Divorce Lawyer Explains The Power In Loving Your Ex Long After The Marriage Has Ended
A divorce doesn't have to be ugly and filled with hate.
adriaticfoto | Shutterstock Something that many couples fail to recognize is that the end of a marriage doesn't immediately mean the end of the love a couple shares for each other. According to the American Psychological Association, an estimated 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce. How could that many people go from love to feeling nothing just because they ended the relationship?
Divorce lawyer James Sexton believes that couples can actually continue to love and care for each other even if they can no longer be together, and he said there's power in that bond. Sexton explained that his own relationship with his ex-wife proves that divorce doesn't always have to be contentious and ugly. While it does mean the end of a marriage, it doesn't have to be the end of the love between a couple. It's just a change in the dynamic.
A lawyer explained the power of loving your ex after divorce.
Sexton explained that his ex-wife remarried over a decade ago to a partner, who he described as being "phenomenal" and an all-around amazing man who is perfect for her. However, Sexton pointed out that her new husband is nothing like him and their relationship is very different than the one they shared
"If you met him and you met both of us, you go, 'Well, no one could love both of these guys,'" Sexton admitted. "If you like this flavor, you wouldn't like this flavor. I am impatient, fast-talking, and he's a therapist."
Sexton described his ex's husband as being his complete opposite. A patient man who's extremely laid-back and goes with the flow, but both he and Sexton's ex are perfect together and have an extremely loving marriage. Sexton insisted that he was able to say that and observe the two of them because he was once someone who loved her and still loves her now.
By being able to take the jealousy aspect of his wife having moved on and finding love with someone else out of the equation, Sexton acknowledged that she is now getting the kind of love she deserved. However, it's not to say that his love wasn't enough at the time, but it just wasn't the right fit for them both.
You can love and respect a partner and realize you are not in love with them.
There are a multitude of reasons a marriage can end, and not all of them are as bold and brash as infidelity. Sometimes the love you had for another just quietly changes. Perhaps you married young, perhaps it happened without noticing, and there's always the chance that kids distracted from the stagnancy in your relationship until they flew the coop.
In a personal essay for mindbodygreen, Isabeau Miller wrote, "All the love in the world couldn’t make us work together, but our love allowed us to let the other go so we could flourish independently." She went on to say, "My ex-husband and I always loved each other. We took care of each other, made memories together, and brought a child into the world. But our careers stalled. Our healthy habits were challenging, if not impossible, to maintain. Conversations would escalate into frustration too quickly. We just didn’t “get” one another. We couldn’t grow together as individuals or as a couple."
The fact is, we are always growing and changing as people. If those changes happen and you don't change together, or you change in different ways, or you want different things than you wanted when you first got together, that doesn't mean the love you once shared was a failure. It means you love each other enough to know it needs to end.
Divorce doesn't mean you need to hate the person you were once with.
It's absolutely possible to walk away from someone and still have both love and respect for them. It doesn't mean that you're still in love with that person, but you'll always have love for them and the time that you two spent together.
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Divorce doesn't have to equal hate and bitterness because, at one point, that was someone you chose and who chose you. Being able to love your ex in this new way doesn't mean you wish that the two of you were still together or that you're hoping to rekindle down the line. It just means that you're honoring the memories that you had with that person and acknowledging how much you're rooting for their happiness.
Author and psychologist Harriet Lerner explained that it's important for people to learn to let anger and negative emotions go, especially as it pertains to a former partner. While it may be valuable to sit with those feelings in the moment, it may not be as valuable to allow them to dictate your life.
"Anger is not a 'bad' or 'negative' emotion. It can take great courage to acknowledge and express anger. But it requires just as much courage to free oneself from the corrosive effects of living too long with anger and bitterness — a challenge that may include forgiveness but does not require it," she insisted.
Learning to free yourself from the anger that you may rightly feel towards your ex, especially if your marriage ended in a rough manner, means that you're allowing yourself to move on and realize that just because you two may not have worked out in the way you wanted doesn't mean there wasn't love and beauty in it too.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
