Co-parenting with my best friend has been the happiest relationship of my life

Having spent the past 19 years co-parenting her son, Fergus, with her friend Louis Quail, Katy Regan, 49, reveals how she’s negotiated their unconventional family set-up – and why it’s worked out better than she ever imagined.

In September, my son Fergus started at university. His father Louis and I dropped him off at his halls of residence, and like thousands of parents, hugged him goodbye, shed a few tears (well, I did), before having a celebratory ‘our work here is done’ dinner and driving home.

It was one of the many milestones of Fergus’s life that we have shared together as his mum and dad. But we are not a couple or married, nor are we divorced or separated.

Louis and I are best friends and co-parents – and it has been the surprise of my life that this has worked out to be the most successful relationship I’ve ever had.

Platonic parenting

Historically, you may have thought of ‘co-parenting’ as divorced or separated parents sharing custody and care of the kids.

These days however, it is no longer just something that exes do. Co-parenting means having and raising a child with someone with whom a romantic relationship is not on the agenda.

In other words, platonic parenting – all the sharing of parenting without sharing a bed. There are even websites for this, where you can be matched with people wanting to co-parent. You could argue that these sites offer no more or less than the transactional service offered by a sperm bank (indeed, some people state they want only this.)

For me and Louis, however, co-parenting has been about making an emotional commitment and investment, not only in our child and us as a parenting partnership, but in our friendship.

In the 19 years of Fergus’s life, I feel we have become both better parents and better friends as a result of co-parenting.

How we met

I never dreamt it would turn out this well. I was 27 and Louis was 34 when we met at work – he was a photographer on a journalism job I was doing – and it was friendship at first sight. We hit it off immediately.

There was undoubtedly an attraction but it didn’t feel physical – for either of us. A relationship between the opposite sexes is rarely, if ever, black and white though. The grey zone always seems to be entered at some point – it’s just for us, this ended up in a baby.

It’s more than 20 years ago now, but I guess we must have both felt as we got on so well, the romantic feelings would come, if we, well… practised? We did not officially date, however, or evidently use consistent birth control.

I have often thought since, that I must have felt getting pregnant would not be the worst-case scenario and that this man would make an amazing father. It turned out I was right.

Worries for the future

That’s not to say that when I did find out I was pregnant in March 2004, at the age of 29, it wasn’t a shock, and I was full of anxiety.

We’d decided we worked better as friends by then, and I worried how I would cope, living on my own with a baby. How would the fact that Louis and I weren’t ‘together’ affect our child’s life? How would it affect our relationship?

I’d heard how the first year of parenthood is the toughest for couples. Many don’t survive it, and they, presumably, were initially in romantic relationships. Would mine and Louis’ friendship – without the glue of sex and romance – make it through?

I hated to think it might not, since I valued it so highly but my greatest fear was that we’d become warring exes, dropping our child off on the other’s doorstep, but without the married bliss bit first.

It turned out I underestimated us.

Certain things were never in question: we both wanted the baby very much and we wanted to share the care equally. No weekend mums and dads for us. No ‘primary carer’. All that mattered was that our baby had the love of two parents. It didn’t matter that we weren’t a couple.

Making it work

Louis and I lived together for the first eight months of Fergus’s life, for the practical support mainly, but our plan never changed.

I bought a flat – across the road from Louis as it happened – and from the outset, we split care down the middle: half the week and alternate Saturdays.

However, there were never any 'fixed' hours – we were in and out of each other’s houses, perhaps popping in to read Fergus a bedtime story, even if it wasn’t ‘our day’ to have him, but also to spend time with one another, because we might be parents now, but we were also friends.

Nineteen years later, although now it’s Louis coming over to play Chess with Fergus, or for us to have dinner, rather than a bedtime story, it’s pretty much the same arrangement when Fergus is back from uni.

We often spend time as a family, have been on holidays, and always spend Christmas together.

It’s not always been plain-sailing – what parenting is? We have not always agreed on parenting styles and bicker like any family, but I consider myself so lucky to have been able to share the experience of parenting my son with the only other person in the world who loves him as much as I do. It’s been incredibly bonding.

And that goes for the tricky times as well as the lovely times: the falling out and teenage angst, as well as sharing pride in him as a person.

I think one of the reasons it’s turned out so well, is because we have a strong foundation of friendship and trust.

Financial arrangements

We’ve always shared the cost of raising Fergus, for example. Obviously, maintaining two homes is one drawback of co-parenting. But Louis and I have always helped one another financially if need be. The attitude being, that keeping a comfortable roof over our child’s head is what’s important.

When Fergus was three, we moved out of London to Berkhamsted – ‘together apart’ as I put it, with our houses a 20-minute walk away.

Fergus started school soon after we arrived and because we shared the school run, we made some mutual friends and moved in the same social circle. As co-parents who get on, as opposed to divorced parents, our friends often comment that we are like a married couple, even down to the bickering.

The difference is, we can go home to our own house. Lots of my friends joke we’ve got the perfect set-up! We may not have the romantic mini breaks, but we also don’t have the worry of that spark dying out, and crucially, neither does Fergus. He’s never had to worry about us breaking up, since we’ve never been a couple.

I feel like Louis and I have an appreciation of each other that some friends report wanes in a long marriage.

Maybe this is because the pressure of sex is not there for us. So, we are safe to fully enjoy our friendship without the danger of one of us feeling sexually rejected.

Other partners

During the past 20 years, we've both had relationships, although we are both currently single. Undoubtedly, getting on so well with your co-parent can be threatening to romantic partners. But I see other people entering into more complex situations that ours – blended families, with bitter exes and step-children – so maybe it’s simply that we haven’t met the right person.

Actually, I think it’s just a tall order to find someone we get on with as well as we do with each other and have a mutual physical spark with. Especially at our age.

"Do you think we’d have stayed such good friends if I’d never got pregnant?" is a question we’ve asked each other over the years.

I think the fact we still hang out almost daily, even with Fergus away at university, probably answers that. It feels like we’re closer friends than ever.