Why I Stayed Friends with My Ex

I’ve often thought how much easier it would have been to say, “Byeeee!” to my ex when we split, make a clean break and not look back. To leave all the shit and the pain in the rear-view and not have to be face-to-face with it by seeing and talking to him regularly…. But we had a kid. So no contact was no option. And I didn’t want no contact. We still loved each other when our relationship of eight years buckled under the weight of his battle with depression and addiction (and my struggle to cope with that and a toddler). In the days of impending doom and the immediate aftermath, he was at times AWOL and did some things that—well…this otherwise kind, loving person wasn’t his best self. Maintaining communication in those first few months of splitsville was like regularly poking around in a cut just to undo any healing that distance might have been able to provide. I was exhausted, shattered, raw and pissed. But I knew it was his own intense suffering (with the depression that hounded him since his teens) that shoved him into the life nosedive he was taking, so while I was so angry on the surface, I felt like we were all just run over by this thing that was nobody’s fault. 

When you’re married you have to work through all of the hard stuff to get to the place where you like each other again. But you don’t have to do that when you’re broken up. You can hang up the phone and say, “Ugh, what a dick,” and it leave it at that. Putting in the effort to get to harmony is a lot of work for a payoff that is merely a friendship and not a happy marriage you’re heavily invested in. We could have remained civil but distant co-parents, but I didn’t want to let go of what was one of my best and favourite friendships. I didn’t want to give up the feeling of security that comes from having someone in your life who knows you as well as we know each other, the inside jokes that have made us laugh for years, and how he can still know how I feel about something before I do. Jumping side-by-side through the blazing hoops of marriage, having a baby, mortgages, friends’ and family deaths—and divorce—has given us a kind of access to each other’s souls that happens only one or two times in your life. After all that, I’m not willing to give up the connection, the good that has survived the bad.

So I’ve worrrrrrked at it (okay, fine, we’ve worked at it, but I’m kind of feeling like the injured party right now, rehashing things) and have never let us leave things in the air. I’ve made us talk through every awkward moment, every perceived slight, every time I felt hurt, every time he did something jerkish, every everything. Except for his dark AWOL times and far-flung vacations, we’ve pretty much been in touch, if not every day, every few days since the breakup seven years ago. It’s been as much work as a marriage. But being his friend, not his wife, through his struggles allowed for a lot of healing. In our new relationship he didn’t need to feel the guilt and responsibility that comes with having a three-day bender when you’re a husband and father. And I could just wince and shrug, and we could laugh. “So, how’s rock bottom going?” “Pretty good. How’s things with you?” Sharing dark jokes about his situation was freeing for both of us. I got him because I had been in the depths with him, and I could support him, because I didn’t need him to be anyone anymore. 

One of the things that made me happiest in my life when we were together was that I thought our child was going to grow up knowing and seeing how much her parents loved each other. I had that as a child, and it brings me joy still. In the first couple of years, we toyed with the idea of putting things back together, but neither of us could face ending up back where we were. Though he’s been healthy and sober for two years now, the ship of our marriage has sailed. But because we’ve held onto the life raft of our friendship, we’re able to still give our daughter, now 12 years old, a modified version of that ideal scenario. And give it to ourselves: Looking into the other parent’s eyes when your child is being adorable, funny, smart—or remarkably like one of you—is one of the great joys of parenting. Not being able to share that would be a personal tragedy for me. Staying friends means our daughter does get to spend time with both her parents, in a family unit, and see us laugh together…and love each other.

By Emma Greenway*

*a pseudonym