Having a marriage and family can be very hard. It requires a lot of work, love, trust, forgiveness, and patience. But sometimes, you just can’t give what your marriage might need to survive. And while you’ll always be the parent to your children, you might not always be your best self when in a marriage you don’t enjoy.
Despite this, in your efforts to be the best possible parent for your children, it’s important that you’re able to still get along with the other parent involved in this relationship. So to help ensure that your divorce won’t totally and completely destroy your family, here are three tips for leaving your marriage as amicably as possible.
Set Boundaries From The Beginning
As soon as you and your spouse decide that a divorce is going to be the best option for your family, the first few conversations you have together can set the tone for your whole divorce and all the time after.
To get off on the right foot, Marriage.com advises that you set some boundaries from the beginning about how you’ll handle things like speaking with one another, speaking around your kids, and dealing with disagreements. By deciding how you’ll act and respond to things like this before big issues arise in the divorce, you’ll find it easier to work through these hard times without losing your cool or damaging your relationship with each other or your children.
Freely Apologize For The Role You Played In Your Marriage Ending
One of the biggest causes of hurt feelings or resentment that comes from a divorce is feeling like the other party is more to blame for the dissolution of your marriage than yourself. But if you’re wanting to have an amicable divorce, you’re going to have to swallow your pride a bit.
According to Dr. Tammy Nelson, a contributor to The Huffington Post, part of this should include making amends for any role you played in your marriage ending. This can and should include apologizing for what you’ve done to hurt their feelings, to make this process harder than it needed to be, or anything else you’ve done that’s played a role in your marriage ending. While these things might be hard to admit, they can make things easier in the future.
Seek To Minimize Conflict
In all divorces, there’s going to be some amount of conflict that you’ll have to wade through. But when you’re determined to have an amicable divorce, your goal should be to minimize this conflict if at all possible.
To help you in doing this, Emine Saner, a contributor to The Globe and Mail, suggests that you try to make all your decisions and choices surrounding your divorce with the idea in mind that you still have love and respect for the other person.
If you’ll be divorcing soon and want to give yourself the best chance of things going smoothly for yourself and your children, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you have a more amicable divorce.
