Amicable divorce stories

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents love to pat themselves on the back about their supposedly amicable divorce. I do appreciate that they can be superficially cordial and refrain from making public scenes. Still, it is a giant hassle for me. They both expect the same level of care and support that I could give them as a married couple living in the same location, and become angry at me when I try to set boundaries.

There is no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where you get two units for the price of one. There is no Amicable Divorce Airline that lets you visit both for half price. Sometimes they are both sick at the same time and I must choose between them. It sucks. I hope all of you are prepared for this phase of life.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It makes so much sense. I am a married DW and our DC1 is in college. The visits home is few and far between from our perspective but I can imagine it would be a nightmare if DC1 had to go to two different homes to meet mom and dad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents love to pat themselves on the back about their supposedly amicable divorce. I do appreciate that they can be superficially cordial and refrain from making public scenes. Still, it is a giant hassle for me. They both expect the same level of care and support that I could give them as a married couple living in the same location, and become angry at me when I try to set boundaries.

There is no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where you get two units for the price of one. There is no Amicable Divorce Airline that lets you visit both for half price. Sometimes they are both sick at the same time and I must choose between them. It sucks. I hope all of you are prepared for this phase of life.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It makes so much sense. I am a married DW and our DC1 is in college. The visits home is few and far between from our perspective but I can imagine it would be a nightmare if DC1 had to go to two different homes to meet mom and dad.

Yep. Now imagine doing it with toddlers. Or imagine if they are both seriously ill at the same time, far apart.

I don't wish they were still married. But I do wish they had more realistic expecations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents love to pat themselves on the back about their supposedly amicable divorce. I do appreciate that they can be superficially cordial and refrain from making public scenes. Still, it is a giant hassle for me. They both expect the same level of care and support that I could give them as a married couple living in the same location, and become angry at me when I try to set boundaries.

There is no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where you get two units for the price of one. There is no Amicable Divorce Airline that lets you visit both for half price. Sometimes they are both sick at the same time and I must choose between them. It sucks. I hope all of you are prepared for this phase of life.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It makes so much sense. I am a married DW and our DC1 is in college. The visits home is few and far between from our perspective but I can imagine it would be a nightmare if DC1 had to go to two different homes to meet mom and dad.

Yep. Now imagine doing it with toddlers. Or imagine if they are both seriously ill at the same time, far apart.

I don't wish they were still married. But I do wish they had more realistic expecations.

OP here: I was looking for amicable divorce stories. You complaining about your parents divorce years ago and having to travel to see them as an adult is not what I am looking for. You being inconvenienced later in life due to traveling is not really part of what I am talking about. I am talking about amicable divorces when kids are young until they enter adulthood. What happens after is kind of irrelevant to me. Families travel for all sorts of reasons (siblings, parents, cousins, and people get sick at different ages and stages all kind of unexpected things can happen...because your parents decided to move to locations far from each other is not something that is going to happen in every divorce...so it does not really belong in the thread.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents love to pat themselves on the back about their supposedly amicable divorce. I do appreciate that they can be superficially cordial and refrain from making public scenes. Still, it is a giant hassle for me. They both expect the same level of care and support that I could give them as a married couple living in the same location, and become angry at me when I try to set boundaries.

There is no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where you get two units for the price of one. There is no Amicable Divorce Airline that lets you visit both for half price. Sometimes they are both sick at the same time and I must choose between them. It sucks. I hope all of you are prepared for this phase of life.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It makes so much sense. I am a married DW and our DC1 is in college. The visits home is few and far between from our perspective but I can imagine it would be a nightmare if DC1 had to go to two different homes to meet mom and dad.

Yep. Now imagine doing it with toddlers. Or imagine if they are both seriously ill at the same time, far apart.

I don't wish they were still married. But I do wish they had more realistic expecations.

OP here: I was looking for amicable divorce stories. You complaining about your parents divorce years ago and having to travel to see them as an adult is not what I am looking for. You being inconvenienced later in life due to traveling is not really part of what I am talking about. I am talking about amicable divorces when kids are young until they enter adulthood. What happens after is kind of irrelevant to me. Families travel for all sorts of reasons (siblings, parents, cousins, and people get sick at different ages and stages all kind of unexpected things can happen...because your parents decided to move to locations far from each other is not something that is going to happen in every divorce...so it does not really belong in the thread.)

