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it's 'divorce day': a look at a different way to split up

my ex and i transformed our home into a space that would continue to house a family while giving us the room to become single.

it's 'divorce day': a look at a different way to split up
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“wow… that’s very new york,” said the man in a blue puffy jacket as his puppy romped with mine in the middle of a neighbourhood park. we had been sharing random chitchat about covid-19, kids and work. he said that his dog had two homes — one was his ex’s just down the street and his, which was across town. i told him that my single-family house had recently been converted into two living areas to accommodate me, two dogs, and two kids in one part and their dad in the other part.
“i think i read about this hipster trend in toronto life,” he quipped as he rolled his eyes. i almost laughed out loud. after all, if there was a contest to choose which of our divorce situations brings on the most hip, trendy manhattan feeling, odds are pretty good that shared canine custody would be the clear winner. plus, i am neither hip, nor trendy.

and while i felt a bit put upon by this stranger’s comment, i have to admit, he’s not the only one who has felt compelled to evoke a bit of snark after hearing about my pandemic reno. just that morning, a friend texted that the first monday after the new year is known as “ divorce day ” in law circles — the day google and family lawyers see a surge in questions about how to make a clean marital break. “seize the day,” she wrote, using the strong-arm emoji as punctuation.

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the peanut gallery
since my ex and i began the process of extricating ourselves from a 16-year marriage in 2019, transforming our home into a space that would continue to house a family while giving us the room to become single, there has been no end to the unhelpful commentary.
from my mother’s, “eww, will he have women down there?” to a work colleague’s doubtful, “i can’t imagine breathing the same air as my ex.” even the barista at the local coffee shop couldn’t help scrunching his face into a look that was something between an i-just-smelled-something-extremely-nauseating and a withering, you-poor-thing, when i explained why i was picking up six coffees (for the contractors).
 breaking up (the house) is hard to do.
breaking up (the house) is hard to do. supplied
in my friend circle, a mix of marrieds and divorced, the tone tends to waver from a way-to-take-one-for-the-team kind of enthusiasm to a dejected weariness, as if choosing not to cut your husband completely loose is a spectacular opportunity lost: “so close, but yet so far,” sighed one.
even the mediator we hired to help us go through the minutiae of who pays for the water and who gets street parking, couldn’t help weighing in: “you should be very proud of yourselves,” she said. “not many couples can do this.”

for sure, choosing to live under the same roof as your ex is not the usual route for divorcees. but taking a non-traditional approach to where you live post-marriage — especially when you are hoping to smooth the transition for kids — is not unheard of. some couples simply sleep in separate bedrooms . others take a “ birds nest ” approach in which the kids stay in the family home and each parent takes turns staying with them. yet others find creative ways of living physically separately in the same home, either by connecting two homes or like us, simply dividing the existing structure.

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obviously, our living arrangement is not without its awkwardness. sometimes my daughter hears giggles through the floor, propelling me into a weird over-dramatization — complete with flailing arms and animated facial expressions — of the fact that the joyous squeaks are in fact from her brother’s video game above us. i hate the smell of frozen burgers that wafts up through the vents and his faint sneezes put me on edge. plus, i try to ignore the fact that since the kids’ rooms are upstairs with me, only one of us is getting lucky under this roof.
i am sure he has his beefs too. his space, although newly renovated, is small, with no real closet space and not a lot of natural light. and the not-so-quiet pitter-patter of paws over his head early every morning can’t be amazing.
think of the children
despite all of this, we have agreed that the split house, in all its strangeness, is good for the ones who tend to bear the brunt of a parental separation — the kids.
there are countless studies that show children whose parents divorce are more likely to experience anxiety and depression than their peers from two-parent families. they are also more at risk of having trouble at school, developing behavioural issues and experiencing difficulty maintaining social connections.

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most of these worrisome impacts seem to be driven by what a child tends to lose when their parents part ways — loss of time with the non-custodial parent (usually the father) and a drop in financial security as both parents split incomes and incur more expenses with new living arrangements. these kids also face the emotional stress that comes with the end of family traditions and daily routines. add in having to move into a new home — or divide their time between two — possibly change schools, and missing out on time with the grandparents of the lesser-involved parent, and there are mountains of reasons why deciding to divorce when you have children is not to be taken lightly.

certainly, these findings make me shudder. and sure, there have been nights i have laid awake wondering if we have scarred our kids forever in our quest to be happier. but am i crazy to think that divorce can be good?

it turns out that for every study that says divorce causes irreparable damage on children, there are just as many suggesting that ending a marriage can, in fact, be a positive. in her book, “we’re still family,” psychologist constance ahrons shows that many kids of divorce — a surprising 80 per cent — actually experience no lasting negative effects on grades, social adjustment or grades. contrary to what most of us assume — that kids need two married parents under one roof to be okay— she concludes that the opposite is actually true in many cases.

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but before you giddily text your lawyer, you should know that finding family nirvana amid divorce doesn’t happen naturally. in fact, it depends on a few key things that, when combined, contribute to the ability to provide your offspring with what cambridge university professor michael lamb calls a “supportive childhood.”

in his work analyzing thousands of studies on childhood adjustment, lamb found that a child’s wellbeing isn’t so much defined by the existence of marriage and being under one roof as it is by a decent home life and a loving relationship with parents who aren’t stuck in conflict. his research also concluded that children benefit from emotionally stable parents who can focus on parenting, be emotionally responsive and provide love, and of course, are capable of providing resources such as food and safe housing. none of which, by the way, depend on the parents being in the same immediate living space.

and while what the physical act of divorce looks like may be changing, the literal concept of pulling up marital stakes is not new — and it certainly isn’t uncommon. in 2020, 2.7 million canadians ended their marriages, up from 1.8 million ten years earlier. in fact, most family law lawyers peg the average divorce rate in this country at almost 50 per cent of all marriages.

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where we went wrong

there are an unlimited number of reasons people decide to split the sheets — the top three according to experts are a lack of commitment (75 per cent), infidelity (59 per cent), and conflict at 57 per cent.

sometimes, couples are already at risk for divorce before they even utter a single vow. apparently, if one partner smokes regularly, the chance of a couple calling it quits rises to 75 per cent. the odds drop to 50 per cent if one person wants children and the other not so much, while relationships in which the husband is significantly older or younger also face a higher likelihood of divorce.

for the record, none of these applied to us — we just stopped having fun.
and while i haven’t yet come up with a smart reply to shut down people who can’t resist commenting that i should get “a real divorce,” i do know that, as i send my kids downstairs for dinner with their dad and hear the warm buzz of conversation, it feels right. maybe not for years and years, but for now, if it means our children feel love and not loss, i’ll take the giggles and stinky dinners.
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lisa machado
lisa machado

lisa machado began her journalism career as a financial reporter with investor's digest and then rogers media. after a few years editing and writing for a financial magazine, she tried her hand at custom publishing and then left to launch a canadian women's magazine with a colleague. after being diagnosed with a rare blood cancer, lisa founded the canadian cml network and shifted her focus to healthcare advocacy and education.

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