A few weeks ago, a man came to stay at my house and he and I made so much noise at 1am that we feared we might wake the children. The next morning at breakfast, we had to explain ourselves and apologise.

The man was my ex-husband, and he was telling me an anecdote in the early hours that had us both in fits of laughter. We separated in January 2009, and divorced a year later. He has since remarried, and lives in another city, but often comes to visit our three teenage sons. We have spent several Christmases, Easters and birthdays together.

If liking and being nice to your former partner is the essence of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s “conscious uncoupling”, it could be said that my ex-husband and I are living that dream. In the three years since they announced their much-ridiculed approach to family life and relations post-marriage, the idea of the friendly divorce has become increasingly mainstream. As Helena Bonham Carter said of Tim Burton, her former husband of 13 years, “I think we’ll have something very precious still.” Actor Kate Beckinsale is so friendly with her ex Michael Sheen (the father of their daughter) that she’s often seen hanging out with him and his girlfriend, Sarah Silverman.

And then there’s the rise of the divorce selfie, taken outside the courtroom, showing smug ex-marrieds beaming away together in the spirit of a bright future ahead of them (with a caption such as “We smile not because it’s over but because it happened”). January traditionally sees a spike in calls to family lawyers from couples wishing to uncouple. The first question for many is: can you really have a happy split?

Divorce coach Carol Sullivan thinks so. She runs Divorce Negotiator, which operates throughout England and Wales. Unlike solicitors who represent the separate parties, Sullivan assists both husband and wife and, “to stop the escalation”, maintains transparency between them. She claims to save a typical couple 80% of the cost of going to a solicitor, and 50% of their time. So far, she has helped more than 1,000 couples, many of whom apologise to each other and go out for drinks despite their decree nisi.

“People are doing divorce differently – that is, better,” Sullivan says. “They are more aware that the only winners are the lawyers, and bitterness and vengeance don’t get anybody anywhere.”

Of course, most people would say they’d like to divorce “well”, at least in theory, usually for the sake of any children involved. But, in practice, anger and hurt usually muddy the waters.

I am insufferably smug about what my ex-husband and I have managed to pull off, but I won’t pretend it was instant. The parting of the ways was painful beyond anything I had ever experienced, but we managed to sort out our financial affairs and living arrangements ourselves. A lawyer friend kindly did the essential paperwork for both of us. We never went to court, and our whole divorce cost £90. Eight years have since passed, and time has done its cliched but excellent bit in terms of healing. Rancour has been and gone, leaving all the things we liked about each other in the first place: enjoyment of each other’s company, great communication, affection and respect. Plus all the things we have together accumulated over the years, namely three great boys, an important shared history and the recognition that prolonged bitterness eats away at people and benefits nobody.

It’s difficult, but this approach is becoming more common. I have a friend whose husband went off with another woman. After her shock and anger subsided, she had him to stay with his new girlfriend several times, and even took coffee up to them in the morning. (Talk about forgiveness.) “It was nice for the kids to see I was accepting of her with him,” she tells me. “I liked him. I liked her.” She says she didn’t indulge in any power play, at least not consciously.

The prevailing view is that good relations benefit the children, if you have them. Phyllis Maguire-Harrington, 33, is a carer and nursery manager. She sees many families who aren’t amicable, which has only compounded her belief that friendly divorce is vital – even when she found out, three years into their marriage, that her husband had been unfaithful.

“It hurt massively,” she says now, “but our daughter is my world. Even though I ended the marriage there and then, and never once wavered, I always spoke to him and let him see her. My daughter deserves both parents.”

There was no court case. The same lawyer represented them both. It was all their own terms; he just did the paperwork. Her ex-husband has exactly the same parental rights as she does.

The couple, both from Wokingham, met at a bowling alley in their early 20s. Kieran Harrington, 35, remembers that she “started dancing and I thought, wow!” He found her generous, with a lot of time for others. Phyllis says she is very energetic, while Kieran was “very chilled” and happy to go along with anything she threw at him. They married in 2008 and separated in 2011, when their daughter was a year old.

“To be brutally honest, I cheated on her,” Kieran says. “It’s one of those things I can’t explain. It was nothing she ever did or didn’t do. When she found out, she went ballistic. I’d never seen her like that. I deserved it. I tried to get her back, but eventually knew it was hopeless.”

