Unraveling 15 Years: The Positive Side to Divorce

Unraveling 15 Years: The Positive Side to Divorce

Exactly 11 days ago today, I sat across from my husband of 15 years, and we signed the legal
agreement we spent 2 months working on together. This divided everything we worked hard
for as a team. It turns out that 2 people can work together as mature individuals
and make decisions to determine what is best for the team of 4 people involved in a divorce.

This decision did not just affect the 2 of us, but both of our beautiful daughters were also
going to be impacted by this process. It was up to us to decide how we wanted to handle
ourselves as parents. I am proud of how we both worked together to put their needs before anything else when making custody and financial agreements. Throughout this nine month separation, our girls continued to thrive both in school, music, and athletics. This was possible, because we worked together to keep their lives stable. We put them before ourselves, no matter how hard that was at times, because yes there were human emotions involved. Sadness, anger, anxiety, and fear are just a
few that came into the mix.

It is hard to unravel 15 years of a life once shared. But honestly, it was brewing for many years.
One day, it just became time to stop hurting one another, repeatedly. Although, it is painful to end
a very important chapter in both of our lives, it is a necessary ending, so that we can both move
forward and find happiness separately. We were not the best version of ourselves together and
this did not allow us to be the best role models for our young daughters. That is not an easy thing
to admit, and it doesn't make either one of us a "bad person". We both made mistakes, we both
worked hard and hung on to the hope that we were better as a team than separate. We did this for many years, until it became apparent that no matter how hard we tried, no matter how much we
cared for one another, it just wasn't a good fit. And you know what? That's ok.

Does it hurt? Is it hard? Of course it is. This man that sat across from me was my best friend.
He stood by me through many hard times. We built one business together and are still working
together to build another. We share 2 daughters and many memories with friends and
family. It is hard to close the door on our life together. But that doesn't mean that divorce has
to be ugly. It doesn't mean that with some time and healing we can't continue to be friends.
It doesn't mean we all the sudden hate each other.

This just means that we will move forward in our journeys not as husband and wife, but as
friends, co-parents, and now, he is my boss. This means there is a different set of rules and boundaries, but that's ok, because we stopped the cycle of hurting each other.

Although our roles in one another's lives has changed, we will still work together to build his business, and we will continue to co-parent. We will both continue to attend soccer and basketball games, swimming and cross country meets, band concerts, musicals and plays, parent teacher conferences and more. Divorce doesn't have to make 2 people enemies. If fact, it can prevent 2 people from hating one another.