Life after Divorce 199
clients admit quite candidly that after having gone through one
expensive and emotionally draining divorce, they would never be
willing to risk another one. Still fuming about their alimony or
property settlement payments, they claim they will never marry
again. These veterans of divorce often enter into their subsequent
relationships insisting that cohabitation, rather than remarriage,
be the preferred format for the new relationship.
Facing Your Family
A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignancy.
—Alexander Pope
An obvious aspect of the period following divorce is the restruc-
turing and redefining of one’s relationships with former family
and friends. (Were the Joneses really his friends or hers?) Not so
obvious is the need for the divorcing parties to renegotiate their
relationships with their own parents. My own divorce is a good
example. My parents thought I was crazy to have let my picture-
perfect first wife get away. Their initial reaction to my divorce
was extremely negative, and there was no question in my mind
that they actually came away thinking less of me as a person. It
took years before we got things back on an even keel—largely as a
result of my finally finding a second spouse who passed muster.
What are my parents doing in the middle of my divorce? One should
never underestimate the role that the divorcing couple’s parents
can play throughout the divorce process. For starters, they rep-
resent at least some form of continuity for the grandchildren.
A child’s faith gets shaken by watching their parents’ relationship
dissolve. Their ability to move up a generation and watch at least
their grandparents’ marriage stay stable represents some sense
of a lasting, dependable, traditional, and intact relationship. This
helps to reduce the child’s otherwise understandable temptation
to think that all relationships are undependable and disposable.
In this context, it may be smart for divorcing couples to encourage
the maximum possible amount of grandparent visitation. In fact, it
is often smart, and surprisingly easy, to insert specific provisions
granting grandparent visitation into your actual divorce decree.