Marriages break up, your family doesn't have to. There is an alternative to traditional divorce solutions that will work better for everyone, especially the kids.
There is an Alternative to Divorce Disputes
Sometimes your divorce really is more a matter of growing apart, than anything else. While there may be underlying issues that one or the other partner has (or both); mature, intelligent people are usually able to overcome these in the better interests of their children. The old method was to fight about who gets what, and who has control and custody of the children. Now, several couples have found ways to make things for better for both them and the kids. This is a collaborative divorce model that allows families to stay together, while still allowing the parents to have their own lives, separate from each other. Can it get better than that?
What is this model? It’s where the parents live close, but separate lives, sometimes as close as starting out as roommates, then moving to adjacent apartments or very close-by houses. There are some who have done as much as have one parent live in the attached suite of a house, while the other lives in the main part. And this is all for the sake of the kids. Yes, this can work, and has for many people!
Cost Savings and Mental Anguish
Living together, of course, keeps the costs down. If you own a house together, then it avoids the issue of having to sell with the divorce. And when you do decide to sell, at least you know that you will both have put amounts into the home that are fair, so when you split everything, it helps you both out. Yes, there will be some stress involved. The kids will help to temper that a bit, though, because their nearness will always remind you of why you are doing this. The worst stress tends to come with the biggest changes – dating (whichever spouse starts first), major issues with the kids, job or career changes. You will have to communicate with each other very openly and up front about everything in order to make it work for the whole family in order to avoid your own and your ex-spouse’s mental anguish. And then there are the kids. Always include them, if they are old enough to understand. Even if you think they aren’t it’s a good idea, because at least they will learn how valued they really are by their mom and dad. And never (never) disparage the other parent!
What This Collaborate Divorce & Parenting Model It Is Not About
A recent issue of MacLean’s had an article on this type of collaborate divorce. The author,Anne Kingston, mentioned how old school psychologsts would have a hey-day with arrangement, stating issues such a co-dependency and psychobabble like "controlling," "boundary issues," and "failure to let go". Issues of “letting go” (Upstairs, Mom; Downstairs, Dad, McLean's, October 2007). It is not about that. Most parents that go through this type of divorce initially want the traditional type, where he lives in one house, she in another, often quite distant from one another, and never the twain shall meet. But they both realise that finances and their kids are issues in divorce, and they overcome their selfish urges. Isn’t that amazing? This is actually more difficult on the parents, emotionally (at least at first), than a complete split. But the results speak for themselves. Most often the parents are happier and have more productive lives after divorce than they would have otherwise. And the kids love it, since they get both parents there for them!
For a good book that covers several true stories on this solution, see "Reconcilable Differences" by Cate Cochran (2007), Second Story Press, Toronto.
