for better or worse, if you will.

Earlier this week I had some concerns about my son, so I expressed my worries to my ex-husband.  Heck, why should I be the only one worried about the choices that he is making or soon will make. 
A little bit of background...My ex-husband is the father of my child.  We had our son very young. He was still in high school (11th grade) & I was in my first year of college.  We also had the bright idea to get married just a couple of years later; all of which has made us who are today.  We bought our house in the suburbs at just 22 years old, sadly by 24 years old we were separated, got rid of the house and the battles began.  First child support, simply because I needed to survive; then custody, which was easy and standard, every other weekend and one day during the week he had our son.  We spent a few years going back to court to get the child support adjusted which I suppose is normal in any case.
At one point, I had to put my ex-husband in jail because he was so far in arrears.  Little does he know that I cried for 2 days after I found out.  He still was the father of my child and I never wanted to have to do something that dramatic, but needed to take a stand and prove that I wasn't going to be played.  I even took our son to visit him and accepted his calls from prison so he was able to speak to our son.
After a while and numerous amounts of wasted negative energy, the fighting subsided & we got on the same page.  We were both interested in the same thing, raising our son and achieving the best for him that we could.
This is why we had lunch today.  To meet about our lovely teenage son, his goals & his future.  It was nice catching up with him.  I asked him about his long time girlfriend, who seems to be a great person (she actually seems like someone I'd be friends with) and her young daughter.  He asked about my parents and who I was currently dating. 
We are now friends.  I can say that.  I probably am one of his, if not his oldest friend.  He listens, gives advice & I do the same for him,  We fight, but make-up.  We don't judge each other because we have both made bad decisions and learned from them.  We have watched each other grow-up.  If someone were to ask, I would say he is a soul-mate.  I believe that people have more than one in their life-time; many even, if they're blessed.  He was not "The One".  At least not for me to be married to for the rest of my life, but I believe he was the one that God wanted to remain in my life; for better or worse, if you will...