Demi and Ashton, Cozy with Bruce, Go to His Wedding
I already said I’m not apologizing for my love of Star magazine. Ok? It has been a valuable research tool, allowing me to keep up with what is supposedly going on between Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, and Bruce Willis all these last years. And to thereby track our national obsession with what I will call the Overly Cozy Divorce.
Apparently, Demi, Ashton, and Bruce get on famously. They go out together, all of them, take vacations together, take the kids to sporting events together, and so on. It all looks so fun, so unproblematic, so modern, that people reading and hearing about it might just assume that every divorced couple should be that close. In fact, over the last three years, as I spoke to people about the book I was writing, I was surprised by the frequency of questions like, “But most divorced couples still do stuff together for the kids right?” and “Don’t you think dads who divorce should do holidays with their kids at their exes’ place every year, and just bring the new wife along?” After all, the thinking goes, that’s the best thing for everybody, right? Especially the kids!
Not so fast. When sociologist and divorce and remarriage expert Constance Ahrons came up with the concept of the “Good Divorce” fifteen years ago (The Good Divorce: Keeping Your Family Together When Your Marriage Comes Apart), she also suggested a paradigm called the “binuclear family”–a post-divorce family that spans two households. This basically means the divorced parents who live apart communicate with each other so that the kids’ needs are met, and cooperate as a parenting team as much as they can, since parental conflict is so bad for children.
So far, so good. But highly cooperative ex-spouses, bless them if they can pull it off, usually hit a speed bump when one of them–he is likely to do it more quickly than she is–remarries or gets into a serious, live-in re-partnership. Before divorced dads re-partner, a typical pattern, according to women I interviewed, was moms dropping the kids off with Dad not only for times outlined in the separation agreement, but also pretty much whenever they needed or wanted to. After all, divorced dads who are living alone are likely to want to see the kids they’re no longer living with at every chance.
The introduction of a serious girlfriend will surely shake things up. No matter what he has told his partner about wanting time with his kids, and no matter how understanding she is about it, couples would be unhealthy if they didn’t want some time alone. Which is all too often, in my experience as a researcher, viewed as “Dad not having any interest in the kids any more” by an ex-wife. Who might really be stinging not from her kids getting a little less time with Dad, or a schedule that’s more structured, but from the sense that she herself has finally been replaced.
If Dad has been spending holidays with his ex and the kids up until this point and he and his partner decide to discontinue that tradition, there are likely to be fireworks, of course. But I don’t see anything wrong with a couple celebrating holidays together and inviting his kids to join, if they’re not in the mood to continue the wanna-be- Norman Rockwell-esque weirdness with his ex–which is how it is likely to feel for most of us.
Let us not forget the obvious point: people divorce because they can’t get along. Usually, they’ve put years of effort into saving the relationship and just can’t. Do we really expect them to get along any better when one of them repartners after the divorce?
There’s something very warped about our expectation that the only people with the best interests of their kids in mind are those who do everything from home repairs to birthday parties with their ex “for the kids’ sake.” Indeed, Bruce and Demi are statistical anomalies–E. Mavis Hetherington found that less than a quarter of her Virginia Longitudinal Study participants who were exes could make “cooperative parenting” work. The majority of them, like the majority of people in the country, fell into “parallel parenting,” essentially ignoring each other, communicating by email rather than phone and setting their own rules in their own homes for the kids. Hetherinton was surprised to discover that kids actually do well with this arrangement, and are able to assimilate the notion of “this is how it is at dad’s house” and “it’s like this at mom’s house.” It may also be better for stepmom than the constant communication dance: she’s spared unnecessary aggravation and gets more of a say about parenting practices in her own home when exes aren’t constantly in touch.
The real kicker, though, is that a high level of warmth and cooperation between exes is actually not healthy for the kids. In an interview, Francesca Adler-Baeder of the National Stepfamily Resource Center told me about the research on the topic, explaining to me, “When the exes are highly cooperative and chummy, the research shows that this is very confusing for kids, who wonder, ‘So why did they even get divorced?’ and ‘If their marriage didn’t work even though they get along so well, how can any marriage work?’ ”
The all-together-now Turks and Caicos wedding party might have been fun for Bruce, Demi, and Ashton. Maybe even for Bruce’s now-wife. But most of us would rather just send a gift. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Tags: Ashton Kutcher, Bruce Willis, Constance Ahrons, Demi Moore, divorce, E. Mavis Hetherington, Francesca Adler-Baeder, good divorce, remarriage, stepmonster, stepmother
March 26th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Thank you for this. My husband used to live in the same apartment building as his ex-wife. She wanted us all to go on vacations together. That’s not for me. I like some healthy boundaries. I’m lucky my husband agreed. For us it works better to have his boys come see us rather than all do stuff together. Come on, it’s just awkward. Why aren’t we allowed to admit that?
