We can no longer talk to each other the way we did (in fact, look where that took us) so we had to find how to communicate in a positive way with the person we wanted to hate the most.
And that is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Up until now, if there was something hurting me or something I did not like, I would just tell them to back off, or I would go away. That’s it, No more contact, don’t have to deal with those people again. But in this case, I could not do that. I could not ignore that he (my ex-husband) was going to be in my life, my whole life.
So, how do you communicate with someone that you don’t want in your life anymore? Well, that’s where it starts. To realize that this person always will be in your life. Do you want it to be good or do you want it to be nasty?
He is no longer the person I go to… to share my feelings, to hold me when needed, the person I can be totally myself with, the person that you know you can have an argument with and they will still be there for you. All that is gone. So, what is left of that person and how do you communicate with that?
He has become my partner in parenting. That’s how I look at it. He is no longer my heart partner, but he is my partner in parenting. No matter what happens to my couple, my priority is still my children. What kind of person would that make me if I would show them how to hate their father? What would that teach them? What life would that create for them, and for me?
I want them to respect their father. I want them to love their father. I want them to learn how to be loved by their father, so they too can learn how to love their family.
So, I had to focus on that. How to communicate with my kids other parent, so we can still reach a common goal: The wellness and happiness of our children.
Think about how we communicate with our colleagues, boss, parents, friends, lover, children… all are very different. We would never talk to our boss and have a fight the way we do it with our spouse.
We are no longer married, we are no longer wife and husband, yet we still need to interact with each other.
Having a common goal is number one.
What’s difficult is to then change the communication style. We want to bring back the past on the carpet, we want to say all those things that have hurt us in the past, we want to yell, we want to scream. But we can’t. If we do, then we are back into a married relationship communication style while divorce. That does not work. In a way, I look at us like a work partnership. We now have been divorced almost two years, and we are close to each other. We talked about the children, about us (me more than him), about work.. but at a different level. Almost a mixture of business partner and heart partner. There is a line to not cross. This line has been the challenge. Where is this line? I had as many answers as people I asked. It is personal to both and has to be found to be healthy. As long as it is positive for everyone, then it does not matter what others think.
Many people around us, don’t know what to make of it. They don’t understand it. Some have said that we should only contact each other via text. Some say, no contact at all. Some say, what happens in his life is none of my business, some say nothing wrong with liking each other and many others.
At the end, no one knows the family better than the two of us. We know who we are and what we need to be and do to be happy and give this happiness to our children.
In the long term, we both have become better parents. We communicate very well. And we are happier.
And that is the premise of Beautiful Divorce.