Getting Divorced? Read This Now.

In a few minutes, I will be heading to my lawyer’s office to sign a lengthy Property Settlement Agreement (PSA), a legal document memorializing all of the obligations, responsibilities, and agreements that have been reached between myself and my soon-to-be-ex-husband (and our lawyers) over the past year of negotiating our divorce. The process — separation and divorce — has already stretched itself over 2.5 years.
With reflection, my marriage was met with some of the greatest highs and some of the lowest lows I am sure to experience in my lifetime. The goal and the commitment was to love, cherish, and (as my mom is sure to remind me) respect one another until death do us part…
From my perspective, on this day, I acknowledge that, together, we brought four beautiful souls into the world. And, as a result…
I have touched the bottom of the ocean four times in my life.
Each time, alone.
Each time, different.
Each time, a quieter and more peaceful journey to the greatest depths of my living soul.
With my first daughter, I welcomed the spirit of hope and the joyful, evolving mystery of growing children. With the twins, I experienced the letting go of unnecessary rules and the discovery of spontaneity, laughter, and magic. With my toddler, I have cherished the simple things and the real time to celebrate small moments each day.
In honor of my children and of my difficult decision to leave their father, I offer a few thoughts for those who find themselves traveling along (or intersecting with) a path similar to my own:
1. Once you’re ready to talk, be prepared to listen.
When you tell people that you are getting divorced, they will likely put themselves in your shoes (or the shoes of someone in your scenario), for better or for worse.
Aside from a few really close friends and family, it took me a while before I felt ready to talk about my divorce openly. In the beginning of the process, I felt emotional and disoriented. There was so much I didn’t know; the path wasn’t one I had ever planned to travel.
On any given day, when I imagined talking about my divorce, I could feel my own unanswered questions, my own anxieties, my own fears. I dreaded the sympathy and the prying. I really didn’t want to be the person with the drama.
And yet, I wanted to expose the conversational wall and trust in the friendship and the love being offered by the people in my life.
At some point in the process, I went out for Thai food with a friend from work. We ordered lunch and, as we waited, she caught me up on her personal life — her job, boyfriend, inner work, etc. As she shared, I fully felt the need to reciprocate her trust. To stay authentic in the relationship, I knew there needed to be mutual disclosure. I had to share my big news, too — I was officially getting divorced. I had filed my claim and started the process. It was happening.
I shared the news and my friend immediately expressed concern and empathy and compassion. We talked for a few minutes about the current status of things and my next steps in the process. Although it wasn’t comfortable, I felt okay.
Right after her initial reaction, though, my friend shared something that I wasn’t expecting. She struggled to hold back her emotions as she explained that her parents (who eventually divorced) fought all the time in front of her when she was little. She talked about how hard it was to grow up in that enviornment.
We went on to talk about her childhood experiences and about the unhappiness she felt in her current relationship and about the potential long-term effects if she/he were to eventually get married. I left lunch that day feeling closer to my friend than I ever had.
This pattern — working up the courage to bring people into my world only to find that doing so meant I would be more deeply invited into their own — was unexpected and heavy and beautiful. With reflection, here is what I think I know:
Your divorce can be a trigger and a test and a healing agent for those around you.
Maybe they are struggling in their own relationships and don’t feel prepared (e.g. financially, professionally, spiritually, socially, familially, emotionally, physically, etc.) to face separation or divorce themselves; they listen to your story to work through their own potential futures.
Maybe they came to the same relationship edge years ago and regret not having had “the courage” to leave at that time; they listen through the yearnings of an unlived life, an alternative ending that might have been.
Maybe their parents split and your divorce story stirs the painful memories of a turbulent childhood that resulted; they listen through the confusion of a compartmentalized childhood.
Maybe their parents didn’t split and your divorce story stirs the painful memories of a turbulent childhood that resulted; they listen alongside the invisible weight they carried each time a decision was made “for the sake of the children.” And so on…
Like so many big life events (e.g. graduations, weddings, pregnancies, etc.), I found that talking about my divorce often opened the door to other people sharing their divorce-related experiences. And, like so many big life events, I felt pretty consumed in my own story until I started talking about it openly with others.
Having now gone through the divorcing experience, I feel a strengthened sense of myself and a weakened desire to claim a sense of others. There really is no one “truth” because everyone has a side to the story. (And that’s okay.)
You may similarly find that sharing your divorce story acts like a doorway — opening up the future or reintroducing the past — to others’ own experiences and lives. Some of the most unlikely people may walk through that conversational door with you and seize the opportunity to process, heal, and find closure. So, when you decide it’s time to share your experience, also be ready to sit with others as they grieve and celebrate and question and wonder. Be ready to listen. (More on this in Part II, “Still Getting Divorced? Read This Now,” especially as it relates to owning your story, managing social media, and reclaiming the life you choose.)