March 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
i guess i’m lucky that dh’s ex lives across the country! i think they have a pretty “good divorce”, they communicate abut the big issues. still i’m not looking forward to my stepson’s upcoming graduation cermony, lots of stress. people who think it’s easy haven’t been there.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:21 am
I agree that too much togetherness with exes is weird and uncomfortable for everyone…for me, and especially my now adult age sons and their wives. Sure there is a very occasional grandchild’s birthday party that we all are there for but it is a rarity as opposed to a regular thing. Thank goodness for that! It just feels unreal and dishonest in my situation to do that. My greatest opposition is that it is uncomfortable for my sons. They’ve said they don’t like it.
March 28th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Sally,
I have interviewed a couple of women who were surprised, years into it, to discover that they actually were able to have some enjoyable conversations and interactions, friendships even, with their husband’s exes. I think that’s great if you want it and you can pull it off. As for being best pals with the ex, I’m with your sons on this one!
March 29th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Thanks, Wednesday. I have no interest in being friends with my ex. But a very weird event has happened. The wife of my ex and I have developed a nice (if a bit strange) telephone relationship in the last 10 years. Now that all of the various children are grown and married we realize we have things in common. We don’t discuss it with the adult children and we’ve agreed not to discuss her husband who is my ex. This is a place that’s new territory for me.
March 30th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Carole,
Thanks for writing. I think a lot of women with stepkids share your sense of stress about the upcoming “event season”–graduations, weddings, and other ceremonies that are difficult moments for lots of us. I’ll post something about this time of year and these events–and how women with stepkids often feel about it all–soon.
March 30th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Jenna,
It’s hard when someone, particularly our husband’s ex, not to mention the entire culture, thinks that nothing short of a mom and a stepmom being BFFs will suffice for the kids’ sake. Glad you know differently and have found some boundaries that work. Good luck!
March 30th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Sally,
I love your story of an unexpected connection with your husband’s ex! Also how clever of you guys to have topics that are “off limits,” such as Him. Please keep me posted, and please keep reading and commenting!
February 2nd, 2011 at 2:44 pm
My ex and I approached our divorce in the same manner as what I will call the “Demi/Bruce” approach. We actually did do vacations together. We got along very well – proving to the kids that we were friends prior to marriage and we wanted to maintain that friendship even though our marriage hadn’t worked. The children were in 4th and 7th grade when their father moved out. For the first year we did things this way. The children were never confused, never asked if we were getting back together, never once assumed we were. I spoke to them at length about it b/c I was concerned they would be confused They both totally got it and they thrived in that environment. Many people, including a friend who is a therapist, commented on how extremely well they were doing.
My current husband was all for this relationship and he and my ex actually get along pretty well. He was/is confident in our relationship, was never threatened by my friendship with my ex and was very supportive.
Then my ex started dating his current girlfriend which, this article points out, is often an issue. She stated, and I quote “I just don’t like her b/c she’s your ex-wife” “She’s trying to hard to be my friend (this b/c I had a conversation with her about migraines, a common topic.” End of the day, she is an extremely immature 50+ yr old woman who didn’t trust my ex to have a friendship with me (she would wait until he got in the shower to look through his text messages to see if he’d sent me a text) and did everything she could to undermine it. End result – we no longer have a friendship and my children are very upset about that and are now experiencing many of the typical negative results of divorced parents. The boys are now raised the way she wants in their house, which is very much the opposite of how we agreed to raise them. That is what is confusing for my kids.
I’m sure many children may be confused by parents who are still friendly and who still do things with their kids. But I’m also sure that there are plenty of kids whose parents “divorce normally” who still want their parents to get back together and are confused as to why their parents split. What I know is the “Demi/Bruce” was was working great for 3 adults and 2 kids, kids who were thriving in that environment and had a clear understanding that their parents had moved on. I think it’s a shame that another person couldn’t be mature enough to trust their partner to have a friendship with an ex which would have lead to both families getting along.
February 2nd, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Your husband’s wife does indeed sound possessive and insecure from your description. However I would avoid the tendency to vilify her and let him off the hook. He is as responsible for the change in relationship with you as she is. So you can stop the circuit of blame and anger at her by realizing it is a dynamic in his marriage and in his relationship to you that he is fully contributing to. Rather than holding “her” responsible for creating a bad situation for your kids.
The specifics of your experience aside, researchers including Francesca Adler-Baeder of the National Stepfamily Resource Center have found that highly cooperative and highly close relations between ex spouses are as damaging as high conflict ones. I hope you and your ex and his wife are able to find a middle ground that is helpful for everyone and I commend you for having your children’s best interests in mind. You can always normalize the situation, rather than adding fuel to the fire, by simply explaining to your children that sometimes when people remarry or repartner after a divorce they do not want to be as close to their ex spouse, but that they still love their children. If you explain to them that you are not hurt by this turn of events and respect that it is normal that couples often want privacy and new, less porous boundaries when they repartner after divorce, your children will not find anything unusual about dad being less in touch with you.
Bottom line: it is in your children’s best interest for you to de-personalize this injury you are experiencing as much as possible and show them that you are happy and fulfilled in your life regardless of how often you see your ex husband and his girlfriend.
Good luck and thanks for commenting,
Wednesday