Spoiler alert! If you want to have a healthy relationship with your ex after divorce, put aside your emotional reactions to your ex and replace them with the wisdom of a non-emotional alternative: the bank teller.
I know. It sounds stupid. Here’s why it might be the smart thing to do in your recovery.
What do you want your relationship with your ex to look like after you get divorced?
Are you still in a relationship with your ex?
The marriage is over. The judge has signed the papers. They are no longer legally bound to each other. But are you still emotionally attached to your ex-spouse? If so, he has work to do. Simply put, in order to thrive in the next chapter of your life, you must dissolve your attachments to your past, especially your ex.
I know. It sounds impossible to dissolve all personal attachments, not have ill will towards your ex, forget about your ex and move on with your life. This is the person with whom you shared some of the most wonderful days of your life, and also the one who caused you some of the most miserable days of your life.
You say, “I can’t just flip a switch and forget him/her and our past. Especially if I have to talk to him/her and see him/her often every time our children visit their other parent?”
What does it mean to “be attached”?
If you want something from your ex or if your ex triggers emotional reactions in you, either positive or negative, you are still attached to your ex in some way.
Want something from your ex. Wanting something from your ex can include, for example, expecting your ex will: (1) apologize or explain why he wanted out, or (2) want to stay friends with you, or (3) won’t get a new lover anytime soon, or (4) be jealous of your new boyfriend/girlfriend, or (5) he is sorry for leaving you, or (6) he feels bad about how he treated you, etc. These are ways your ex still has a thing want. By wanting your ex to do something for you, you are still giving him power over you. Therefore, you are still attached to your ex.
Having feelings towards your ex. If you dwell on the good memories of your ex or if you dwell on the bad memories of your ex, either way you have invited your ex into your head and into your life. And therefore you are still attached. If the mention of your ex triggers positive feelings in you or if it triggers negative feelings in you, you are still attached.
If you want to reconcile with your ex or if you want to kill your ex, it makes no difference. If the sight of your ex, or the mention of your ex’s name, or a private thought you may have about your ex evokes strong emotional reactions, good or bad, you are still attached to and in a relationship with your ex that is not over. still.
So, What is the ideal relationship you should have with your ex?
The goal of a successful post-divorce relationship with an ex is “friendly nonchalance” that is devoid of any emotion, positive or negative.
Your ex is past history. Your relationship with your ex ended with the judge’s signature, if not before. It no longer exists unless you cling to it and embellish it in your head.
The ideal relationship with an ex is one in which there is absolutely no emotional reaction attached to it. Zero. No. You couldn’t care less if your ex is extremely happy, rich, loved and adored or if your ex is extremely unhappy, poor, hated and reviled. Plus, aside from a general sense of “goodwill to your fellow man,” you couldn’t care less if your ex is dead or alive. either of the two means nothing To you. Your ex is a perfect stranger with whom you have no demands or expectations. Your ex has become the complete stranger you pass at the mall.
Holding on to the relationship prevents you from investing in new relationships. As long as you have one foot in the past, you cannot take a step into the future.
Therefore, the ideal relationship with your ex is “a great great nothing.“You should be totally indifferent to your ex and have No investment or emotional reaction, either positive or negative.
Q: So if successful recovery from divorce requires me to emotionally detach from my ex, how exactly am I supposed to do that?
IN: Go cash a check.
Bank tellers as models
A metaphor for a healthy relationship with your ex is the bank teller.
First of all, we never see a bank teller unless we have some specific business to perform, such as cashing a check. Otherwise, the bank teller does not occupy part of our life.
When we do you need to cash a check, we go to a bank teller and we are nice and polite. We conduct our business, and when we have finished our business we politely say “goodbye” and leave. At no time did we feel strong positive or strong negative feelings for the narrator. We do not wish good or bad for the narrator since we are not attached to the person. We don’t inquire into his personal life, criticize them, or offer advice on how they might improve his life. We are only there to perform the “business task” of cashing a check. That is, we treat the narrator with “friendly indifference.”
Same as with your ex. You don’t need to see or contact your ex unless there is some specific business to run, such as arranging visiting hours or meeting to exchange children for parental visits. And when you do, you treat your ex with the same courtesy and friendly nonchalance you gave the bank teller. Nothing more and nothing less.
Just like you did with the cashier, your contact with your ex is friendly without being intimate, courteous without being pompous, indifferent except to conduct the business at hand. Using the bank teller as a model is a great way to practice your new relationship with your ex, without confusing the old boundaries of intimacy and friendship with the new, severely reduced boundary of instrumental task problem solving.
They used to have full access to each other with very few boundaries prohibiting them from discussing any topic or engaging in personal or intimate behavior. You now have extremely limited access with strict limits that prohibit most topics of discussion and personal or intimate behavior. The only exceptions are discussions about your children and their well-being.
If the bank teller is hard to identify with, returning a defective product to a Best Buy customer service representative has the same nature of “friendly nonchalance” while conducting well-defined business as the bank teller.
So what is the point?
A successful recovery from divorce is complicated. He is especially vulnerable to the way he handles her relationship with her ex. What worked during your marriage will not work now.
Aside from dealing with issues involving your children, you have little reason to make or maintain contact with your ex. So don’t do it unless you absolutely have to.
If you have children with your ex, you will need to have some contact. And when she does, the nature of their post-divorce relationship is very different from the relationship she had while he was married.
Treating the post-divorce relationship as a continuation of the relationship built over many years of marriage seems normal. It also spells disaster for your recovery. You are no longer lovers and marriage partners. The rules are different, and the limits of acceptable behavior are severely limiting.
Therefore, a new relationship, completely devoid of emotional reactions, will preserve peace and allow you to manage the joint responsibilities that you have with your spouse to solve educational, health and visitation problems with your children. It will also allow you to attend and enjoy school and sports activities, birthdays, vacations, weddings, and other events where your ex will be present.
Your world has changed. Your relationship with your ex has changed. All for the better. Don’t blow it by trying to keep the old relationship with your ex alive. It will backfire and severely threaten the satisfaction of his new life after the divorce.