It is an amicable divorce story! They sincerely believe they are amicable. They do not fight with each other. The point is, just because it is amicable (or they pretend it is amicable) does not mean there aren't very serious difficulties as a result, for them and for me. That is what people should understand when they are aspiring to or congratulating themselves on an amicable divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents love to pat themselves on the back about their supposedly amicable divorce. I do appreciate that they can be superficially cordial and refrain from making public scenes. Still, it is a giant hassle for me. They both expect the same level of care and support that I could give them as a married couple living in the same location, and become angry at me when I try to set boundaries.

There is no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where you get two units for the price of one. There is no Amicable Divorce Airline that lets you visit both for half price. Sometimes they are both sick at the same time and I must choose between them. It sucks. I hope all of you are prepared for this phase of life.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It makes so much sense. I am a married DW and our DC1 is in college. The visits home is few and far between from our perspective but I can imagine it would be a nightmare if DC1 had to go to two different homes to meet mom and dad.

Yep. Now imagine doing it with toddlers. Or imagine if they are both seriously ill at the same time, far apart.

I don't wish they were still married. But I do wish they had more realistic expecations.

OP here: I was looking for amicable divorce stories. You complaining about your parents divorce years ago and having to travel to see them as an adult is not what I am looking for. You being inconvenienced later in life due to traveling is not really part of what I am talking about. I am talking about amicable divorces when kids are young until they enter adulthood. What happens after is kind of irrelevant to me. Families travel for all sorts of reasons (siblings, parents, cousins, and people get sick at different ages and stages all kind of unexpected things can happen...because your parents decided to move to locations far from each other is not something that is going to happen in every divorce...so it does not really belong in the thread.)

Here's another amicable divorce story. My parents got along great after the divorce. They never fought. They chatted politely and made decisions well. Payments were always on time. Guess what? It still sucked! They were both financially damaged and the effects last a long time. I hated joint custody and the inconvenience of moving back and forth. From my teenage years I was dealing with their various health problems alone, forced into a spousal role. Eventually my dad remarried someone I disliked, and then divorced her too. Oh, but they were so amicable! Guess that makes it all okay. That's amicable divorce.

[Anonymous]

When people get divorced the first priority should be to never burden the children. If you get sick and would like contact with adult children then you need to move near them. Do not make them move between homes as youngsters. Let them live in one home. Absorb all of the burden as the parents. Be leaders and not weaklings.

[Anonymous]

OP--How are you defining amicable? My actual divorce process was fine. We were both very fair and mature as we divided up custody and our finances. We have never fought since he moved out. We cohost the kid's birthday parties and are cordial to each other at events. I work really hard to never say negative things about him to the kids. I will always work really hard to make sure my kids aren't torn between us (including tempering expectations for visits/holidays when they are adults.) Compared to what many of my friends endure with their exes, our divorce is very easy.

But it wasn't amicable in that it wasn't what I wanted. He completely betrayed my trust and our marriage. He pisses me off on a semi-regular basis with his ongoing selfishness and thoughtlessness. Even though we're both mature about it, it was still traumatic and painful for me and it was really hard on our kids.

[Anonymous]

Mine

Did not use lawyers...just a mediator. Cost 400.00

We attend all important functions/parties with our grown kids and grandkids as a family.

We split things up with no arguments.

Our children were out of high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents love to pat themselves on the back about their supposedly amicable divorce. I do appreciate that they can be superficially cordial and refrain from making public scenes. Still, it is a giant hassle for me. They both expect the same level of care and support that I could give them as a married couple living in the same location, and become angry at me when I try to set boundaries.

There is no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where you get two units for the price of one. There is no Amicable Divorce Airline that lets you visit both for half price. Sometimes they are both sick at the same time and I must choose between them. It sucks. I hope all of you are prepared for this phase of life.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It makes so much sense. I am a married DW and our DC1 is in college. The visits home is few and far between from our perspective but I can imagine it would be a nightmare if DC1 had to go to two different homes to meet mom and dad.

Yep. Now imagine doing it with toddlers. Or imagine if they are both seriously ill at the same time, far apart.

I don't wish they were still married. But I do wish they had more realistic expecations.

I do believe some of this comes down to the personality of the parents. When I was still married, we had two sets of intact parents/grandparents. One set made things easy--not fussy about exact dates of holidays, no pressure to visit but always made us feel welcome, etc. The other set wanted every holiday and it didn't count unless it was the actual holiday, they expected us to visit them every 6 weeks at a minimum, when they visited us it was a logistical nightmare about sleeping arrangements and meals, etc. I would much rather deal with two easygoing divorced parents with reasonable expectations than one unreasonable set.

