Does the amicable breakup exist? I have friends who are still close with their ex spouse. They come to their birthday parties and pet sit for each others dogs. How do you get to this point? Are they such sensible and evolved people that they just sat down at the end and talked it out with love and compassion and decided on what was best for both of them?

The alternative is grim. It seems to me that the whole process of lawyering up and heading to court would create such a divide that it would seem impossible to recapture a friendly relationship. I see people in the throws of the process tearing each other apart. Its hard to imagine that they ever loved each other. I understand the temptation. The anger and the disappointment is huge. The loss is vast. Never mind all the material things that you need to part with. Plus, there is the looming and potentially scary lonely future out there.

I really just want to work it out. Not as a couple anymore but as a person who loved another person for many years and now wants to move on. I wish there was a mediator for this. Someone who could walk you through all the steps of dismantling your relationship and turning it into a friendship.

Life really should come with a manual. It is way too complicated.