Celebrating Holidays under One Roof with Your Spouse During Divorce

Many divorcing couples decide to live in their marital home together until they are finally divorced on paper. Since life doesn’t stand still, they are very likely to end up in the hot seat such as when the holiday season is coming. No matter whether it is a lack of money or any other reason why you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse cannot live separately you have to make this holiday memorable for your family, especially if you have little kids. Below, there are a few useful tips on how to survive the upcoming holiday season while living under one roof with your soon-to-be ex-spouse.

Be Open About How You Feel

During such dark days when you are amidst a legal divorce process, your family must know exactly what you want and need the most. Oftentimes, a family likes giving lectures to divorcing partners about how they should approach their break-up. If such unwanted advice makes you feel worse, tell them that you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse are now focused on staying respectful of each other and help your little ones adjust to a new family structure more easily, and that you would appreciate if they say nothing bad about your "almost" ex in front of you and your kids.

Since your relatives want to support you, they should know what is and what isn’t supportive at all. However, if you don’t think that they can help you and your spouse stay on good terms, then ask for some space from them at least until you are officially divorced. 

Plan the next holiday season ahead of time

The great thing about the holidays is that we always know when they happen. This knowledge lets us plan out our spare time in advance. It is important that you and your spouse can pull together to come up with a detailed plan for the next few days. However, if you don’t think that you and your partner can agree well enough, then you should better look for a person who will help you two reach an understanding. Attending a few mediation sessions may help your couple not only survive the upcoming holiday but also make it memorable for your kids.

Keep with some holiday traditions

If your couple has kids in common, then you should do your best to create lasting memories by honoring your family traditions. Talk to your soon-to-be ex-spouse and decide on which traditions are the most important for your little ones. Given the circumstances, don’t neglect to adjust these traditions so that you two feel comfortable keeping with them. While some traditions are easy to honor, such as watching Christmas-themed movies and cooking your favorite food together, others may put you in an awkward position, such as visiting your spouse’s family or going to a family photo session.

It is up to you which traditions to keep with and which ones to forget. Keep in mind that engaging in what your family has always maintained will allow your kids to see that even if their parents are preparing their legal divorce documents, they still love them and cherish their "together" time.

Change or Give Up on Some Traditions

When your marriage falls apart, you should be ready that many things that have been important to you are no longer of great value or even can be damaging. Same deal with your family holiday traditions. While keeping with the traditions that everybody doesn’t like anymore can damage your parent-child relationship, it is time to give up on them. If you used to hold all-day gatherings that seem to be stressful nowadays and that may lead to fights between you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse, it is time to replace them with other activities.

As soon as you have a new home, it will be much easier for you to come up with new traditions. Consider your break-up as a transitional stage where you and your kids can try something new and create new memories that fit the current circumstances.

Speak to Your Kids

If you little ones overheard how their parents were filling out their cheap divorce papers online, it doesn’t make any sense to hide anything from them; otherwise, things may get even worse. Tell them about your decision and discuss with them the upcoming holiday season. Let us say, you can tell your kids why you are going to go skiing the next weekend together as a family and why only they and their mom are going to their grandpa’s. Be prepared that your kids may get sad or anxious about the current circumstances. If your little ones have no idea about what is going on, it is better if you deal with your conflicts and find the best divorce service, such as onlinedivorcer.com, first and only then spill the beans.

Take Care of Yourself

It is hard to find something more complicated and exhausting than getting divorced. You don’t know what to expect from your decision and thus you may feel like you lose your temper very often. Since holidays by themselves are emotionally loaded for some of us, it makes sense to develop effective strategies that will help you modify your traditions and set realistic expectations for everybody. It is also time to take care of yourself: there is nothing better than feeling strong and healthy both physically and emotionally during such a rough time. Don’t forget to treat yourself, too.