Life Tips Post Separation/Divorce: A Tale of Two Families

How often do we hear the lament of the grandparents who now have limited access to their grandchildren as a result of their own children’s vitriolic divorce? What about the nieces and nephews who once had a close relationship with their aunts and uncles? Clearly, a couple’s separation can affect more than just the parties themselves and their own children.

One of the beautiful things about choosing to mediate instead of litigating your separation is that it allows you to create the possibility of expanding your options rather than limiting them. In a mediated setting, you and your spouse can craft an agreement that benefits both the immediate family as well as the extended family.

Let me share two different tales with two different endings:

I have a friend, Gail* who went through a divorce many years ago. At the time, she and her husband, Bill* did not have children but her brother and sister-in-law did – three young ones. Gail and Bill were very close to the children. In fact whenever the families were together, the kids were all over Bill. He played games with them, gave them horseback rides and generally spent more time with them than he did with the adults. The children adored him.

When Gail and Bill split, it was one of those divorces that was not going to end with them staying friends with each other. They did not mediate their separation but rather litigated it. In the middle of all the business of separating, no one was thinking about how Bill’s departure was going to affect the children. They kept asking about him and when they were going to see him. Although Bill loved those kids, he moved on with his life, apparently not taking them into consideration. Gail was terribly upset for the children and had a hard time explaining why Uncle Bill was not coming to see them anymore.

Gail’s sister-in-law finally took the matter into her own hands and called Bill. She told him that he had to come and see the children – that the kids were devastated by his disappearance. He agreed to come and attempted to bring some closure for the children (two of them were very young), but he never stayed in touch with the family after that. To this day, 25 years later, the children, still mention him with fond memories and a sense of loss.

My second story involves a couple I mediated.

Jack* and Jill* had three very young children when they came to see me. Jill was very angry about the separation and it was a difficult mediation. Jill was a working mother and although they agreed to a joint custody arrangement, she was going to be the residential custodial parent. She had many concerns about managing the children and whether or not she and Jack could truly co-parent them once they were no longer living under the same roof. The one thing they did agree on was their love and concern for these young children. They wanted the best for them and knew that two involved parents would ensure their security and safety.

They worked out a very good parenting plan together – agreeing to be flexible with each other within a framework of specificity on important holidays. The key to a good plan is intention and then implementation. They intended to be good parents to the children and put into place a plan that would ensure this. Having said that – it was still a challenging mediation and although I had high hopes for them as the anger did abate over the course of the mediation process, there is always a concern about whether a couple will be able to effectuate their plan.

A year later, I received a call from Jill. She thought I would like to know how well things worked out for them. She told me this story: The previous weekend was Memorial Day weekend. In their plan, they had agreed that Jack would have the children for that weekend in the even years and he was planning a family barbecue. The week before, Jack called Jill, inviting her and her family to join them! She said it was just wonderful. Everyone was so happy to be together – the grandparents and the children especially. In this case and in so many others, a separation for the couple did not have to mean the end of extended family relatedness.

The moral of the story? Mediation creates a space for unlimited positive possibilities to occur.

(*Names have been changed)