Going From Soul Mates to Just Friends
When people get married, well most people at least, they think they will spend the rest of their life with the person they married. They are in love and believe they have found their soul mate. They have married their life partner and will be together until death do them part.
Time goes on, children are born, and unfortunately, things don't work out. Regardless of why the marriage didn't work out or who wanted the divorce, it's a painful thing to go through to say the least.
If there were no children involved each person could just go their own separate way. However, when there are children, the parents will be tied together as long as the children are living, whether they like it or not.
The children need both of their parents and the parents, formerly husband and wife, soul mates and life partners will have to adjust from being in love spouses to rivals to just friends and co-parents.
The parents will have to communicate from time to time about their children. They may see each other at anything from school or sporting events, hospitals and when their children get older, graduations and weddings.
This in itself can be awkward, confusing, and difficult to deal with. Even the person who wanted the divorce in the first place may still have feelings for their former spouse. Just because they got divorced doesn't mean they didn't want it to work out and didn't have dreams of being together forever. Even if someone is doing much better since the divorce, that doesn't mean it will be easy to adjust from believing someone is your soul mate, to problems that lead to divorce, to going through a divorce, to being just two people who love their kids even if they don't love each other anymore.
Obviously it's better for children if their parents get along with each other. Some former couples can do nothing but fight, scream, and argue and couldn't agree on the color of grass and this hurts the children.
Then there are the former couples who get along great, just like they were old pals. As odd as it may seem, some people can't get along during marriage, but after they stop living together and have their own life they get along great. After all, some people are impossible to live with but easy to be friends with. The parents getting along benefits the children, but the change in relationship still can be hard to adjust to and it just feels weird.
Imagine you and your ex showing up to a sporting event for your child. You greet each other and take turns asking how the other is doing. You sit beside each other and cheer for your child together and take some pictures. Then afterwards everyone goes out together to get something to eat. You both praise the child for playing a good game and your child smiles happily at the praise. Everyone eats and talks until time to leave. You all look like a regular happy family, just like any of the non-broken families that are out to eat. No one would ever guess you were divorced if they didn't already know. The difference in you and the other families are that Mommy and Daddy will go to their separate homes and separate lives after eating.
But you were supposed to be a regular happy family. The memories come back of the times you all went out to eat before things got bad. The dreams and hopes of being a happy family in a happy marriage with your soul mate comes back. The pain comes back as you wish you were still a happily married couple who will go home together and cuddle on the couch watching a movie together, but know it won't happen. The questions such as, "If we get along so great now, why couldn't we make it?" comes back and brings more pain.
All of the failed hopes, plans, and dreams reappear and it hurts to know what you used to believe in so strongly has died, but even though you know it's dead, you still want it.
You still wish you could go home together and be soul mates and life partners again even though you wouldn't admit it and know it's impossible. Perhaps it's the reminder and nostalgia of the better times that bring on strong feelings of pain, confusion, and loss. You grieve once again for something that has been dead for a while now. Then you are angry at yourself for feeling that way.
So, how do you go from being a spouse and life partner to being just friends and co-parents? Like anything that has to do with divorce, there's no easy or straight forward answer. All you can do is let time do it's thing. With time, you will gradually get used to your new role and if time doesn't actually heal all wounds, it sure does help them be less painful and more forgotten. You can also take comfort in the fact that your children are benefiting from seeing their parents get along instead of fighting and screaming at each other.
