Being Friends With An X

~ R. U. Wacko

This is not a “The Old Christine and the New Christine” show.  It is hard to be friends with an X. Why? Just cannot be friends after all the hurt and crap of past years of marriage and the divorce process. If you divorced them, they must not be acceptable to you, they must be dirt under your feet. Not true.


Why can’t both parties just say “we just were not compatible” and leave it at that. Naturally this is easier said than done. It should be required. The one who wants out, who has made up their mind, who has made the decision, who has sorted out all their reasons I call the “dumper”. The “dumpee” still has to adjust. Sometimes they never do. It is hard to be friends afterward. You had a hard time living together and probably will have a hard time getting along in the aftermath of divorce.

We have guilt about the divorce and this guilt lasts months, sometimes years. It does not matter whether you are the divorcer or the divorcee or the dumper or dumpee. Both feel betrayed by their spouse, their attorneys, and their friends and relatives. Each month and year you wonder if you would have done something different or extra to save the marriage. You are 40, 50, 60 years old. This should be the best time of you life. The kids are grown and have moved out, or soon will. You have your mate to yourself, and now they do not want you. You devoted your life to your husband. But was it that rosy? Or did you fight with your spouse daily. Did you go from loving him to hating him moment to moment? Did you even act like you loved the kids? You go thru the stages of blaming yourself, than blaming your former spouse. Which is it? You go thru stages of guilt and pity and hated and love. Which is it moment to moment.

Life seems to boil down to this. You expect another person to behave in a certain way. They do not. No one will act precisely the way you want or expect. They will not be perfect. They are assholes one day and your best love the next. Which is it? Moment to moment?

It is rare that both parties are strong enough or mentally healthy enough to discuss and work thru problems during marriage, divorce and after.

Divorce is rarely the answer for both parties, and often not the answer for either party. 

Sometimes it is the answer.

I always thought the best think for me to say in divorce is that my spouse dumped me for a lesbian lover. This would seem the ultimate slap for them and for me. Thus I never said that.


One knows their x-spouse better than any other being knows them and if I can’t understand them who can? I learned that the best thing anyone can learn in life is that everyone thinks differently. I try to teach others that if they learn nothing else in life that they know that everyone things differently. They need to teach this is school every month.

Only in the Bible is divorce good for a man. Divorce is financially not good for either spouse. In the Bible a man just gave his wife a certificate notice of divorce and she was kicked out of the house without the kids. Sounds fair to me. The house, furniture, money in savings and all assets were left with the man. The woman did not get everything. She got nothing. The woman was lucky not to get stoned to death. Actually the law is pretty fair that gives each party half the assets after the debts are paid. I felt lucky to get the debts.

The woman may get every available asset so that they could make it alone, as they needed to do to prove to themselves their self worth, build their confidence. They may still not be happy. They may still feel they were shafted. The me, me, me, me, me, me victim syndrome.


You may get all the liabilities, the debt. But, be free to be you and not a caretaker.

See R U WACKO at  GaryBahr.com