He couldn’t stand me and I couldn’t stand him, but even more so, I couldn’t stand our venom. I knew that even though our kids were young and we were careful not to let them hear us bicker, our silence would inevitably poison them if we didn’t figure out how to be around each other in a more amicable way. We had to make this better.
If we’d been able to give our kids a choice, I’m sure they would have preferred to grow up with parents who were together and in love. I knew, though, that in the long run it would be better for my children if their dad and I weren’t together, but getting to the end of the long run wouldn’t be easy or painless for them. My job was to take the crappy situation they were in and create the best possible scenario out of it. The task seemed daunting, so I started at what seemed like the most obvious place, with the only two people in the world who had almost as much impact on my kids’ lives as their mom and dad did—I started with their grandparents. My parents lived far away, in Croatia, so I got in my car and drove four hours north to visit my ex-husband’s parents for a very blunt conversation.
We sat together at their dining table, the same table where we’d met for the first time years ago when I was hoping they’d approve of me as their son’s girlfriend. I felt much more nervous now and had a lot more at stake, hoping they’d accept me as their son’s ex-wife.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I wasn’t there to convince them that things were irreconcilable between me and their son or to get them to take my side in the divorce. I wasn’t there to talk in circles, to rehash our anger and frustration. I was there to talk about the only question we could unanimously agree was important and in our collective power to address: How do we make this easiest on the kids? How do we do what is best for Luka and Matea?
We talked for hours, late into the night. My ex-in-laws were incredibly gracious, more gracious than I might have been in their situation. I was in awe of their ability to set their own disappointments aside and treat me with such kindness. There was a lot of sadness and they reiterated their stance that I should stay with their son and try to make the marriage work. But they did so respectfully and promised that no matter what, they would do all they could to keep things amicable between all of us for their grandchildren. Our conversation ended with a sentiment that meant even more to me than the welcome they extended to me as a girlfriend years back. As we said goodbye, they told me, “Well, if you’re no longer our daughter-in-law, then from now on, you are our daughter.”
I expected them to dislike me. I expected them to judge my choices. I expected their anger to burn me, searing me like hot coals. Instead, they showed me unconditional love—the most unexpected and profound gift they could have possibly offered me at that time.
They have actively kept up their end of this deal. They still invite me over for family gatherings. They call me just to check in or to tell me that they were thinking about me. They send me thoughtful gifts and encouraging cards. For the first few years after the divorce, my ex-husband visited his parents with the kids almost every weekend. While they were there, his mom would call me to keep me updated, to ask for a favorite recipe so that she could make it for the kids, or to check if I had any new techniques to share with her for getting a stubborn toddler to poop in the toilet. When the weekend was over, she’d send the kids home to me with a batch of her famous Ultimate Chocolate Bars. My ex’s parents always praised me in front of the kids and didn’t add drama to their lives. I don’t take any of this for granted. To have all parties involved focused on making a painful divorce unusually amicable—and, sadly, it is unusual—every single adult in our family had to put their egos aside. Not easy. But so worth it.
On the drive home after my long conversation with my ex-husband’s parents, I came up with a personal formula for how I aspired to handle the many difficult situations that lay ahead: Kids first, ego last. I wrote it down on a Post-it and stuck it to my bathroom mirror as a constant reminder. I wrote it on a small piece of paper and tucked it into my wallet. I asked my closest friends to keep me accountable to it. I was scaling a formidable mountain of bitterness and pride and knew I was too out of shape to make it to the other side alone. I owed it to my kids to try, so I strapped on hiking boots and started climbing that sucker, step by uncertain step, taking it one day at a time. Before every meeting with my ex, I’d whisper my new mantra to myself: Kids first, ego last.
Too often we wait until we start feeling differently before we begin evolving the way we act toward those we don’t get along with. But I know that how I behave can dictate how I feel. So even though I was still mad at my ex (and he was mad at me), I decided to try doing something I’d do if I actually did get along with him. One Father’s Day not long after our divorce, I made up a basket full of foods I knew he liked, and when he came to my apartment to get the kids, Luka ran up and said, “Look, Daddy, we made you a picnic!”
I also started inviting him over for dinner. The first few times he said no, and then . . . he said yes. Slowly, I was starting to see that treating my ex with kindness was making me feel kinder toward him. And I know it made Luka’s and Matea’s lives just a little less complicated to have two parents who, while they might not have been married any longer, could at least break bread and marvel at the amazing children they’d brought into this world together.
As we were struggling through the emotional turmoil and murkiness of coparenting, we also had to learn how to handle all the postdivorce logistics. That juggling act alone would be enough to overwhelm anybody. Divorce shakes up daily routines in innumerable ways, and it is hard to figure out how best to provide kids with a sense of stability in a sea of changes.
My children spend most weekends with their dad, who sometimes has different rules than I do and runs his home on a different schedule. On Sundays, the kids return to me. For a long time, I expected them to immediately fit right back into my way of running things. If one of them forgot something important, like a school assignment or a sports uniform, at their dad’s house, I’d get annoyed. If they did something that was acceptable at their dad’s house but not at mine, I’d get irritated and proceed to lecture them.
I didn’t even realize how unfair this was to my children. Then one of them pointed out how confusing and complicated it was to live in two different homes. Here I thought I was doing everything I could to shield my kids from the negative effects of divorce, but I needed to focus on more than just the emotional stuff. I needed to spread the empathy to more practical areas as well.
That’s when I came up with “jet lag day.” You know how when you come home after a trip across time zones, you need a little time to acclimate before you feel like yourself again? I decided that my children deserved time to adjust from one home to the other, from one parent to the other. So every Monday became jet lag day, a day of extra, extra mercy and grace. This didn’t mean that my kids could get away with acting like total demons on Mondays, but I would do my best to be extra patient and understanding as they readjusted to life in my house. Jet lag day has made the dynamic shifts in my kids’ days less stressful and much more manageable for all of us.