What All Divorcing Couples Should Keep in Mind

Divorce is never easy, but there are things you can do to make this a smoother transition for your family.

• You don't need to fight. Perhaps the single most important thing for divorcing couples to keep in mind is that if both spouses can find their way to mediation, or another non-adversarial path, they will both come out ahead. Mediation is significantly cheaper and faster than higher conflict approaches, and the benefits of being an active voice in shaping how your life looks moving forward cannot be overstated.
• Protect the children's routine. Try not to upend the kids' day-to-day life more than necessary.
• Move as efficiently as possible. Aim to finish the process as quickly as reasonably possible. Doing so allows you to move on and begin building your future, rather than staying stuck in the past.
• Expect an ebb and flow. There will be a long list of topics to work through (custody, visitation, child support, who covers tuition, camp, medical costs, and childcare, and how assets and debts get divided), and no one wins every category. Don't let one or two sticking points become the whole story.
• Think in decades, not days. Try to fast-forward ten or twenty years and look back at the decisions being made right now. Is it really necessary to say or do that hurtful thing? Will it benefit you and your children in the long run? Sometimes what feels urgent is really just emotional impulsivity: the feeling is valid, it's just especially strong right now, and a night's sleep, an hour's break, or some exercise might change what you'd actually choose to say.
• You don't have to like each other, but you don't have to keep fighting. Divorced couples don't need to like each other, or even be friends. But divorce means you're no longer obligated to keep proving you're right or making the other person see your side. What's left is a narrower, more important job: being partners in making sure your children come out of this with the best possible outcome for their mental health and wellbeing.
• Remember this is the long game. This isn't going to be resolved by winning today's disagreement. It's easy to fixate on the current crisis and forget that you'll be interacting with this same person tomorrow, or in a month, or for years to come. Keeping the long game in view tends to make people more flexible, partly because there will likely come a time when you need flexibility from your co-parent in return.
• Lean on a support system. Put ego aside, and lean on a support system instead of taking frustration out on your child or your co-parent. A good support system includes people willing to offer real perspective, even when it's something you don't want to hear, and to call out unhelpful behavior when it shows up.
• Damage comes from behavior, not the divorce itself. People often fear that the divorce itself is what will harm their children, but in practice, it's how the parents behave afterward that has the biggest impact. Divorce doesn't end the relationship, even once the gett has been given and received. There's still a long road of interaction ahead.
• Let go of "evening the score." Whatever pain existed in the marriage is real and worth addressing, but it's something to work through separately on your own, not something to resolve through the divorce process itself. Divorce is not the process of getting justice from or punishing your spouse for the wrong they did. Divorce is the process of untangling your lives so you interact less with the person who hurt you and are no longer emotionally vulnerable.
• Choose compromise from strength. Choosing compromise deliberately is an act of strength, not surrender. Digging in and insisting on getting your way right now is a short term fix: even if it works this time, it won't next week or next month. Approaching disagreements from that mindset, rather than from a need to win, tends to serve everyone better over the long run.