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Sparkle (1)
My ex and I stayed in the same house while we were divorcing far longer than we should have. It was torture, a scene waiting for a crime of passion, but I heard yesterday that more couples are choosing to either postpone divorce or to divorce but still live together.
Divorced spouses are dividing living space in the same house, creating charts for time alone and time with children, and even keeping mum as they watch their exes get dressed and leave on a date all because they can't sell the family home and live separately. So, no more love will keep us together, but debt will make away.
My former husband and I were fortunate because we sold our home about a year before the bottom began falling out of the housing market. The woman in the video below, Sallie Frederick, and her estranged husband were not so lucky, and so, they may complete their divorce but live together for months afterward.
She talks about lack of privacy and not being able to work on her computer, which she keeps in the kitchen, because she doesn't want anyone looking over her shoulder. Her husband of 15 years lives in the guest room.
I wonder why she doesn't move her computer to her bedroom. (My ex wanted to live in the guest bedroom next to the master bedroom, but I asked that he live in the finished basement instead. Next to me was too close for comfort.)
Here's some text from the video if you don't have time to watch it.
Celebrity divorce attorney Raoul Feder says the Frederick made the right choice. "As far as the house is concerned, it is very sticky. People have to decide how much they hate each other, because if they can still live with each other and the house or the apartment is big enough, they ought to stay together and wait for a rising market.
Add divorce to the list of casualties of the recession. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers says 37 percent of attorneys polled reported fewer divorces in a bad economy. [Reporter] ... (partial transcipt)
Frederick and her husband, who did not want to be on camera, have stopped paying separate attorneys and started using a mediator to keep their divorce costs down. That's smart if they still trust each other enough to believe one will not try to shaft the other financially.
ABC's Diane Sawyer covered the divorce during recession topic in a February 19 report called "Divorced But Living Together" (video here), which I discovered through an amusing post, Forget the Kids ... , at Open Salon. ABC follows the Joyces, a couple with children who've been divorced for a year and a half but still live in the same house. The couple says it's confusing for the children.
Later in the story Sawyer talks to author Terry Real who's written a book, The New Rules of Marriage. He gives tips about how to get along with your ex while under the same roof to avoid traumatizing your children. As you may expect, they're the same rules you should follow if staying married with one exception, "leave as soon as possible."
BTW, the ABC story mentions blogs about people who live together but are divorced, quotes the blogs, but doesn't name or link to any of them. That oddity made me consider not linking to ABC's story, but that wouldn't be fair to you the reader, right?
I've looked for these blogs that Sawyer quoted, but I haven't found them, except Lee's Divorce & Family Law Blog. If you search "divorced but living together," that's what you'll come up with, lots of law blogs. However, in comments on posts here and there some people say they've lived with an ex. If you know of personal blogs about exes under one roof, then I invite you to add links in the comment section.
Is It Ever a Good Idea to Live With Your Ex?
The women in the following video from AfterEllen, speaking about both male and female lovers, say "No," and share a few tales about sharing space with a former lover, wife, or husband for the sake of saving money.
