How to break up without DESPISING your ex
ONCE more, the country is gripped by warring exes trying to ruin each other’s lives, thanks to BBC hit drama Doctor Foster, which is back for series two. While few break-ups go quite so wrong, many of us struggle to stay on civil terms with former partner
HE RAN OFF WITH A MINI-ME
Right at the start — or the end, depending on how you look at it — when everything was raw and my children railed against their father for leaving me for another, younger, woman, it would have been easy to hate my partner.
it would only have taken the slightest nudge to encourage them to hate him a little bit, too. But we had been married for 25 years: he and i couldn’t bear to demolish the life we’d built, very happily, for most of that time, just because it had come to an end.
After raising four great people, i didn’t want to make them choose between their father and me, or to fracture their relationship with him, just because mine was in rubble.
While i never disguised my own hurt, i didn’t want to poison their lives, or mine.
So staying friends with my ex was an easy decision. there was no other. i was determined not to be bitter.
how would it make me any happier to further hurt my kids? he had been a good father. And he continued to be. And because we were still on good terms, if he ever stepped out of fatherly line, i felt no compunction in telling him so.
he didn’t get off lightly — in fact, if i’d never spoken to him again, he would have had a much smoother life, but i hung in and tightened his screws now and then.
it wasn’t that we stayed friends, as much as that, after all those years together, we were each other’s family.
And families, as we all know, are institutions from which you rarely escape. You hate and love in the same breath, but are always there for each other.
My husband and i shared blood in our four kids. Nothing could change that. So, together, we made it work. After a while, it wasn’t work — just normal.
But you know, it’s not all touchy-feely — i still get cross with him and tell him so. Eventually, i also met a new partner and didn’t resent his happy new relationship as much as i did when he ran off with his mini-me.
People don’t call in their last hours to tell anyone they hate them — it’s all about who they love. that’s the measure of a life well lived and i do live exceedingly well.
Meanwhile, my former partner, past retirement age, now has a new baby and probably won’t sleep again till he’s in a nursing home. i can’t help laughing . . .
REMEMBER: BEING ANGRY IS AGEING
thE first thing to focus on after you’ve split up is the fact that, once, you found this person wonderful. So fabulous that you decided to spend the rest of your life with them.
OK, it didn’t work out, but nit-picking over why you’ve broken up is counter-productive and draining.
Stop apportioning blame, and make every effort to remember their good points.
You are not going to start a war, because there would be no winners. Being angry is unattractive and ageing.
After a break-up, i accept that there’s a period of not speaking, while you dust yourself down and feel sorry for yourself, even if it was your decision to dump them.
Stop thinking you are a failure because a relationship has come to an end — you have just moved on, got off the bus, and there will be another one coming along soon enough. Life isn’t going to stop because you are single.
My second husband and i were only briefly married — we’d lived together for two years before we, stupidly, legalised our relationship.
Straight away, it was clear we were too similar (exactly the same age and interests) and would be better off as friends, rather than a pair of tormented bickerers, so he moved out.
A couple of months passed, then we resumed communication — after all, we have many friends in common and why should they have to take sides? thirty years later, my ex and i have lunch and supper and stay in regular contact by email and text. his wife is a very special friend, and i even made a speech at their wedding.
She is welcome to deal with all his annoying little foibles and obsessions: i know them only too well.
But i am also pleased he has found a much more tolerant partner than i would have been — someone who is supportive and positive. i am always focused on my work and myself, so it’s hard for anyone to fill up my head space.
You can go through life trashing your ex partners (i admit to only one bad mistake — my fourth marriage was the result of a midlife crisis at 49), but all my other partners have been delightful, even after we’ve parted company.
A few years ago, three of my ex-husbands were invited to a mutual friend’s house for Sunday lunch.
they insisted on sitting together — having survived me, they had plenty to discuss.
People are always astonished that I remain such close friends with my former partners, but, ultimately, I think it’s civilised and a mark of respect.
