s desire to be “good,” please others, and belong. As if “bad” behavior is a choice to harm others and not just some maladaptive mechanism they’ve learned from less-than-ideal conditions. I don’t subscribe to that.

I subscribe, instead, to the belief that we’re all doing the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt. That we’re all miracles, descendants of star stuff, and deserving of the best. Why not?

Responsibility vs Possibility

In my old responsibility framework, I deemed it my husband’s job to play catch with my oldest son. He’s better at sports, that’s a dad thing…but the reality is that he didn’t get around to it all that much. Through a framework of possibility, I’ve been throwing the ball a few times every day with my kindergartner while we wait on the school bus. We get better at catch together in short, often spurts.

My husband generally does the cooking and the laundry. Those are two of the most visible housework tasks, and as a stay-at-home mom I feel guilty for him taking on so much while he’s already the breadwinner. That’s a side effect of a responsibility framework’s lasting impression. Despite my guilt, it’s what works best for us based on our individual skills and energy level and makes more sense for us than prescribed gender roles—that’s possibility allowing itself to unfold.

In a responsibility framework, I knew it was my ex’s job to pursue a relationship with my oldest son, but I now see the possibility of helping him get to know him better, advising him and healing my child’s abandonment wound.

Being the Board

In the evening after that initial call, I picked up an old book from my shelf, The Art of Possibility. I hadn’t read it in about nine years, and I wasn’t sure what drew me back to it at the time. By the time I completed it, I knew there were several concepts that I needed to consider in the now, one of which, Being the Board, is most notable.

The concept goes something like this: people generally consider themselves like chess pieces. They move, and someone else moves, they react to the movement, and the game continues as each takes their turn. The authors offer the possibility to consider yourself the board rather than the pieces. Instead of seeing things as happening to you, approach them with the curiosity of: “what did I contribute that made it so this would happen on my board?

It goes on to examine several examples. It’s not about taking responsibility or blame for things that happen to you. Rather, it’s about considering the bigger picture.

The bigger picture

I know that I never actively stood in the way of a relationship. But I do know that I let my disappointment, anger, and fear of harm to my child guide my decisions. If I would have consistently approached his mishaps with empathy and kindness, would he feel less intimidated by me, and by extension, the child we had?

I’m not sure. I do know that I want to protect my children from harm, and though one would wish that could be as simple as excluding someone who has endangered them before, it’s not that simple. Because absence is harmful, too.

So now I’m looking at this with a fresh pair of eyes: what is possible? If I give this person the same grace as I learned to give myself—like a child who stumbles through life like baby deer, rather than a mean and scheming hurricane, careless over the hurt he bestows upon others? Could working as life support for this relationship between biological father and son help a child integrate the many facets of his identity?

I think, once the hard edges of responsibilities are blurred, we can see endless possibilities.