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"If you&amp;#039;re old enough to remember the show Family Ties, you remember Meredith Baxter. Of course, back then she was Meredith Baxter-Birney, and her divorce from her equally famous actor husband was about as contentious as a split can be. She&amp;#039;s twenty years past it now, and able to see things a lot clearer from the other side, opening up about her faults and her personal growth in this wonderful article. She shares very poignantly about her struggle with her anger in the period following her divorce: &amp;quot;I particularly recall one daughter&amp;#039;s high school graduation in the early &amp;#039;90s where I refused to attend the dinner party in her honor because her father would be attending. He and I were two years into a bitter and contentious divorce and child custody battle in which I felt demeaned and powerless; I brought all my agony and vitriol to her commencement celebration. I demanded she have another dinner afterward with me, support me because I was the victim in these legal hostilities. I was so in the drama of my drama. (Poor baby..she was so caught in the web of parental dictums. I had divorced him but she hadn&amp;#039;t.)&amp;quot; That last sentence just about sums it all up, doesn&amp;#039;t it? &amp;quot;I had divorced him, but she hadn&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot; Sometimes, when Peter does something that sets my teeth on edge or makes me want to kick a wall, I fight myself back by remembering just that. This man may have hurt and betrayed me on a level that no one else can or ever will get close to, but he&amp;#039;s my children&amp;#039;s father, and always will be. They deserve a relationship with him that&amp;#039;s not destroyed by our weaknesses. As Meredith goes on to remark, &amp;quot;I had to put away the angry mom if I wanted my daughter to have a happy dad.&amp;quot; I remember once after receiving a healthy dose of contempt from Peter over some ridiculous thing, he headed out to his car with the kids. I shut the door behind him (my brittle smile still in place) and said out loud &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to kill you with kindness if it&amp;#039;s the last thing I do.&amp;quot; Eventually, it became a sort of habit. What good did it do any of us (especially my kids) for me to provoke him or let him provoke me? And luckily, Peter seems to share my weariness for bickering. We never did fight well. In fact, we almost never fought at all, so that much hasn&amp;#039;t changed. I&amp;#039;m the peacemaker, and he&amp;#039;s the conflict-avoider. Together, and with the help of the occasional passive-aggressive email chain, we&amp;#039;re working it out without dragging the kids through it, if we can help it. I&amp;#039;m very glad it didn&amp;#039;t take us years to figure that out. Do you find it a challenge to be kind to your ex? Is that because of them, or could it sometimes be because of all you&amp;#039;re feeling? How do you get past it? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a42678/meredith-baxter-from-bitter-to-better-11959/>