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The Good Divorce
by Ellen Frankenberg, Ph.D..
Pete's
Photo World is a Cincinnati household name, providing the
latest photographic equipment and services through its seven
stores, along with generous tips from experts like Pete. What
is remarkable is that Pete (an engaging, technical, sales
guy) and his business partner Linda (a savvy, marketing, management
gal) are divorced.
When
Linda and Pete Koerbel decided to end their marriage five
years ago, they also decided that they still had the capacity
to be good business partners. They were well motivated to
sustain their family business together, not only because it
was their most significant asset, but also because their only
son Michael, a purchasing wiz now in his 30s, provided the
third leg of their management team, and he loved the business
too.
How
would divorce, or the possibility of divorce, affect your
family business? Tough as it may be to imagine a scenario
like Pete's, the divorce rate in the U.S. has hovered around
50% for some time now, and family business owners are not
exempt. The good news is that a growing body of information
about how to manage a divorce (may I say "successfully"?)
is now available. A marital divorce between business owners
gives new meaning to the term "limited partnership"
- a partnership that focuses on sustaining a business, or
providing for children, even though the marriage has legally
ended.
The
Good Divorce: Keeping Your Family Together When Your Marriage
Falls Apart by Constance Ahrons, Ph.D., published in 1994,
provides durable information about how to walk through the
thickets of divorce in the least painful way possible. Some
divorcing couples become so hostile and vindictive that there
is no way they can continue to operate a successful business
together; others really can develop co-operative relationships
to accomplish significant goals beyond themselves.
There
is no "one size fits all" divorce. Ahrons developed
a typology of five different types of divorces, based on her
intensive research with 98 couples, that may help you determine
whether or not your own family members may be able to sustain
a "limited partnership".
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Perfect
Pals are high communicators, about 12% of
the sample. They continue to speak with each other
once or twice a week, and trust each other as
friends, even if they can no longer live together.
They remain involved with each other's extended
families, often raising children through shared
parenting arrangements and joining together frequently
for birthdays parties and soccer tournaments.
Although a minority, this style works best in
the early years of a divorce, with young children,
before remarriage, or later in life, after children
are raised.
Cooperative
Colleagues (38% of Ahrons' sample) are functional
communicators who talk to each other when necessary,
and can collaborate as parents for their children's
benefit. They can usually divide holidays and
vacation time without calling in lawyers, because
they can "compartmentalize" the issues
that they must resolve, and compromise when necessary.
Although remarriage and financial differences
eventually complicate their lives, these colleagues
maintain fundamental respect for each other. They
can attend major family events, such as graduations
or weddings with civility, and perhaps conduct
business together, if they have separate turf
and clearly defined responsibilities.
Angry
Associates let their unresolved anger smolder,
not far below the surface. Even if they have been
legally divorced for years, they may not be emotionally
divorced, since they remain connected through
the electricity of their anger. This 25% of Ahrons'
sample have the same fights over and over, often
about financial control or parenting issues. When
they do communicate, they have difficulty resolving
issues in a rational or practical way, since anger
continues to dominate their relationship.
Fiery
Foes, another 25% of the sample, can't tolerate
any contact with each other, especially after
highly litigious divorces. If they do meet unexpectedly,
any tinder can re-kindle rage. These exes can't
remember good times in their marriages at all.
Because they usually feel that their just rights
have been violated, perhaps by infidelity or other
deceptions, they continually build evidence of
the other's alleged wrongdoings, since they expect
trouble again in the future.
Dissolved
Duos are not counted in Ahrons' study, because
one of the parties was not even available for
interviews, usually having moved out of town,
without any predictable contact with their children.
This is a truly single parent family, with only
vague memories of a married life, and a lack of
emotion, or indifference, characterizing their
predominant attitudes towards the former spouse.
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Since
divorces can evolve in so many different ways, business owners
need to first assess the degree of hostility within the couple.
Perfect Pals and Cooperative Colleagues (which
together make up half of the divorced population) may have
a chance of continuing to work together effectively, especially
if they are well motivated through common interest and the
talent to sustain a business.
Members
of a Dissolved Duo will function very much like single
persons, especially after they let go of their sadness about
the marriage "that might have been". The other half
represented in Ahrons' sample - the Angry Associates
or Fiery Foes - will ferment conflict wherever they
come together. The business stands at risk, especially if
both persist in maintaining their conflict - and their association
with the company.
So,
even though you and I both have a bias in favor of marriage,
sometimes marriage counseling fails, and divorce becomes inevitable.
Here are some tips for avoiding the worst outcomes, and developing
a "Good Divorce" - good enough for the former partners,
and good enough for the family business.
1.
Let go of old myths about divorce: that it always results
in a "broken" family; that it is absolutely a personal
failure; that it is the worst thing that can happen.
Some
relationships become healthier once the family is re-structured
and tension is reduced. For abusive or addictive behavior,
sometimes the reality of divorce is the only shock that gets
an individual - and the whole family - into treatment. Divorce
then becomes a relief, a source of safety. Sometimes a divorce
happens even though one partner is highly motivated to change,
and the other is not. It takes two to make a marriage work,
but either one can end it. Only the couple, not outsiders,
knows who contributed what kind of effort within their intimate
life together.
I
once met a couple who said that, because of their religious
beliefs, divorce was absolutely out of the question. They
then continued to fight and demean each other, certain that,
no matter how nasty it got, neither would leave. As painful
as divorce may be, without it as an option, some of us would
be much less motivated to change.
2.
Recognize that your family is not ended, but changed:
Children raised in a household with two biological parents
who love each other, work together effectively as parents,
and have the skills and resources to sustain a stable, nurturing
home are lucky indeed, but that is not the only alternative.
