When coming out of a divorce, most people understand that the final decision and legal separation is permanent, and most just want the process to be finished once and for all towards the end. However, for ex-spouses a relationship still has to be maintained many times for the sake of children. If one partner doesn’t outright declare war on the other and go hiring a child custody attorney in Jacksonville, Gainesville, Daytona, Fleming Island and Boca Raton, the two still have to find a way to work together. This can be particularly challenging given how emotional a divorce proceeding can be for everyone in the family.
However, if ex-spouses can learn to adjust and focus on matters at hand with a business-like attitude, treating each other professionally, they can not only save the family but keep it generally healthy. The trick is to get past the emotions and feelings of the divorce and back to treating each other objectively. Here are some tips on how to keep a professional focus:
Love your family more than being angry at an ex-spouse – Emotions can often give people energy and strength, but they can also betray a person and cause stress, frustration, and useless anger. Instead, recent divorcees need to take their negative energy and put it back into their family. This includes avoiding gossip, avoiding useless chatter, and avoiding arguments just for the sake of fighting, especially in front of the children. Instead, every thought and act should be handled in an objective manner. When both ex-spouses redirect their attention to what matters, the emotions of the divorce quickly falls behind.
Go back to school – It’s hard to remember how to behave when coming out of a divorce. Everything seems to be a hair-trigger issue or comes across the wrong way in a discussion. It’s for this reason that ex-spouses could do themselves some real benefit taking a divorced parenting class in-person. One, it allows them to realize they are not the only people in the plant dealing with a fresh divorce. Other people have experienced the same frustration as well. Second, the class can teach ex-spouses how to still work together as parents even if not as married people anymore.
Avoid making children the cause of a fight – It’s one of the easiest ways for ex-spouses to get each other mad, blaming the other for bad parenting or affecting the child caught in the middle. However, it’s wrong and the move often just creates more anger instead of winning an argument. Instead, ex-spouses should avoid fighting about their children completely. When the potential comes up, people need to drive the conversation back to the issue that matters versus the child. This avoids generating new anger and, more importantly, it avoids children hearing the anger and being hurt by it.
Approach issues with difference by listening first – It may be one of the hardest challenges to overcome personally, but ex-spouses who want to be professional with each other need to be willing to listen and give the other person credit enough to have a comment worth listening to. Instead of shutting out a person right away, an ex-spouse needs to be willing to take turns and keep conversations on point. This reduces anger, insults, sniping and sarcasm. Instead, discussions stay straightforward, even if restrained, and generally positive. Like managers in a business with different analysis reports, listening often finds ways around a problem not apparent to just one side alone.
Keep your head in the forest versus the weeds – By focusing on issues that matter, ex-spouses can keep their discussions and interactions associated with important topics. There are far more important issues than trying to figure out how to out-argue each other. Putting energy and attention on critical matters tends to keep people above fighting and arguing and focused on solving problems for the family.
Keep the communication to only when it’s necessary – Some people still feel they need to connect with their ex-spouse all the time but without any real reason to do so. Instead, keeping communication limited to important matters reduces the changes and probability of getting frustrated or angry with each other. Instead, an efficient use of communication keeps discussion limited to the matter at hand and avoids idle comments that can devolve to cynicism and insults.
Divorce doesn't have to be the beginning of a long-lasting dispute and series of arguments with an ex-spouse. Any child custody attorney can testify this type of conflict burns people out and hurts families. Kenny Leigh and Associates has 5 offices in Florida: Jacksonville, Gainesville, Fleming Island, Daytona and Boca Raton. They serve Northeast Florida and South Florida.
