Ending a long relationship does not just close one chapter, it reopens questions you thought you had already answered about your own worth. I want to talk honestly about what that stretch has looked like for me, co-parenting well, and what it actually takes to date again without letting old fear write the script.
Co-Parenting as Its Own Practice
Building a healthy, respectful relationship with an ex-partner after divorce is a daily practice, not a one-time decision. It asks you to keep choosing your children's stability over your own need to be right about the past. That does not mean swallowing everything. It means being deliberate about what you bring into shared space and what you process elsewhere.
Honour the Fear Instead of Arguing With It
Fear and rejection show up loudly when you consider being vulnerable again. My instinct used to be to argue myself out of the fear, to reason it away. What actually works is honouring it first, feeling it fully, and letting it move through rather than around you.
A simple breathing practice helps here: slow the exhale longer than the inhale, and let your attention come back into your body instead of spinning in the story. This calms the nervous system enough that you can actually choose your next move instead of reacting from the old wound.
Talking About Intimacy Honestly
New relationships ask for a different kind of honesty than the one you may have practised in your last one. Say what you need. Say where your boundaries are, plainly, early, before resentment has a chance to build in the silence where clarity should have been.
"You are allowed to want intimacy again. You are also allowed to move toward it slowly, on your own timeline."
Listen to the full episode
Episode 99, From Divorce to Daring, on The Scrumptious Woman.
This teaching is part of Juliette Karaman's body-based work on touch, desire, and structured connection.
Work with Juliette: feelfullyyou.com/work-with-me