Divorce is a sadly common practice in the U.S. According to reports, if rates continue as they are it could be as common as 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce. Perhaps the most tragic of broken unions are the ones that involve children. However, divorced couples with children have the potential to have civil and even peaceful relationships when both individuals focus directly on the children.

New research conducted at the University of Missouri offers hope for divorced parents and suggests hostile relationships can improve when ex-spouses set aside their differences and focus on their children’s needs.

“Most people falsely believe that, when people get divorced, they’ll continue to fight, to be hostile,” said Marilyn Coleman, Curators’ Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at MU. “We found in our study that’s not always true. Some couples get along from the very beginning, and, for about half of the women we interviewed, the couples whose relationships started badly improved over time.”

Coleman and colleagues interviewed 20 women who shared custody with ex-partners. Half reported having contentious relationships with their ex-partners and the other half reported their relationship to be civil and even amicable.

The reason being?

Click here to read the original article from Counsel&Heal.

Stringfellow, S.C., “Divoced Couples Relationship can Improve with Co-Parenting.” Weblog entry. Counsel&Heal. August 16, 2012. Accessed June 25, 2013, from http://www.counselheal.com/articles/2559/20120816/divorced-couples-relationship-can-improve-with-co-parenting.htm.