Reconcilable Differences

(3 of 3)

Patrick is in college at UCLA, and Morgan has graduated and moved away, but the feeling of family among the three adults grows ever stronger. They borrow one another's cars. Jim comes downstairs to use Adair's copier. Adair runs upstairs to borrow tomatoes from what she calls "the Jimstore." Bill or Jim often cooks dinner for the other two. Indeed, a colleague once quipped that Adair's divorce was better than most people's marriages.

Not all divorced couples can or want to share a home. More attainable--and for many, more desirable--may be a relationship like the one Long Island landscape designer Jane Lappin has with her ex-husband, carpenter David Robertson. The couple was fighting viciously by the end of their four-year marriage. The divorce proceedings only exacerbated their mutual hostility. "I would rather go back for another year of combat in Vietnam than go through another divorce," says David. "It was just horrible." Both were concerned about the effect their animosity might have on John, 3 at the time of their divorce.

Over the next two years they slowly rebuilt a relationship, this one based not on the attractions that originally brought them together but on restraint, careful civility and their love for their son. Jane has primary custody but lives just a mile from David, and John, now 14, visits his father whenever he wants. Every Sunday both parents sit down with John for a big home-cooked meal at Jane's house, and the three often dine together at a restaurant during the week. The focus of conversation: John. "We discuss the problems, mostly about attitude and ability in school, typical teenage stuff," says David. Sometimes the three vacation together; they book one room for John and his father, another for Jane. The parents get along so well now that strangers assume they're married. But John fosters no illusions. "Sometimes it feels like they're still together," he acknowledges, "but it's better because there's no fighting."

Not every divorced couple who aspires to hold on to the good parts of family life succeeds. One woman, who insisted on anonymity, said of her attempt to birdnest: "It was the worst year of my life." And some couples--particularly those whose marriages were abusive--should never consider any arrangement in which marital miseries could recur. But for others, creative thinking can lead to unusually satisfying situations. New York City mediator Ann Frisch says she's seeing a proliferation of novel arrangements in her practice. "We try to brainstorm with parents so they can come up with their own unique solutions, and it's astonishing how many solutions there are to the problem of how to deal with children so they don't suffer from divorce," says Frisch. Among her divorced clients are ex-spouses who birdnest, a father who relocated to another state to maintain contact with his kids and accommodate his ex-wife's new job assignment, a mother who helps out at her ex-husband's business.

Even the most custom-crafted arrangements don't last forever. Parents remarry. New spouses bring in stepchildren. Kids grow up and move away. But by the time change is necessary, families accustomed to thinking imaginatively are often able to create a new design for living that suits their new family situation.