[Anonymous]

Being amicable is a huge achievement.

I have one. Our marriage was awful -- he's an addict who cheated on me constantly and treated me horribly. Our split was his "bottom" and made him get serious about treatment, although the marriage was damaged beyond repair and he's still got issues. But we take our commitment seriously to always put our kids first. We split all of our assets and worked out custody and child support on our own without having to get lawyers involved. We treat each other respectfully. We do most holidays together, including he's coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and then I'm traveling to the same vacation destination he is for Christmas. Getting separate hotel rooms and will do our own thing between passing the kids back and forth, but the important thing is that our kids never have to feel divided during holidays.

The key is that I work very hard on letting go of my anger over how he blew up our lives, even though I think the anger would be very justified. But what's the point of being angry? Our lives are what they are, and it would only hurt our kids to have a contentious relationship. I look at it the same way I would about having any difficult, dysfunctional family member -- everyone has them and you deal with the situation the best you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All divorces are horrible for the kids

That's not true. My kids are fine. My ex-wife and I get along fine and the kids are happy as can be.

Now what I think is horrible are those people who stay together in a home filled with sad and angry or depressed intact parents.

Oh hey, I grew up in one of those!

IT BLEW CHUNKS. It was not a small part of why i didn’t stick out my own crappy first marriage longer.

As for the poster still pissed at their (presumably) Boomer elderly divorced parents, all I can say is that you have a point, and I decided the best gift I could give my kid was to sew up as many end of life details as possible with pre-planning. I dealt with this with my own folks eventually once they split when I was an adult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being amicable is a huge achievement.

I have one. Our marriage was awful -- he's an addict who cheated on me constantly and treated me horribly. Our split was his "bottom" and made him get serious about treatment, although the marriage was damaged beyond repair and he's still got issues. But we take our commitment seriously to always put our kids first. We split all of our assets and worked out custody and child support on our own without having to get lawyers involved. We treat each other respectfully. We do most holidays together, including he's coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and then I'm traveling to the same vacation destination he is for Christmas. Getting separate hotel rooms and will do our own thing between passing the kids back and forth, but the important thing is that our kids never have to feel divided during holidays.

The key is that I work very hard on letting go of my anger over how he blew up our lives, even though I think the anger would be very justified. But what's the point of being angry? Our lives are what they are, and it would only hurt our kids to have a contentious relationship. I look at it the same way I would about having any difficult, dysfunctional family member -- everyone has them and you deal with the situation the best you can.

OP: thanks, this is a great example.

[Anonymous]

We got married in college when we were too naive to know infatuation from love. We had problems early on but stuck together because we had no one but each other. Neither of us were close to our families, and all of our college friends drifted away after graduation.

There was a weird thing that happened psychologically. We were terrible spouses but great friends. The friendship took precedent over the marriage. I remember the day that I found out about the affair. I was hurt because I felt betrayed by my best friend, but I was also happy deep down because I felt like the other person could provide the relationship-love and affection that I stopped feeling years ago.

The divorce was quick. We didn't fight over custody or money or property. I was very honest about being hurt and the anger that derived from it, but I genuinely wished my ex well. There were a few tense moments. It's hard to adjust to not being someone's priority or them being yours. Sometimes it felt like my advice or input was disregarded just for the sake of asserting independence. One thing that we promised was that our child would always be neutral ground. No matter what was going on, no matter how mad we were, we always came together and worked amicably without insult or injury when it came to parenting.

We kept that promise and it led to us having a very good relationship. We talk on the phone several times a week. We go to school and sporting events together. We have dinner together every now and then. I feel fortunate to have what we have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have one to share? I have to believe not all divorces have to be horrible and traumatic.

Let me guess... you cheated and met someone and you just want to quickly and neatly move on? And oh yes, I’m sure you “didn’t” and “would never”!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have one to share? I have to believe not all divorces have to be horrible and traumatic.

Let me guess... you cheated and met someone and you just want to quickly and neatly move on? And oh yes, I’m sure you “didn’t” and “would never”!!

No. I have wanted a divorce for almost a decade. I stayed due to location/custody issues after an accidental pregnancy. I have been trying to survive for almost a decade...I want out. The marriage was always a mistake. Almost canceled wedding. I am not interested in another relationship. I just want out but do not want to cause kid pain. So I am looking for amicable stories. I think we can do it amicably but it helps to hear that not every divorce has to be a disaster. Some marriages really should have never happened and should not be saved.