I saw an article on Forbes.com this week that was full of tips on how to keep your work life and home life separate and preserve your marriage if you and your spouse work together. Even though the writer's whole point is to give people things to think about that might help save their marriages, it occurred to me that the same advice might be useful in navigating a divorce.

A married couple that works together has to find a way to establish a work relationship that’s separate from their marriage. They can’t bring whatever BS is happening at the office home with them, because if they do, their marriage is doomed. In the same sense, a divorced couple also needs to establish a new kind of relationship that’s totally separate from the one they had when they were together.

One of the things that's easy to forget is that in many cases, even after divorce, you still end up having some sort of relationship with your ex. This is obviously true if you've got children. In fact, it's critically true in that case. You may feel lots of things after your marriage is over: relieved, angry, bitter, spiteful, lonely. But you still have to work with all those feelings and figure out how to work with the new circumstances of your life. And you have to figure out a way to handle those feelings and not let them interfere with the changing relationship between you and your ex.

You can’t expect your ex to continue dealing with your issues, and vice versa. You’re no longer entitled to lay your crap on each other. And the only thing that’s going to happen if you do is that you’ll find it harder and harder to deal with each other. If you’ve got kids, that’s not helping anybody. In fact, it’s probably harming your kids in ways that may not manifest themselves until years later.

To be sure, it’s not an easy equation to crack. It’s something that takes effort and patience.

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