Divorce offers a solution if you want to remove your spouse from your life. Yet, if you share children, the removal will only be partial. You still need to co-parent for years to come.
When weighing up whether divorce is the right move, you need to consider how easy it will be to share parenting. Sometimes divorce can turn a situation you do not like but can live with into something far worse. The resultant conflict will be damaging to you and your children.
Forgiveness makes shared parenting easier
Everyone makes mistakes in their marriage. Some of those mistakes can do incredible hurt to the other person. It can take a lot to forgive your ex-spouse, but once you can, it frees you to enjoy the present rather than dwell in the past. If you still hold grudges, it is more likely to lead to antagonistic behavior between you, making working together to raise your children more challenging.
Recent research found that forgiveness was more likely when you both accepted the situation. Unsurprisingly, the study found that narcissists were less likely to forgive. Let’s say you file for divorce. If your spouse cannot accept it is over, they may continue to fight to save the marriage. It can take many forms, from being super nice to getting aggressive to contesting the divorce.
The study found that keeping the conflict low and the trust high will make forgiving each other and moving forward simpler. One way to do this is to choose an uncontested divorce where you accept your marriage is finished and focus on finding a solution rather than arguing about who was at fault.
