When my ex and I first split, I felt it was crucial we be a unified front as much as possible, for our daughter’s sake. I still believe this — however, we took that unified front to the maximum. We did many joint activities together, and as time went on, I felt a pressure both from others and from myself to make sure we were all a “happy, amicable divorced family.” Is this truly such a bad notion to have? Absolutely not! But some of these altruistic ideas created problems that I would not have had had we kept a civil but more distant approach to separating.
For example, too much joint time together confused our very young daughter. It also confused us, emotionally. The more time we spent together and got along “well enough,” it made us wonder: Was divorce really worth the pain and suffering we would experience?
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