Happily divorced: is that it?
Rita Moreno still remembers this one image in her head, the still life of her marriage in ruins: "I sat alone at the breakfast table, in front of me a battlefield of egg shells, marmalade bites and the bread rolls of our son Mario, the whole ground was crumbled. Pablo had left the house after an argument, and I looked at the chaos, the toys, the laundry, and as a housekeeper, Pablo was simply a catastrophe, "recalls Rita Moreno.
A few days and nights she had cried through, "no one with children separates carelessly from his partner, but I could no longer, all my strength, all my patience was used up."
In the midst of all this misery and emotional chaos, Rita Moreno would never have thought that her ex and she could ever manage to be relaxed again. But 20 years have passed since then. And for 15 years, Pablo and Rita Moreno have been friends, or better said, a "dream-expaar". "At first, we talked only about the children's weekends, and just the bare necessities, but in these conversations our communication worked well, which helped us a lot."
Rita and Pablo Moreno live next door with their new partners and families. They are a kind of patchwork family with separate entrances. Pablo's name Moreno has kept Rita, the ex-pair has just gotten his second grandson. "Pablo's second marriage daughters tell Aunt Reeni to come in. They're standing in front of my door in the evenings wanting to bake with me, Pablo sets up my shelves and I'm his house bank," says Rita Moreno, 60. "I often lend him money because I know that I can always keep it up and I fill out his forms because he and his wife, who also comes from Colombia, sometimes have linguistic problems. "
Two people who no longer love each other, but two who help and trust each other. Because the everyday problems and the misunderstandings that have made her an unhappy couple have disappeared with the separation from her everyday life.
"He's a Colombian macho, I'm an unrestrained Hanseatic." After just one year of relationship, the administrative worker was pregnant at that time, "way too fast", time as carefree lovers did not stay much until they became parents. The common plan of a modern marriage, with Pablo as a houseman at the changing table and Rita as a breadwinner, failed. "He could not get out of his skin as a South American, he wanted to wear his pants, and even if I did not want to believe it at first, being in different cultures and having completely different characters got in our way every day."
For all those who are fresh, it is difficult to cope with this disappointment - having failed as a couple despite all the effort. The fact that the Morenos managed after a few years to get closer to each other, is from Rita's point of view, on the one hand, "that enough time had passed to create a healthy distance between us." And it helped that both stood to divorce. "I still remember the pain of the broken family," says Rita Moreno.
There is no solution for everyone
How much distance two people need from each other after a separation, until a peaceful or even friendly deal can arise, varies from case to case. "For a few couples, this is almost seamless, for others, it takes a long time until the disappointment is overcome, but others never succeed," says Hamburg couple therapist Oskar Holzberg. "Faster is usually when there are no big allegations to each other, but the common insight, as a couple in terms of lifestyle or sexually not fit together."
A condition for the cure is that the decision to want to solve, really stands. Adamant. And that from then on any attempt to tie up the old relationship again. "Divorce or separation alone does not change anything," explains Oskar Holzberg. "Before separation is after separation, the true separation begins with the decision in mind."
Berit Granzow from Munich made that decision after a long weekend spent with a friend in London, "because I just needed a little bit of distance from this whole nightmare of separation at home." Four days in which the 45-year-old graphic artist clearly sensed for the first time what she had missed in her relationship with her husband Matthias for so long. The girlfriends were drifting, sometimes shopping or watching an exhibition, but most of the time they sat in cafes and pubs and talked about God and the world.
"Matthias is a recluse, one who speaks little, prefers everything, does not like to go out, and at some point over the years I simply gave up on motivating and inspiring him," she says."I almost became like him, hardly in the mood to make an appointment. Actually, I was communicative in the relationship, but after all the years living together, I almost felt I had forgotten how to speak." The London weekend had infected Berit Granzow. Her life changed. She made an appointment with old friends, went to the cinema again, enrolled in a dance class. She felt again. Finally. "At some point, I simply knew that our step to break up was right."