2. When thinking about custody, take your time and write it out.
Once I knew that my marriage was broken beyond repair and that I would need to rebuild my life while taking care of my four children, I had the good fortune to meet some wise-in-the-way-of-divorcing women.
Early on in the process, I was gifted this simple advice: “Be the Mom. Now, more than ever, be the Mom. And, no matter what, don’t get distracted or derailed from that mission.”
This wise soul advised that I do one simple thing:
Write out an ideal individualized transition plan for each child.
She suggested that I take into consideration all of the things I normally would when planning a big change for each of my children — their ages, their social conditions, their school lives, their extracurricular activities, their relationships with family members, their personalities, their physical/emotional/mental health needs, their histories, their family histories, etc. — and write an individualized transition plan.
My suggestion: Take your time and think about each child’s place along numerous developmental arcs.
Some questions to get started:
- What forms of support are needed (e.g. at school, through professional resources, through the community, etc.)?
- What must stay the same through and beyond the change (e.g. school zone, proximity to particular friends/family, access to medical specialists, etc.)?
- What daily routines should ideally remain stable (e.g. hygiene, homework, dinner at the table, etc.)?
- What is flexible (e.g. taking the bus or walking to school)?
- What has each child adapted to in the past? What made those prior changes successful (or not)?
- How can you include each child in the process of change management in a way that is open and healthy and tolerable?
Write it out and talk it out. No one can do this work but you.
If multiple children are involved, think about them one at a time. Though it may sound strange, give yourself the space and permisison to dream big for each child, realizing where and how this transition fits into their individual lifespans beyond (i.e. before and after) the divorce. Be the Mom (or the Dad! or the Guardian!) and do what you have already done so well — help your children thrive in the face of adversity. They can do it. You can help them.
(More on this in Part II, “Still Getting Divorced? Read This Now,” especially as it relates to the strategies needed to defend your transition plans against various challengers.)
3. Trust your relationship(s) with your child(ren).
When a couple goes through divorce with children, there are some parts of the experience that just naturally hurt more and deeper than any other kind of pain you might experience. You are leaving the relationship you had with your ex, not your kids.
And yet, due to custody arrangements, you are likely to feel like a childless parent as you face into time away from the kiddos. It can be a huge identity shift. And, it can be painful.
Here is the secret: Trust your own relationship(s) with your child(ren).
My therapist (experienced with high-conflict divorce cases and co-parenting through them) helped me stay extra-focused on developing and growing my personal relationships with my kids throughout the divorcing process. The kids are doing x with the other parent and they are excited? Great! Don’t get distracted by the relationship your kid(s) experience with their other parent. Just be the awesome parent that you are and get creative with your “non-custodial” time.
Side-note: Strangely enough, my time apart from my kids has led us to engage with each other in surprisingly satisfying ways, adding a new dimension to our relationships that wouldn’t necessarily be there if we were physically together every day.
Here are some ideas for connecting with children while they are with the other parent (all seem to work for a range of custody schedules — e.g. week-on/week-off schedules; bicoastal school year/summer schedules; etc.):
- Read together. My best friend picked up reading Harry Potter over FaceTime with his 7 year old daughter. Beyond daily texting/checkins, he and his daughter have 1–2 scheduled FaceTime sessions each week where they read together. They each have a copy of the book. He reads two paragraphs, she reads two paragraphs, he reads two paragraphs, she reads two paragraphs... Question: How many hours a week do you spend reading with your child(ren) right now? How might you take advantage of a custody arrangment to connect through a book?
- Love your pets together. My daughter scooped up some tadpoles from the neighborhood lake and we have spent the past month taking care of them together. One week she is here checking in on them each day and, the next week, I am sending her morning videos of the tadpoles as they transform. So far, we’ve watched four of the seven tadpoles turn into frogs! And two more are on the way. Sure, pets aren’t always easy or convenient (e.g. cleaning out the poop from the guinea pig cage, 7:00am mosquito bites from the tadpole check-in before heading to the office, bringing the child “with you” to the vet appointments through FaceTime, etc.), but they are worth it. Taking care of animals together can be a great source of bonding and connection between you and your children.
- Play games together. How often do you and your child sit staring at each other while you hold a sustained conversation and do nothing else? In my case, rarely. FaceTime felt a little forced for me because it wasn’t the natural way I would interact with them in any other context. What did feel more “normal?” Playing together. Uno. Making slime. Tic tack toe. Chess. You name it. Games are really doable on Facetime with a little creativity and an extra deck of cards/set of materials on either end of the call. I have even had success building block towers with my toddler. I take him virtually into his room and together we pick out which blocks we want (e.g. “The blue one!”) and where to put them as we build. Last time, I left the tower standing and when he came home the following day, he ran to his room to knock it down!
