Reply #55: You can divorce well - I have [View All]

My first husband and I were very young when we married and we married for all the wrong reasons - to make his mother happy (and make her stop bugging us to get married), because we had kids, etc. I loved him, I suppose, but I was not in love with him (there's a difference, I discovered) and it was too early to be tied into a lifetime with anyone.

We always got along but eventually, it was like brother and sister rather than married couple. In the last two years of our marriage, I think we may have had sex twice. And it wasn't really enjoyable. But what we were passionate about was our kids and when the time came when we knew it had to end, we devoted all our energy into those kids, doing our best to let them understand that we both loved them, that it was not their fault, that we would both always be there for them and that we were still both their parents.

It was hard for them at first, as it always is, but we were determined to be the adults in the situation and not let our sadness and bitterness overwhelm what needed to be the focus which was the well-being of our two kids. We always kept in contact, we attended school conferences together, we bent over backwards to both spend time with them, etc.

Our kids are now grown and they're grateful for that. They don't have a lot of issues stemming from our divorce. They are close to us both and I am still good friends with my ex and his second wife who he's been with for 15 years now.