You can be vengeful and angry and selfish. All those ugly emotions you can keep up for years, but that’s destructive

“It was complicated,” Phyllis says, “because in September 2007 he had a brain haemorrhage and that altered him.” Kieran says that, although he doesn’t remember being tempted before the brain haemorrhage, it is nonetheless too easy an excuse. Either way, he says, the two flings with colleagues “were a huge mistake”. Initially, he says, there was “some nastiness” from Phyllis, but then it went away.

“For a long time I wanted him to be my Kieran,” Phyllis says, “but he had changed. After the brain haemorrhage, I became more like a carer. I knew he was no longer fully in control of himself, and a psychologist told us he was never going to change. I had a baby and couldn’t live like that any more, the suspicious wife.”

The divorce came through in December 2014 and Kieran, a prison custody officer, now lives with his father and sister. He and Phyllis still see each other most days, and go on holiday together. They took Erin, now five, to Disneyland Paris for new year and glamping in Cornwall. Neither has another partner.

“I did for a while,” Phyllis says, “and he and Kieran accepted each other, but he wanted to get married and I didn’t. I think Kieran put me off for life,” she laughs.

These days, Kieran confides in Phyllis about dates and she gives him advice. He admits he’d like to get back together with her, but knows that’s never going to happen; he also knows that it could all have been very different had Phyllis not been so forgiving. “I could have lost a lot more,” he says. “As it is, the friendship we have – having a laugh, watching movies together, sharing a bottle of wine when the little one is asleep – is the best I can hope for, given I’d still like to be married to her. I’ll be a little bit jealous when she’s with someone else, but I messed up, so I haven’t a leg to stand on. I’m grateful I’ve got this much and know we will be friends for life.”

Phyllis agrees: “We’re very close. We couldn’t not be, after all we’ve been through. But the divorce was the right decision. Would I get back with him? Never. He’s not the man I fell in love with.”

***

Specialist family lawyer Peter Martin has been practising at London firm OGR Stock Denton for 40 years, and has worked with thousands of couples. In his experience, roughly 25-30% of couples are able to be friends afterwards, and it’s not always to protect the children. “In some ways, it is easier for couples without children to stay friends,” Martin says. “Once the finances are sorted out, they are able to get on with their lives. They can become friends again, because they no longer have any pressures on them.”

On the other hand, Martin says, couples without children have less reason to stay in touch. “Those with children have to continue to communicate, and they are more likely, because of that, to rebuild a friendship. A forced friendship, because of having children, often develops in time into the real thing. It’s the sort of thing I see a lot – I’m thinking of the first dance of a divorced couple as parents at their child’s wedding.”

Barry Rutter, 69, an actor, is founder and artistic director of Northern Broadsides, a touring company. He credits his ex-wife, Carol, 65, a professor of Shakespeare and performance studies at the University of Warwick, with their excellent relationship after nearly 20 years of marriage and 20 years of divorce. She credits him with not forcing her and their girls out of their home. “You can be vengeful and angry and selfish and do all that stuff,” Carol says. “All those ugly emotions you can keep up for years, but that’s just destructive.”

The couple met while Barry was on tour in America in 1976. “She, with her Californian chutzpah, came backstage to congratulate me,” he says.

“He had the tight curls of a Raphael angel and a boxer’s nose,” she says. “He was bolshie, challenging: a Yorkshireman. Everything around him was different and new.”

She moved to England a year later, and they soon married. Their shared passion meant they always had things to talk about. Briony was born in 1982; their son, Harry, two years later, but he died from cot death aged just 98 days. Barry’s support in the aftermath made Carol feel “an overwhelming sense that our marriage could survive; how amazing it was that he could love me that much”.

I wanted my freedom to roam, and yet the home and family. It was a stupid, macho, dumb attitude to have

When he set up his own company, Barry was working so hard, Carol says, “I think he started kind of shifting.” Rowan, their younger daughter, was four. Carol had a full-time job at the university and Barry came home “wanting shiny faces”. There was a gap. “It was,” Barry says, “a build-up of events, which I took to be a diminution between us. And my own restlessness. The cliche: the grass is always greener. The official divorce says adultery, but it is never as simple as that. I didn’t fall in love, but I was distracted.”

