What is crucial is that you hold on to respect for one another, as you move through this process. Matthew Fray, couples coach and author of This is How Your Marriage Ends, put it like this: “What is best for my child, without question, is that their parents are the best, healthiest people they can possibly be. Therefore, loving my child effectively requires love and care for their other parent. Trying to help them achieve whatever the best version of themselves is. Love doesn’t have to mean romantic love. Love can mean respect and care.” Separation brings with it so many complexities, from the practical to the deeply emotional. There are resources and groups to help you navigate this time, including:

And what happens to all of those messy feelings? Of course they need somewhere to go, and it is usual for there to be some conflict in the first year or two post-separation. Finding places to express this away from your ex and your children is not only helpful but also essential for you, and for children too, whether that is to friends, other family members, online support groups or a therapist. Be aware that your way of doing things may be very different from your partner’s, even on the small stuff. An open mind helps, rather than an idea that one of you is right. See arguments about each other’s family as a joint problem, not something that your partner has to deal with on their own. Both people’s feelings are important, even if hard to hear. Ogden Nash, the American poet, writes that incompatibility between husbands and wives is the “spice of life”. This incompatibility is also my trade. In my work over 20 years first as a divorce lawyer and then as a couple therapist I’ve heard many arguments – everything from how to do the washing up to conflicts about money and differences of opinion on parenting. But even the most ordinary arguments often mask feelings of greater significance. “Our deeper fears and frustrations, and the things we may find it difficult to express openly with each other can often express themselves in the domestic world,” writes Harrison. A row can be about the washing up, and also serve as part of an ongoing negotiation of the whole relationship.And what rich opportunities there are! The people we live with thoughtfully foster our personal development daily, filling our favourite mug with WD40, piling washing in a mouldering heap to “dry” and turning the sink into an immersive art installation called something like “Teabag Butterknife Pan Soak IX”. Harrison writes that she has heard every variant of washing-up fight, and I believe it: dishwasher Tetris topped my unscientific survey of common fight topics by miles – we’re all exercised by fork prongs and pre-rinsing.

FALSE If politics matters deeply to you then yes, says Bose, you need to be aligned. But if it doesn’t, voting for different political parties probably won’t unseat your relationship to any extent. “Much more important is sharing the same values: what’s important to you, what you truly believe matters. If you don’t agree on values, it seeps into your everyday life and can affect your relationship at a very deep level.” Relationship problems always come down to money or sex TRUE You can be playful with someone, says Real, “but if you look into their eyes, there’s a difference between the shades being down – ‘shop closed’ – and the signal ‘come hither’. And if you’re using the sexual energy between you and someone else to feel excited, that’s like a mini-affair.” The rule is this, says Real: if your partner could hear you, and the way you’re speaking would upset them, it’s not OK. People can’t change

One parent, who is co-parenting at a distance after leaving an abusive partner, can have the final word: “In a nutshell, it’s been both the worst and the best thing that has ever happened to me. I wouldn’t change it for the world and am such a better parent for it.” Resources for separated parents FALSE This is one of those saccharine myths we’ve been sold by romantic fairytales. However close you are to someone, says Joanna Harrison, divorce lawyer-turned-couples-therapist and author of Five Arguments All Couples (Need to) Have, you’ll never be able to second-guess them on everything. “And why would you want to? That would be boring. Also, people change; we’re all evolving.” What matters is that you each share what you’re feeling, you listen to one another, and you try to see things from your partner’s point of view. No relationship can survive an affair FALSE Even for an experienced therapist like Joanna Harrison, it’s often not clear whether a couple are going to make it through. “Individuals have different thresholds for what they can deal with in a relationship,” she says. “There are no absolutes, no moment where it has to be all over.” You need to have lots in common

FALSE So often, says Terrence Real, family therapist and author of Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, rows happen because one or both partners have been drinking, or they’re not feeling good, or it’s late and you’re both tired. “What I say is: you’re not going to resolve anything tonight. Go to bed, and the next morning have a cup of tea together and talk it through.” All relationships are about the cycle of closeness, disruption and return to closeness. “Our culture worships the harmony phase, but a good relationship thrives on surviving the mess. The work of intimacy is the collision of imperfections, and how we manage those.” It’s wrong to flirt with other people My wife and I have had all these arguments and more – arguments about why things have been left where they have been left, arguments about togetherness and space, about decisions taken without consultation, or plans insufficiently diarised.Treat arguments not as something you need to win but as an opportunity to learn something important – it’s often in the debrief after an argument that you can learn what the issue with the washing up was really all about. Jo Harrison is FLiP’s in house therapist. She is extremely experienced in working with individuals and couples, including partners who are separating. Jo previously practiced as a lawyer, before becoming a couple therapist. Jo has featured in The Times and The Saturday Times talking about the value of couple therapy and she has made appearances on ITV’s This Morning (the Relationship Clinic) and Marina Fogle’s The Parent Hood. TRUE It’s tempting to hope a child who shares your genes, who you created together, will bond you and keep your relationship going. But, says Abse, relationship satisfaction goes down in the early weeks, months and years after the arrival of a baby. “Having a baby changes everything – you can’t underestimate that. You lose freedom, you lose autonomy, you lose intimacy. It’s a really challenging time for a couple.” You can have a good sex life for ever Your feelings, and those of your ex and children, will be confusing for a while! You might have huge mixed emotions. Imagine that you are riding them, like a surfer on waves, rather than try and resolve and understand all of them at once. The waters will calm and things will feel smoother over time. Utilise those around you to help you surf them. Before she trained as a couples therapist, Harrison was a divorce lawyer, which sounds like a pretty sharp career swerve. “I was obviously drawn to work with relationships,” she says. “I think I realised that I was in the wrong forum, because I was just much more interested in the relationship stuff. Often people get into the legal forum to deal with their relationship stuff, but it isn’t necessarily a very helpful way of dealing with it. I started training as a couples therapist thinking it would make me a better divorce lawyer, but it made me realise I didn’t want to do that.”