Believe and Grieve: Setting Boundaries With Your Ex

Believe and grieve. Setting boundaries with your ex starts with believing who they show you they are. A divorce coach and J.D. on why bargaining and arguing keep you stuck, how to hold a clear line, and how to grieve the partner you knew.

Dear Divorce Coach:

My spouse moved out in May and filed in August. We were married sixteen years, and I would have told you I knew this person better than anyone alive.

I do not recognize them now. They are cold on the phone and charming in front of our friends. They told our daughter I was the one who wanted the divorce. Last month I found out they had been moving money for a year. When I bring any of it up, they say I am dramatic, or they go silent for a week.

So I keep trying to fix it. I write long texts explaining my side. I ask what I did wrong. I drop off their favorite coffee hoping we can talk like we used to. Sometimes I say things I know will hurt, because at least then they react. Somewhere in there is the person I married. How do I get them back?

Still Explaining in Spokane

Dear Still Explaining,

I want to answer your last question honestly, because I think you already know the answer and are hoping I will argue with it. You do not get them back. The person who is cold on the phone and charming at the party, who rewrote the story for your daughter and moved money for a year, is the person you are divorcing. The marriage you remember was real. So is this.

Believe who they show you they are

I use two words with clients in your position: believe and grieve. In that order.

Believe does not mean approve, or excuse, or stop being angry. It means you stop arguing with the evidence. When a spouse or an ex behaves a certain way, again and again, that is who they are, at least toward you, at least now. Not a bad week. Not a misunderstanding you can clear up with the right paragraph. A pattern.

Most of us fight this, because believing it costs us the story we were living in. So we explain. We ask what we did wrong. We drop off coffee. We throw the sharp remark to get any reaction at all. Every one of those moves is a form of bargaining, and bargaining is how we avoid believing.

Why bargaining, arguing and managing keep you stuck

Here is what I have learned in more than a decade of this work, since 2015. Explaining yourself to someone who has decided not to understand you is not communication. It is bargaining. Asking what you did wrong is bargaining. Managing their moods so they stay pleasant is bargaining. And saying the thing you know will hurt, so that at least they feel something, is arguing with the same hope underneath.

All of it keeps you tied to the person you hope they still are. It also hands them the steering wheel, because when your peace depends on their next reaction, they are running your day. I wrote about the pivot from reacting to responding a while ago, and this is where it starts: not with a better message, but with the decision to stop sending the ones that are really pleas.

Setting boundaries with your ex, plainly

Once you believe who they are, boundaries stop being a punishment and start being a description of how you will live. A boundary is something you do, not something you ask them to do.

Decide what you will and will not discuss. Children, schedules, money and logistics, yes. The marriage, your character, what you did wrong, no. When those come up, you can say, “I’m not going to discuss that,” once, and then stop. If you find yourself in an endless text loop, I wrote five ways to end those conversations that work here too.

Put the money where it belongs. Everything you learned about the accounts goes to your lawyer, in writing, not into a confrontation with your spouse. Documents are a boundary too.

Tell your daughter the truth in a size she can carry. “The divorce was a decision between two grown-ups, and you are not the reason for any of it.” You do not have to correct every story your spouse tells. You have to be the steady one she can check against.

And stop the coffee. I know. It feels kind. It is a request for the old marriage, and it is not coming.

Grieve the partnership you knew so well

This is the part people skip, and it is the part that frees you. You are not only losing a marriage. You are losing the person you knew better than anyone alive, and that loss is real even if they are still breathing and still texting. Grieve it on purpose. Name what is gone: the private jokes, the person who knew how you take your coffee, the version of yourself who was married to someone you trusted. Give the grief a time and a place, twenty minutes a day, so it does not ambush you at pickup. Expect waves. A wave is not a step backward. It is grief doing its work.

If the grief swallows your sleep and your days for weeks, add a therapist to your team. The Divorced Girl Smiling list of trusted professionals is a good place to start. And if any of this behavior has ever included threats, intimidation or control over your safety, “believe who they are” means safety first. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available any time at 800-799-7233.

Who do you want to be on the other side of this?

That is the question I would hand you in place of “how do I get them back.” Believing who they are is not giving up. It is the first clear-eyed decision of your divorce, and every boundary and every settlement choice gets easier after it, because you are no longer negotiating with a ghost. Somewhere in there is not the person you married. Somewhere in there is you, and you are still here.

Warmly,
Cherie

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