Committed: The Ties that Bond
with Angella Dykstra
I'm a mom of three, a professional accountant, and an amateur photographer and writer. I am not a marriage expert. But my husband and I take "Til death do us part" seriously, and here I'll be sharing how we keep our marriage strong while we both do that insane work-life juggle.
Check out my Work It, Mom! profile and my blog, Dutch Blitz.
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While I have never been divorced, I am a child with divorced parents. They have each been divorced a couple of times over, and I wouldn’t call their splits ‘friendly’. Well, except for my Dad’s divorce from his third wife, who I call Mom (It’s complicated). It was a rocky split at the beginning, but they have worked out a pretty good system for parenting their four kids. They are in no way BFF’s, nor do they hang out, but they don’t harbor anger and vent it in front of the kids.
My Mom, on the other hand, is still angry and volatile about her and my Dad divorcing … 33 years ago. Its time to let it go.
I read a post at Cafe Mom about how Courtney Cox and David Arquette have worked through their divorce, while not even using lawyers. They even work together, and hang out together, still.
My friend Jen wrote a guest post over at our friend Tracey’s blog titled “An Ex-Spouse Is Just A Friend You Haven’t Met Yet.” It is a must-read, if ever there was a must read, when it comes to divorcing amicably.
I have no plan to be divorced, nor does my husband, but these stories make me happy because if my parents were even half as awesome as these two couples, life would have been a whole heck of a lot better growing up.
For those of you who are divorced, did you have a ‘friendly’ divorce? Or, if you are a child of divorce, did your parents do a good job of keeping it amicable?
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Although Noah and I have not divorced, we were separated for eight months and I was 110% sure that we were heading in that direction. Having parents who fought all the time in front of us kids, and complained about each other to us, I was committed to making the experience as easy on our kids as possible. I don’t know that we would have ended up as friends, but we were not enemies and we did not EVER fight in front of our kids. We wouldn’t have needed a lawyer, either, as I don’t care about material things (neither did/does he) and I refused to fight over the kids. If he wanted them and was going to make an issue out of it? Fine. I’d have a REALLY hard time with it, but he’s a great dad and I know they’d be in good hands and I’d obviously still be their MOM. That’s actually what prompted our move to Saskatoon. He said that he was moving the girls there and I could come if I wanted to. (And I did and we got back together and we had another baby and lived happily ever after.)(Or, you know, things are all good because marriage counseling is awesome and God is a great relationship-healer.)
Mrs. Wilson | June 15th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
My parents divorced after 23 years of marriage. And even though it turns out my father had been cheating on her for about half of those years, it was still the most amicable divorce I have ever seen. God played a big part in that. My sister and her husband divorced after only three years of marriage. It went somewhat smoothly once she finally gave in and signed, but it was quite hard on her. I know she has regrets, but the woman she is today is so amazing. Everything happens for a reason, I always say. But I’m like you, I have no plans to divorce. And I hope I never have to face that.
Carrisa | June 16th, 2012 at 12:02 am
I wouldn’t say that my divorce was friendly, but it wasn’t a bitter battle either. By the time we got to splitting things up I just wanted it over with. The biggest issues we had were what to do with the house (ended up selling it at a huge loss) and my desire to move out of state to be closer to my family.
Since our daughter was so little when we divorced I hope she doesn’t remember a lot of that early tension between us. Now we do our best to not argue in front of her and I only say good things about her father when she is around. I don’t want to ever put her in the middle.
RebeccaL | June 18th, 2012 at 2:43 pm