If a nuclear family experiences divorce, there are other healthy
structures that can evolve. Some single family homes are quite
healthy, especially if there is a "co-parent" around
- a relative or another single parent, who provides practical
and emotional back up when needed.
Even
though you will always be parents to your children, there
is no such thing as a "blended family", no matter
how much the popular press insists on using the term. "Blended"
implies smooth, as if everything folds in together without
lumps or streaks. "Bi-nuclear" is probably a more
accurate term to describe a family that now has two centers,
with many differences between mom's house or dad's house.
3.
Recognize that kids are resilient, but also vulnerable:
especially if they are told the truth, without unnecessary
adult details, and neither parent uses the children as weapons
against the other, many children adapt amazingly well. If
their extended family - grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles
- continues to reach out to them, kids figure out new ways
to be family. Grandparents develop new, essential roles. The
sib relationship often becomes stronger, since brothers and
sisters share only with each other the unique experience of
moving back and forth between binuclear homes.
But
the new research of psychologist Judith Wallerstein also recognizes
the vulnerabilities of children in The Unexpected Legacy
of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark:
-
if
the marriage was unexpectedly disrupted, without overt
conflict,
-
if
the divorce was nasty,
-
if
divorced fathers did not continue to support their children
(in her sample 30% of fathers did not fund their childrens'
college education) or
-
above
all, if the quality of parental support before, during,
and after the divorce, was diminished,
children
of divorce had difficulty in sustaining personal relationships
in adulthood. They had difficulty trusting others sufficiently
to form a lasting bond, and they became pessimistic about
their own ability to do so, since those they had trusted most,
their own parents, had been unable to do so.
4.When
divorcing parents are under maximum stress, their children's
needs are maximum too: some parents "lose it"
for months following the shock of a divorce, and work so hard
to keep body and soul together (to get everybody fed, to school
on time and bills paid) that they miss their children's emotional
needs.
Meanwhile,
your children may protect you from their pain, because they
know you are overwhelmed. Or they may idealize the absent
parent - the one who doesn't make them take out the garbage
every day. If you can't focus on each child for at least 15
minutes of uninterrupted time each day, call in the reserves
- family, friends, ministers, counselors, coaches, teachers,
pediatricians - whoever can help your child sort out this
major disruption in his/her life, so it does not become a
recurring problem of trust, as Wallerstein described, in adult
life. Can you still have a family meal once a week, even if
one of the chairs is empty? Can you play a game or shoot some
baskets? You and your children may heal each other.
5.
The process of divorce is predictable - it can be charted:
no matter how upsetting and crazy-making the initial shock
of a divorce may be, the psychological process of a divorce
follows a pattern, even though it seems like a roller coaster
of…
denial
(This can't be happening to me!)
rage (How dare you put our family through this!)
bargaining (I'll change whatever you want changed.)
cool compromise (If you want the football tickets, I'll
take the time share in the Caymans.)
resolution (How can we get through this in the best way
possible?).
Others
have been there and have survived. There is life beyond divorce,
and sometimes a better one...
Support
groups with other divorcing persons can really help manage
strange, new emotional reactions, because you learn you are
not alone. Co-workers need basic information about what is
happening, especially if you are "not quite yourself",
but they cannot support you 24/7 and still do their jobs.
If you cannot concentrate, sleep or eat normally, and do your
job most days, it's time to consult a professional counselor
or consider an anti-depressant to help you manage stress,
until you can stabilize your life again.
6.
It takes two to five years to get over a major loss, such
as divorce: so be easy on yourself, knowing that you have
to first get through all the seasons of the year in a new
way, including holidays, birthdays, and even anniversaries.
Usually, by the second year, new customs develop, and the
pain dulls. An adjustment that lasts as long as five years
depends on whether the marriage had been dysfunctional for
years or not, the length of the marriage, the depth of the
relationship before it was upended, and the reasons behind
the break-up.
Divorcing
persons who move quickly into new relationships, without working
through the agony of what went wrong in the original marriage,
may be condemned to repeat the same mistakes. Even though
serial monogamy may be the prevailing form of marriage in
the US today, breaking up, as the song says, is hard to do.
It takes a psychological, emotional, social, physical, spiritual
and financial toll, and healing requires time and effort.
Those who never heal may live out their lives in unresolved
conflict or bitterness , and transmit those feelings to the
next generation.
7.
In the midst of a divorce, decisions affecting the business
need to be made wearing your business hat: Especially
if the family business is your primary financial resource,
the last thing you want to do is lose that too. For some,
a brief leave of absence, may be appropriate; for others,
work becomes essential to give structure to each day.
Of
course, in a vindictive divorce between Angry Associates or
Fiery Foes the business itself may become the target. I don't
believe anyone gets married with the goal of getting divorced,
but the family business needs to protect itself in advance
from such a possibility, through buy-sells that keep the business
stock in the original family, or through pre-nuptual agreements.
Even when an amicable divorce happens between owners, retirement
plans need to be revisited, in order to support two households
rather than one. Divorce highlights the necessity for each
family member, employed or holding stock in the family business,
to have an exit strategy, and a way to redeem stock fairly
and gracefully, without putting the business at risk.
Given
our extended life spans and the extraordinary changes that
happen before that 50th anniversary party, a lifelong, loving
marriage may be something of a miracle. Every family I know,
including my own, has at least one divorce within it. Family
business owners can't pretend it will never happen to them.
They can educate themselves, protect the business from the
worst ravages of divorce, and determine that a "Good
Divorce" will no longer be only an oxymoron.
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