Cathy Stanworth: Nothing shocking about being friends with your ex - celebrate!

The images she was talking about were of my then 14-year-old son’s birthday BBQ celebration in my back garden. There was the birthday boy, me, his dad, his brother, cousins, auntie and uncle, both grandmas and a few others. So you might think what was so shocking about that?

It was the fact that “dad” is my ex-husband and the others included his second wife/stepmother to my boys and my ex-mother in law/grandma. We were all pictured smiling, having a lovely time in the sun.

Rather than this being shocking, I think it should be celebrated. In a world when there is so much divorce, with a lot of bad feeling between many exes, we are friendly ones. We have always worked together for the sake of the children. They found themselves having to deal with mum and dad divorcing, and then moving house to live mainly with mum, when they were aged just five and three years of age.

I have now been a divorced single mum for 14 years. I am not going to pretend it has always been easy, sometimes it was very challenging, and I relied heavily on support from my late parents. The boys would stay with their dad and his new wife every other weekend. We would take them on separate holidays, celebrate the children’s birthdays together and my ex has always paid maintenance. It could have been a lot worse.

I’m sure you’ve heard some of the horror stories about when divorce gets nasty, and I mean really nasty. Women in particular are known for having the ability to become extremely vengeful against their ex- husband (I am not saying all women).

It can ramp up a gear when he moves on and, God forbid, finds and falls in love with another partner and is living a happier life with them. Of course it also works the other way round. The British Second Wives Club (www.bswc.co.uk) was launched to provide help, advice and support for women who are experiencing the trials and tribulations of being with a man who has a past. It quotes unfortunate real life tales such as how a judge won’t allow a mother to take her son to live in Hong Kong as the ‘father can’t hug son over Skype’. But it also recognises that women are just as guilty of making life hell for their former partners.

Another story is about a vegetarian mother who refused to let her son, five, see his father for a year in case he fed him meat.

And then there was the mother who stopped the father seeing his daughter for 12 years – despite 82 court orders demanding she back down.

I heard a story not so long ago where a wife ended up with her abusive husband holding a knife to her throat. Later, with their children now living with her, he would repeatedly report her to the police on fabricated charges, send a constant barrage of abusive and threatening rambling letters and drive up and down the road in front of her house. He re-married, then did the same to the next wife. How do I know this? Because both wives met up to compare notes!

When there is so much hatred between exes, how are the children supposed to cope and feel? Isn’t it sensible to realise that the children’s happiness should come first?

Our sons, now aged 16 and 19 are calm, quietly confident, talented and polite young people, flourishing at their chosen interests.

Myself and my ex-husband and his second wife’s relationship is so good that when I asked him last year if they would look after the boys while my new partner and I went on a cruise, he immediately said yes.

“We will have them. Whenever. You are going on that holiday. You deserve it!”

And the boys and I in turn look after my ex-husband and his second wife’s beloved dog when they go abroad.

Another photograph I put on facebook last year was of a gathering at a country inn where we were then celebrating my eldest son’s 18th birthday. We are on the terrace taking photographs. My ex-husband’s second wife suggested that my son stand between my ex husband and myself so she could take a photograph.

“There, you need to have a pic with your mum and dad,” she said. Now if that shouldn’t be celebrated, I don’t know what should!