Is Friendship Even Possible After a Divorce?

No matter who you are, divorce can be one of the most difficult experiences of your life. If you are planning a divorce in the Las Vegas area – or if you believe that your spouse is planning to divorce you – schedule a consultation as quickly as possible with a Las Vegas divorce attorney.

Can you maintain a friendship with your ex-spouse after you’ve divorced that person? A divorce doesn’t usually happen when a marriage is healthy, so for many people who are divorced, it is not even possible to consider a friendship with an ex-spouse.

However, in some cases a friendship can work, and in fact it happens all the time. Keep reading to learn what you should take into account if you are considering a friendship with your ex.

Why Should You Consider Maintaining a Friendship With Your Ex?

There are a number of good reasons why you may consider maintaining a friendship with your ex-spouse after a divorce:

  1.  Maintaining a friendship allows you to be genuinely forgiving. Forgiving others is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Keeping anger bottled-up against someone hurts you, not the person you are angry with.
  2.  Maintaining a friendship helps you and your ex-spouse as parents. If you remain friends, your communications will be more open and honest, so you’ll be able to discuss parenting more easily and comfortably, and your child or children will benefit.
  3.  Maintaining a friendship can reduce the stress for both of you. Your interactions won’t be generating anger or anxiety, and again, your child or children will benefit.

What Are the Counter-Arguments?

If you are not parents of the same child, there may be no reason after your divorce to maintain any relationship with your ex, and that may be your choice.

Here are some reasons why you may want to avoid a friendship with an ex, whether or not you and your ex-spouse are co-parents:

  1.  Maintaining a friendship with your ex may prevent you from working through the anger and hurt – that you need to work through – to complete the healing process.
  2.  After your time as a marriage partner, maintaining a friendship with your ex could prevent you from fully recovering and reestablishing your own identity as an individual. After a divorce, you need time to become comfortable with singleness.
  3.  If you and your ex are parents, maintaining a friendship with your ex could be quite confusing and could cause your child or children to have false hope about a reconciliation.

Whether or not you decide to remain friends with your ex, it is an important decision. Along with considering the advantages and disadvantages listed above, seek advice from family members, close friends, and others you trust before you make a final decision about remaining friends.

If You Choose Friendship

If you and your ex-spouse mutually decide to maintain a friendship, here are some suggestions and recommendations for making that friendship work over time:

  1.  Take the time you need to heal and to adapt to singleness. If you cannot or will not let go of the past and accept the “new you,” you may not be able to establish a reliable friendship with your ex.
  2. Respect yourself and never allow yourself to feel defeated or humiliated. Keeping your dignity and your honor is the key to emotional good health and to possessing the confidence you need to move forward positively and constructively with your life.
  3. Explain explicitly to your child or children that there will be no reconciliation.
  4. Refrain from discussing new relationships until you are sure that both you and your ex will be comfortable having such discussions.

It is understandably difficult to trust an ex-spouse who refused to resolve the divorce issues and attacked your credibility in the proceedings. If you are a co-parent with your ex-spouse, while it may be impossible to remain friends, it will be important to remain courteous and civil.

What Are Nevada’s Divorce Requirements?

Nevada is a no-fault divorce state, so there are only two legal requirements for a divorce:

  1. At least one spouse wants the divorce.
  2. At least one spouse has resided in the State of Nevada for at least six weeks.

The most important thing to remember about divorce in Nevada is that you should be advised and represented by a Las Vegas divorce lawyer from the start. Even before filing divorce papers – or as soon as you’re certain that your spouse is filing for divorce – speak to a Nevada divorce attorney.

If it’s possible, an uncontested divorce is preferable to a contested divorce. In Nevada, when divorcing spouses can agree to their own divorce conditions and terms, and they only have to ask the court to “sign off” on those conditions and terms, it’s an uncontested divorce.

If You Are Co-Parents

If you are co-parents, your child or children come first, so resolving the custody, child support, and visitation questions will be an important part of your divorce. If a custody dispute, for example, cannot be resolved privately and voluntarily, a resolution may be imposed by the judge.

Similarly, if divorcing spouses can agree privately and voluntarily about the division of their properties and assets, they can agree to any arrangement they like, and the court will approve it, provided that the arrangement is fair to both divorcing spouses and has been reached voluntarily.

What Else is Important to Remember?

If you need child support or spousal support payments, your Las Vegas divorce attorney will fight aggressively for those payments and will ensure that you’re treated fairly and justly by the court. If you are divorcing, get the legal help you need from the beginning. That’s your right.

Hiring a good Nevada divorce lawyer is the key to ensuring that your divorce is handled properly, that you are treated fairly, and that your child’s or children’s best interests will be the highest priority.

Even if your divorce is uncontested and you and your spouse remain friends – or on the other hand, if you anticipate “battling it out” in a courtroom – you must have the advice and services of a Las Vegas divorce lawyer as soon as you know that a divorce is going to happen.