Our Marriage Ended. Our Family Didn’t.

Perfect presence casts out fear. - Ava Soleil

This year marked our first full year as a family in a new form. Not in theory. Not just in intention. But in real life - school schedules and handoffs, big feelings and quiet wins, grief that still needed honoring and a peace that kept surprising us.

At the beginning of 2024, when Arend and I separated, I remember asking myself a simple but important question: Who made up the rules?

So many of the stories we hear about divorce are loud and chaotic - court battles, custody wars, bitterness that lingers for years. I remember thinking: What if it didn’t have to be that way? Not easy in a superficial sense. Not bypassing grief or pretending it didn’t hurt. But peaceful. Spacious. Human.

My prayer was that there could be flow. That we could remain friends. That we could be amazing co-parents. That our daughter, Scarlett, would never have to choose between us or carry the weight of our unfinished pain.

And the truth is - it hasn’t been easy. There have been roadblocks. Adjustments. Hard conversations. Very big feelings. Moments where grief demanded to be felt fully and honestly. But what I can say, without hesitation, is this: we have done it.

Scarlett is bearing witness to two parents who walked through divorce with grace and respect. Two people who allowed space for their own grief while staying anchored in love for her - and, in many ways, for each other. She has two parents who consistently show up. For her. And, in this new way, for one another.

There is a peace here that passes understanding.

And maybe one of the most meaningful parts of this year has been watching Scarlett watch me - her mother - be happy. Comfortably alive. At home in myself. Not surviving. Not shrinking. But truly living.

Recently, I was at a women’s group, and someone casually referred to my failed marriage. I didn’t say anything in the moment, but the words stayed with me.

A failed marriage.
A failed relationship.

Love does not measure. It just gives. - Mother Teresa

I suppose that is one way to look at it.

But I couldn’t help but ask myself: Is a relationship really a failure if love still remains? If respect remains? If care, gratitude, and mutual honoring remain?

There’s a quote - I don’t remember who it’s attributed to - but it goes something like: Anyone who says it can’t be done should not interrupt the people who are doing it. Because that’s what this feels like. Not a failure. But a quiet success. A re-writing of an old story.

Our little family may not fit the conventional script, but it is rooted in something deeper than appearances: presence, integrity, and love that refuses to turn bitter.

And for this year, for this peace, for this way of choosing one another differently, I am deeply grateful.