Surviving Separation and Divorce by Ruth Clements

Author:Ruth Clements
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780745980751
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2019-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

Questions to consider

Are you managing your ex’s emotions about your separation and divorce in a healthy way?

Are you sharing these together? Is your ex simply listening to you without responding, or are you listening to your ex without them listening to you?

Are there parts of your life you can begin to establish as separate if you are heading towards divorce and separate lives?

Physical intimacy with your ex

If you were of a generation who watched Friends, you may remember the episode of Monica and Chandler’s engagement – “The One with Monica’s Thunder”. In it, Rachel, wrestling feelings of joy for her best friend and inner turmoil over her own unknown relationship future, suggests to Ross that they have a “bonus night”. Ross jumps at the chance, as – for those uninitiated in the term – bonus night is a night of no-strings-attached sex with someone you’ve previously had a sexual relationship with, outside of the relationship commitment. Rachel and Ross had never taken this opportunity, and this kind of physical comfort was exactly what Rachel, understandably, felt she needed.

Now you may be thinking, “Great! I could do with this right now.” And no one would blame you, least of all me. The scene of someone else’s relationship joy and their clear delight in their other half is a situation bound to stir up a yearning within you for that familiar intimacy. Ross and Rachel’s previous relationship would have meant they would know the score: they’d know the familiarity of making love with one another and, granted, everyone would probably have enjoyed themselves at the time. But the challenge of “bonus night” was already implicit before it became a reality (I won’t spoil the episode for you): the age-old question – what would this mean? What implications would it have? And it’s this question that we have to be acutely aware of as we separate and divorce, in the midst of a time when we want comfort and support like no other.

Your other half will have seen you at the best of times and the worst of times. They’ve seen you dressed up on your wedding day and ill, unable to leave the bathroom. They know what you look like with no clothes on; there’s nothing new there – and if your main incentive to make love is so they can see your new muscular physique, washboard stomach, or newly purchased underwear, stop right there!

Where familiarity can breed contempt, it can also be the biggest of comforts. So the comfort of knowing who, what, when, and how is a huge draw. The physical comfort of being close to another person, with whom you’re so familiar, is profound. But there’s a problem with bonus night – several actually, as Rachel and Ross discover – so it’s good to consider these before we engage in physical intimacy with our ex.

What are we expressing?

Maybe you are expressing your love for the person in the giving of your body to them, and in giving them pleasure.

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