I am a 32 year old father of two awesome boys, my oldest is 7 and  youngest is 4.  I seperated from my now ex wife before my youngest was born, I never was honest with her as to the reason.  The next two years we spent fighting in court over child custody, ending with us having joint custody, and costing over 15000 dollars and a lot of resentments.  About 6 months after the court decision was final the relationship with my boys' mother was rocky at best, no trust or respect for each other and no effort from either side to build or gain it.  We never yelled or fought in front of the boys and never talked bad about the other in front of them.  But to say that they were not affected would be very naive.  I came to the conclusion that in order for me to grow as a person, a man and as a father, I would have to be honest about who I was no matter what the consquences were.  So I decided to have "the conversation" with her.

It was the best decision I ever made.  It was almost like flipping a switch, our relationship went from being adversail to coorperative.  When I was able to be honest she was able to do the same and it really broke down alot of those resentments we had built up.  We are not best friends that have dinner and talk on the phone everyday, but once those resentments was broke down we were able to start building trust between us which allowed us to concentrate on what was the most important thing to both of us…our boys.  We now share with each other the joys and frustrations that comes with being a parent with each other and get support from each other.  It is not uncommon for the picking up and dropping off the boys to take 30 to 45 min because we are busy laughing and talking about the antics the boys had gotten into during the visit.

If I had to share what my experience has taught me it would be this: be honest, no matter what the percieved consquence, embaressments or personal rights might have.  Your children are most valuable thing you have and you would not hand them over to someone you didn't trust.  Why would the other parent feel any differently?  I have found that by letting my ex wife in on my thought process, why I feel the way I do, why I reached the decision I did, or addressing concerns I have with her decisions, that then doesn't have to guess or make up the reasons herself, which she is the type of person that always assumes the worse thing.

Anyway, hope this helps!
Dan