It’s an enduring image to me: my wife sitting with my ex-wife, both of them wearing the same colour blue dress, both smiling and chatting, swapping notes about me. It was about ten years ago. If there are two people who know me well, it is these two people. (They weren’t swapping stories about how brilliant a husband I am, and that was fine with me.)
I have been married again now about the same amount of time as the first marriage lasted. I have been divorced from my first wife longer than we were married, and that was a significant 13-year period. So much water has passed under the bridge—a 30-year journey.
When my first marriage dissolved overnight, though it was not an overnight process for my ex-wife (because it had taken her much longer to decide), I was in unforeseen territory. I didn’t see it coming, and I never imagined myself divorced. It was just never happening to me, until it did!
The initial few months were terrible for us all, as I struggled to make the adjustments. It was the worst pit of grief I have ever experienced. But somehow, in renewing my faith in God, and through many AA meetings and the guidance of sponsors and my parents and others, I quickly came to terms with the fact I needed to forgive my ex-wife. That was easy, in fact, as I considered my contribution to the marriage failure. There was much that I had to change. And change I did.
The mediator helping us separate must’ve thought it was the easiest mediation she had ever done. We used just two sessions to decide everything, and the spirit within the mediation process was one of cooperation, and it kind of symbolises our working operation as we have sought to parent our three daughters as friends, trusting each other and giving grace to one another. Our daughters were 11, 8 and 5 at the time we separated.
It hasn’t always been easy. There have been times when we have disagreed. When we were at loggerheads, I would tend to just give some space and try not to say anything to make it worse—to get out of the way. (I definitely have the capacity to make things worse with what I say.) But there has been a constant thread of mutual respect between us. For our daughters.
We are so different, but we still share a laugh, and can even poke fun at ourselves for features in our marriage together from 1990-2003 and beyond. When we were married, my ex-wife probably didn’t feel she had the voice she has with me now, and I’m both sorry for that (that she didn’t have it then) and happy for it too (that she has it now). Somehow, I always felt compelled by God to really want the very best for my ex-wife—even that she would receive a love that I was never able to give her.
I say with genuine gratitude, that at the hardest time of my life, when work was seriously hard to come by in 2016, my ex-wife reached out and gave me a job delivering chilled meals for the catering business run by her and her husband, a skilled chef. To be honest, it wasn’t my first-choice work; it was hard, and it stretched me in ways I truly disliked, and it was stressful. But never was there a time in 10 months working for them where we even came close to conflict. It always felt as if they were reaching toward me and I was reaching toward them. There were numerous times I made mistakes, yet my ex-wife and her husband always dealt with me compassionately. And God taught me a lot in that job!
We have had all of our daughters’ 18th and 21st birthdays, and other significant events, at their place and at other places, and always the whole family is invited and welcome, and being caterers we’re all so very well fed! These are big gatherings, with step parents and step grandparents and stepsiblings everywhere. Not everyone has gotten on all the time, but at these events there is always a genuine mood of appreciation and celebration, where we call to mind positive memories and funny anecdotes.
Along the way, my ex-wife and I found our niches in providing for our girls. We both were able to provide different things and were never threatened that the other was giving something we wanted to give. I think we were just grateful that we had different ways of giving, and that we gave different things; that we gave what we could when we could.
To My Wife
My wife helps me live as the husband I desire to be; the husband I need to be. She and I are both keenly aware of who I am, including my faults. We both know what we cannot allow me to get away with. Let’s just say that the spirit and skill of prompt and sincere apology is truly respected in our household. I would not be as capable a husband, and of course I’m still not perfect, without my wife. My wife deserves the full accompaniment of credit for her half and more in our marriage. She does not goad me nor will she be goaded. Besides, my wife was always prepared to not only be my wife, but to be a step-mother to my three daughters. And to succeed in that endeavour demands humility.
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This is an article I’ve wanted to write for years. Now, as we’ve all eventually become grandparents, all four of us truly appreciate each other in this bigger than normal functional family with its normal dysfunctions.
There are practicalities for love after divorce, not least for the children, but for all concerned. What we didn’t get right in marriage, we have a second opportunity at in divorce.
I am so grateful for the relationship I have with my ex-wife and her husband. The spirit of cooperation between us over the years is inspiring to me. Our relationship is proof that good outcomes are possible when people who have disagreed in the past start to work together.
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