I LEARNED HOW TO LOVE HIM AGAIN
EVERY couple of months, my ex and I meet for a coffee. We catch up on our lives and exchange views about life in general.
he tells me — sometimes in too much detail — about his complicated affairs of the heart, and asks how my partner is.
and, of course, we discuss our son, Thomas.
I refrain from criticising him about going out with women half his age, though I can’t resist the odd wry remark about dating toddlers.
What my ex-husband and I never talk about is the things that drove us apart. Rule no 1 for staying friends with your ex is to avoid raking over the embers of your past.
Be aware of flashpoints. Every couple has them, from money to lack of perceived consideration. What you couldn’t resolve then won’t be resolved now: let it go.
Rule no 2 is obvious. Put your children first. however much we clashed towards the end, on one issue we were united. and that was the wellbeing of our son.
he was 19 at the time, and had just gone off to university. But while college signals freedom, it can also be an emotionally difficult time.
We never used him as a go-between. We attended his graduation as a couple and all celebrated together afterwards.
at Christmas, we always spend a good deal of time together, so he doesn’t have to choose between us over the holidays.
My personal Rule no 3 is to avoid lawyers, if you can. now this, of course, involves being able to agree all financial matters — and, if you have young children, custody and care arrangements — amicably. In our case, I did see a lawyer, who ramped up my anxiety levels about how my husband could fleece me financially, especially as I had a particularly good pension. When I said I trusted him, he laughed.
So I ditched the lawyer and we did our divorce online. We also used a mutual friend (a trained, though non-practising, lawyer) as a mediator. We agreed on the division of spoils and signed a document that we’ve stuck to.
To negotiate successfully without recourse to the law, you need my Rule no 4. It’s a mantra. Mine is Be Civil. Repeat after me: Be Civil, Be Civil. If you are, it’s more likely he will be, too.
Rule no 5. Remember the positive things about your marriage. My husband was quirky, generous, loving and a devoted dad. Yes, it all started to go wrong after about 20 years together, but up until then, it was mostly very good.
If you deny the good times, you are essentially deleting a big chunk of your life.
These days, I look forward to seeing my ex. I no longer want to be with him, but I do love him again.
A CRISIS THREW US BACK TOGETHER
IT WaS summer two years ago when something changed seismically in my life as a divorced mother. My daughter decided to have an 18th birthday celebration for her whole school year — 80 people.
We should have seen it coming. She’d done this as a small girl, but then it was manageable: camping in the garden, a bonfire on the beach near home.
This was different. Long dresses and a sit-down supper. For 80. how? never mind why — that’s another story. The obvious person to discuss this with was her father, my ex.
Things were reasonable between us, not least because we had both moved on — I am re-married and he is in a happy, long-term relationship — but this event changed the game.
he is the only other person in the world whose interest in my daughter and her brothers is as deep and broad as mine.
he didn’t waste time saying: ‘Let’s dissuade her’ or ‘why?’ he knows her. Instead, we made a battle plan — together, for the first time since our divorce.
We suddenly had a shared mission. We became comrades in arms, planning how to control the alcohol and cook chicken curry for 80. We did it, somehow — and we haven’t looked back.
Emboldened, we shared a big family holiday with his partner and her kids, all our children and my husband. another success.
The children were cautiously approving, then went off to their own lives again.
We have now had two blended Christmases together, and it feels easy. I know this is not what every divorced couple wants, but for us, with two sons who live in far-flung locations (Berlin and Beirut), time with them is much more of a priority than pride or resentment.
It helps that we haven’t had financial ties for some years now and that the children are too old for issues of custody. Time — both the preciousness of it and the passing of it — heals a lot.
We could turn every family event into a wasps’ nest, but as we moved further from the pain of divorce, we found communication about the children kept a door open.
There are things in life that are for ever, and things that will pass. For those of us with children, one of the things that’s for ever is the person with whom you had them. For me, the divorce scar got smaller when I remembered what I’d liked about him in the first place and just decided to get on with him.