It’s been about three years since Kathleen Christensen and her ex separated. Their divorce was challenging, fraught and exhausting. Using the collaborative divorce process, however, they were able to build a foundation for their new relationship as co-parents. Now, unlike with many traditional divorces, Kathleen is able to see the positives in her ex. In the final segment of Kathleen’s story, here’s how she described to me their relationship now.
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I actually have warm feelings towards him now – not in the way of wanting to get back together – why fix something that’s not broken? This is working. I don’t think a couple’s relationship would work whereas the co-parenting relationship works quite well.
But I do have warm feelings. I can appreciate his wonderful qualities again. Not only does that feel better from my point of view, it’s also a gift to our daughter – to feel warmth between her parents.
It’s a big deal. It’s not perfect but it’s way better than our married relationship was. I never would have predicted we would be better for our daughter as a divorced couple but, in our case, we are. I keep thinking of the word ‘transformed.’ We didn’t end our relationship, we transformed it. We worked very hard at it. We’re doing what fits with our values and it feels good to be able to do that.
I never liked the phrase ‘Just do it’ for all kinds of reasons but we couldn’t ‘Just do it.’ I know divorcing people who are able to be quite cooperative and just work things out but we needed a lot of help and support and luckily we were able to access that.
It was expensive and that was a big downside. We spent thousands of dollars on the divorce – we didn’t exactly have that money but we made it work. I put some of it on the credit card and it was totally worth it. What’s more important than doing a good job parenting our daughter? I would rather have that than anything else I could have done with the money. It’s priceless.
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When Kathleen shared her story with me I was not at all envious about the difficulties in the divorce process she talked about, but I am a little envious when I hear her talk about her ex. My relationship with my ex is civil but I do NOT have warm feelings for him. In fact, there are often times when I find myself wondering, ‘What on earth was I thinking?’ What I’m learning from Kathleen is the value of honestly expressing your views and opinions. Sure, it might make for lengthy debates and discussions but if you can come to a compromise or agreement, then because everything has been out in the open, the agreement is more solid. And if you can’t come to an agreement, then so be it. It’s the ‘so be it’ part I’m always afraid of.
Today’s your last chance to leave a comment and be entered in the drawing for Karen Salmansohn’s book, Prince Harming Syndrome. I’ll be doing the drawing tomorrow.
I want to thank Kathleen for sharing her story. Collaborative divorce certainly sounds like it has huge potential benefits. Don’t forget to visit Kathleen at her Head in the Clouds blog, where she writes about the challenges of daily life with ADD. Kathleen’s twitter username is @kathwriter.