Nevertheless, Berit and Matthias Granzow experienced many critical moments after their separation nine years ago. "Of course it was about money," says the mother of two sons. "But that was a replacement theater of war for all the things that have been bubbling under the surface during our relationship, which we've only devoured in ourselves." Suddenly all the old injuries broke out, the lawyers wrote bad letters, and the ex-pair talked only the bare necessities.
Only when Matthias Granzow dropped the two very young boys down at the front door of the tenement after a daddy weekend and the children let the five stories into their mother's apartment alone did Berit Granzow know that she had this kind of relationship with her father certainly not wanted to both sons. The same thing seemed to happen in that, because when they phoned the next day, both were at least in agreement: "We do not feel like this and our children." How a couple shapes the time shortly after the breakup lays the foundation for everything that comes afterward.
In the beginning it's not about friendship
"Although sometimes it is very difficult to hold back - further insults can burden the relationship for years and actually lead to the Rose War," says the couple therapist and author Gisela Hötker-Ponath. In the beginning, it's not about friendship at all, "it's already a huge step when both are able to stick to the very specific questions that arise after the breakup: where is the children's focus of their lives? spend with the other parent, how do we manage the maintenance? " The friendship, if any, comes into play much later. Only when a trusting relationship has emerged. And the separated couple usually has to learn it anew.
"The approach can only work in small steps," says Hötker-Ponath. Difficult conversations like those about money should not be conducted in stressful moments. It is very important to strictly separate relationship and factual topics - the hardest exercise of all, because "it easily happens that one topic slips into the other, and then one word gives the other one". The therapist recommends meeting in a neutral place and planning to talk about a problem as factually as possible. "Short first messages, no big explanations, no retrospectives - these are the basic rules that should be adhered to in order to have a constructive conversation," says Hötker-Ponath.
Since many couples are afraid of further escalation from putting themselves together in two, it may be useful to get a neutral third party to the side or to opt for a moderated conversation at a counseling center or with a mediator. When the emotional detachment has progressed, both can, in retrospect, once again deal with the good and the divisiveness of the past relationship - that, too, serves the peaceful end.
Berit and Matthias Granzow arranged a meeting that was all about finances and "everyone knew he had toads to swallow," she says. "And we actually managed to stay on the topic." How much money is there, who has what fixed costs, what is dispensable? "We talked for two hours, and we hugged each other goodbye," says Berit.
But even the very best intentions can not protect freshly separated from low blows. Rita Moreno had a sting that her ex had a new partner a short time after the separation. "If only one of the ex-partners quickly establishes a new relationship, that often creates an insurmountable distance for the ex-relationship," says couple therapist Oskar Holzberg. That Rita eventually succeeded in making her peace with it justified her with "that it was so obvious that the two fit together better than we do". Within three years Pablo got two daughters with his new wife. "That was bad for me at first because I really wanted a second child after my son Mario.
When I met the man of my life, it was too late for children. I did not have to give up a big family, because for Pablo's Colombian family, Rita was one of them even after the breakup. "When Pablo's mother died seven years ago, we traveled together to Colombia. It made no difference whether we were divorced or not, "says the 60-year-old." We feel connected. Til today."
Above all, to get over a failed marriage requires patience and the ability to accept things that can not be changed. Part of this is that the relationship, often with children, often lasts a lifetime. "That was a nice day, Berit. You're a great mother," Matthias Granzow had said to his ex-wife on the eighth birthday of her youngest son when they both stood in the kitchen and removed the remains of the children's party. This moment of recognition changed a lot. "It was the first time in years that I felt again a loving feeling for Matthias," says Berit Granzow, "I almost had tears."
Since then, there have been family celebrations that Berit and Matthias Granzow have celebrated with each other. Over time, it got a bit more effortless each time. And nice. And last month, on Niklas' twelfth birthday, it was really nice. "Everyone was there," says Berit. "Grandmas and granddads, the cousins, Matthias's sister with her family, my brothers and Matthias's new wife, and yes, we laughed a lot."
