Tips to Help You Look at Your Ex as a Business Partner
Countless people who have gotten divorced have difficulty shifting their relationship with their ex-spouse for emotional reasons. We fall in love, build dreams together, and work hard to achieve those dreams once we’re married. We become highly invested financially and emotionally in our partners. So if we decide to divorce, it should come as no surprise that we are ill prepared to deconstruct what we worked so hard to achieve.
Separation, loss of family, loss of your relationship, suffering financial setbacks, splitting up assets, and dividing parenting time take a lot out of us. All of those things are part of coping with divorce. While most of us would like to believe that our ex-spouse, whom we couldn’t live with, will now be cooperative during the divorce process, that is not realistic. To change the current dynamic that led you to divorce, you have to shift your relationship from the emotional perspective that was present during the marriage to a business relationship during and after the divorce.
This shift from intimacy to business-like decreases emotional intensity, creates distance, and positions you in a new role. The new business goal is to deconstruct the life you shared together and build a new one.
Begin with a list of questions:
- What’s your financial plan?
- What’s your earning potential?
- What are your academic endeavors?
- What communication style works for you?
Prepare a home plan:
- Will you move?
- Where will you move?
- What is needed for the home?
Develop a parenting plan based on custodial arrangements:
- What’s the visitation schedule?
- What’s the holiday schedule?
- What’s the chore list?
- What’s the emergency plan?
- What financial support is available?
- What about after-school activities?
- What about religious training?
Lastly, don’t forget a list of rules for your children in order to help guide them through this transition in the nature of the relationship, as well.
Flexibility will be needed and tested throughout the division process. Remain patient in order to come to a fair and swift resolution. And think of your soon-to-be ex as a business partner. That may make all the difference in the world.
