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.
How do you want your relationship with your ex to be after you get divorced?
Are you still maintaining your 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, you have work to do. Simply put, to thrive in the next chapter of your life you must dissolve your attachments to your past, especially your ex.
I know. It seems impossible to dissolve all personal attachments, not harbor ill will towards your ex, forget about your ex and get on with your life. This is the person with whom you shared some of the most wonderful days of your life, and also who caused you some of the most miserable days of your life.
You say, “I can’t just flip a switch and forget about him / her and our past. Especially if I have to talk to him and see him 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 emotions based reactions in you, be they positive or negative, you are still attached to your ex in some way.
Wanting something from your ex. Wanting something from your ex can include, for example, waiting your ex will: (1) apologize or explain why you wanted out, or (2) want to remain your friend, or (3) won’t have a new lover so soon, or (4) be jealous of your new boyfriend / girlfriend, or (5) he regrets leaving you, or (6) he feels bad about how he treated you, etc. These are the ways your ex still has something you want. By wanting your ex to do something for you, you keep giving them power over you. Therefore, you remain attached to your ex.
Have feelings for your ex. If you think about the good memories of your ex or if you worry about the bad memories of your ex, either way you have invited your ex into your head and into your life. And therefore you remain attached. If the mention of your ex triggers positive feelings in you or triggers negative feelings in you, you are still attached.
Whether you want to reconcile with your ex or you want to kill your ex, it makes no difference. If seeing your ex, or the mention of your ex’s name, or a private thought you may have of your ex evokes strong emotional reactions, good or bad, you are still attached and in a relationship with your ex that has not ended. still.
Then, What is the ideal relationship you should have with your ex?
The goal of a successful post-divorce relationship with an ex is one of “friendly indifference” 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 sooner. 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. Zero. Nothing. 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 vilified. Plus, aside from a general sense of “goodwill toward others,” you couldn’t care less whether your ex is dead or alive. Either of the two means nothing for you. Your ex is a perfect stranger with whom you have no demands or expectations. Your ex has become the complete stranger you run into at the mall.
Maintaining 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 for him to be “a great great nothing.“You should be totally indifferent to your ex and have Not investment or emotional reaction, whether positive or negative.
Q: So if a successful recovery from divorce requires that I become emotionally detached from my ex, how exactly am I supposed to do that?
TO: 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 a specific business to do, such as cashing a check. Otherwise, the bank teller will not occupy part of our life.
When we make we need to cash a check, we approach a bank teller and we are polite and friendly. We conduct our business, and when we have completed it, we politely say our goodbyes and leave. At no time do we feel strong positive or negative feelings for the narrator. We want neither good nor bad for the narrator, since we are not attached to the person. We do not inquire about their personal life, nor do we criticize them or offer them advice on how they could improve their life. We are only there to perform the “business task” of cashing a check. That is, we treat the narrator with “friendly indifference.”
Same with your ex. You don’t need to see or contact your ex, unless there is some specific business to do, such as arranging visitation times or meetings to exchange children for parental visits. And when you do, you treat your ex with the same friendly courtesy and indifference that you gave the bank teller. Nothing more and nothing less.
As you did with the cashier, your contact with your ex is friendly without being intimate, courteous without being pompous, indifferent except to do the business at hand. Using the bank teller as a role model is a great way to practice your new relationship with your ex, without confusing the old boundaries of intimacy and friendship with the severely lowered new limit of instrumental task problem solving.
They used to have full access to each other in which very few boundaries prohibited them from discussing any topic or engaging in personal or intimate behavior. You now have extremely limited access with strict limits prohibiting most discussion topics and personal or intimate behavior. The only exceptions are discussions about your children and their well-being.
If the bank teller is difficult to identify with, returning a defective product to a customer service representative at Best Buy has the same “friendly indifference” nature while conducting well-defined business as the bank teller.
So what is the point?
A successful recovery from divorce is tricky. You are especially vulnerable to how you handle your relationship with your ex. What worked during your marriage will not work now.
Other than handling problems related to your children, you have little reason to make or maintain contact with your ex. So don’t do it unless absolutely necessary.
If you have children with your ex, you will have to have some contact. And when you do, the nature of your post-divorce relationship is very different from the relationship you had while you were 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 or spouses. The rules are different and the limits of acceptable behavior are very limiting.
Therefore, a new relationship, completely devoid of emotional reactions, will preserve peace and allow you to handle the joint responsibilities 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 in which your ex will be present.
Your world has changed. Your relationship with your ex has changed. All for the better. Don’t spoil it by trying to keep your old relationship with your ex alive. It will backfire and seriously threaten the satisfaction of your new life after divorce.