- Order special deliveries. When we sold the family home and moved into separate homes, the kids asked if we could order a special candy/snack delivery service called Munchpack https://munchpak.com. Together, we set up the frequency of deliveries (every two weeks for $10/month) and the kinds of snacks we prefered to receive (e.g. gummy, crunchy, salty, sweet, etc.). Every week we have the fun of tracking the order and then of opening the snack delivery when it arrives. Fun and simple and tasty.
- Use technology together. Create funny videos to send to one another. Make playlists you can share and both listen to. Send Youtube links or podcast links. Send along photos from your day. Text and call. For me, truly, these technology spaces can be really useful spaces to get into your kids’ worlds (e.g. music, photos, links, etc.) that you may not have a reason to access so directly if they were “with you” all the time. Take advantage and “search it up” (as the kids these days say).
One closing observation here with regard to technology and engagement across custody schedules: Children are different and will likely approach their parents and technology differently, as individuals. For example, I have noticed that of my three older children, one prefers to call (and does so every single day after school at 3:41pm), one prefers to text brief messages and YouTube links morning/night, and one prefers to FaceTime me the minute his Dad leaves the house to run an errand. This is just naturally how it has evolved in my family. It makes sense that each child needs to find a comfortable path to communication as they go, and there is a lot that the custodial and non-custodial parent can do to support (or hinder) those channels of connection. (More on this in Part II, “Still Getting Divorced? Read This Now,” especially as it relates to sucessful coparenting or not.)
4. Vow to be the grownup.
They say that misery loves company and nothing is truer of the toxic ex with whom you have to coparent. Over the past two years, I have gotten to know many divorcing or divorced parents who have/had to deal with a toxic ex who uses the child(ren) as pawns in some sort of divorcing game. Nothing is sadder or more pathetic than the divorcing grown up who overshares with the child(ren). You know them. They tend to be both the victim and the hero in the same divorce story, and — the worst part — they share that narrative with the children involved.
Here is a powerful video required by Fairfax County for those headed into a custody hearing. Do yourself a favor and watch this video. Within a few minutes of listening to the first-person narratives of these grown children of divorced parents, you will know how to best help the children. It is called “Spare the Child.” Watch it. Share it. Do the right thing and don’t put your children in the middle.
Likewise, when “being there” for your divorcing friend(s), think first of the children involved. Your friend or family member is going through a divorce and you want to support him/her? Don’t feed the emotional beast!!
What a spouse was hoping for in a relationship with a partner differs from what a child is hoping for in a lifelong relationship with his/her parents.
When the toxic ex conflates the breakdown of the spousal relationship with the ongoing parent-child(ren) relationship, it can be a recipe for all sorts of terrible parenting behavior (e.g. threatening custody time, oversharing information about the breakdown of the marriage with the child(ren), false accusations of parental abandonment, the scorching of social spaces in which the children/family are involved, etc. etc.). Be there for your loved one by caring first about the vulnerable ones — the children. Whenever you have the opportunity, acknowledge the emotional turmoil but don’t encourage the damaging behavior. Vow to be the grownups!
I have been really lucky to be surrounded by emotionally stable/mature friends and family through the process — people who have encouraged me to take the high road even when it is tempting to sink to another level. I have also come to know many who go through the divorce process and feel, in the end, that they are carrying the divorce torch on behalf of every disgruntled and disappointed friend/family member who is living vicariously through the divorcing experience.
Whether it is due to these harmful influences or something else, sometimes, regardless of how much you desire a healthy and true co-parenting relationship with your ex, he/she is simply not able. For example, perhaps there is a personality or psychological/emotional disorder affecting the potential parenting relationship. In such cases, right-sizing the expectation for a parenting relationship can free you (even temporarily) from the weight of a seemingly impossible relationship goal and help you refocus on what you do have control over — yourself. In these cases, reading about the concept of “parallel parenting” (as opposed to co-parenting) https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/co-parenting-after-divorce/201309/parallel-parenting-after-divorce may get you to a better point in the process.
As you begin to reclaim your life, you may end up with new and unexpected time on your hands. You may find yourself waking up to an unlived life or two that was there…just waiting to be found. You can go for it!
In Part II, “Still Getting Divorced? Read This Now,” I will share thoughts on how you can reclaim your sense of yourself, stand strong (for yourself and your children) in the face of opposition, and move yourself forward in the directions you choose.