Barry says it was raw. “I remember we met in the garden shed and she asked what I wanted, and I said all of my freedom to roam, and yet the home and family. It was a stupid, macho, dumb attitude to have. It was my folly. You make choices, and choices can bite.”

“How did I come back from that?” Carol says. “I went to see a divorce person who said don’t fight, it’s not worth it; work it out between you. I was able to keep the man separate from the actor and, little by little, the birth of our three children, the death of our son, those things you shared, count. They represent the real core values of you two as people, as against the accidents of making bad decisions.”

Barry says it was entirely Carol’s “leading” that set them on the footing they are on today. “‘It’s got to be about the future’: I remember her saying that. I myself didn’t have it in me to come up with anything like that. It’s a testament to her. I’d hope she is my best friend. She’s kept the name [Rutter]. I’ve always been rather pleased about that.”

These days, their daughters are both married, and they still see each other at least once a month and speak often. Carol goes to watch her ex-husband perform. She says he is perhaps better at expressing his emotions on stage, but he always made her laugh off it, and always will.

Tara Saglio has been a couples and individual psychotherapist for two decades. She believes that most divorced couples have to experience a period of proper separation before they can actively be friends again. “As a generalisation, I think it takes five years for people to settle post-divorce,” she says. “It helps if both parties have reached a point where they can feel equally content, instead of one being miserable and the other blissfully loved-up with a new partner – or even of one being blissfully alone and the other in a less than ideal rebound relationship.” The chance of friendship depends on the emotional maturity of both parties. “In my experience,” Saglio adds, “it is usually the couples for whom the passion has dwindled or gone, and who don’t feel so betrayed or rejected, who can be friends. Sexual rejection or broken trust can skewer things.”

Facebook, Instagram and so on can make it harder for couples to move on. “Of course, social media always presents a happy if not idealised picture of everyone’s lives,” Saglio says. “It is hard to separate fully while having one’s nose rubbed in the ex’s new life. On the upside, technology can be a force for good, depending on how it is used. It makes continued contact quicker and easier. A text or email is more emotionally distant than a face-to-face or phone conversation. A bit of a barrier can be a good thing.”

Resolution is an organisation of family law professionals that promotes nonconfrontational divorce settlements. Nigel Shepherd, its national chair, says that avoiding unnecessary argument demands a shift of perspective: “By nonconfrontational, we mean focusing on what is required for the future, as opposed to getting stuck in what happened in the past.” A Resolution survey found that 90% of cases settle without a judge.

Current divorce law doesn’t exactly help people to remain friendly: unless former couples are prepared to wait for two years once they have separated, they have no option but to cite adultery, unreasonable behaviour or (admittedly rarely) desertion on the paperwork. Resolution believes that a couple should be allowed to divorce simply if they think the marriage has broken down, a so-called “no-fault divorce”, and are lobbying for change. “The current process, which pushes the majority into blame, often against their will, can really put the spanner in the works,” Shepherd says.

***

Businesswoman Sarah Bevan never lost sight of the fact that she wanted to retain her friendship with her husband, Tim, despite her deep sadness when their marriage came to an end. “We were originally friends, and I wanted very strongly to maintain that for the greater good of our family,” she says. “We always had a lot of fun and we managed to retain that.”

Sarah, who is now single and in her 40s, lives in south London, and is setting up her own company. Tim, 50, the MD of a packaging and design company, lives in Hove. The pair met at work in London and married in 1994. They have three teenage children. “The friendship was overriding in the relationship,” Tim says. “Any other issues were put to one side. That’s what carried us. But then I started to do better in my career, which made me more confident and, when other possibilities presented themselves, I was weak enough to succumb.”

It was 2004. He admitted he was having an affair (not his first); they finally parted in 2005 and divorced in 2011. Tim says he walked away with two pictures, a stereo and a pink tea towel.

There were no lawyers, and nothing on paper; money was divided according to their own agreement. The divorce cost £560. Rather than argue in court, he wanted Sarah and the children to have a home and security. He credits their friendship today to his ex-wife’s openness and strength, and thinks they have both pulled off something “pretty extraordinary”. According to Tim, both realise they are not going to be “jumping into bed with each other” again, but hopes they’ll be best friends for life.

“She’s currently offering me advice on cholesterol,” he laughs. “She’s still got my back!” It helped that neither of them “slagged each other off” to the children. The family has a group chat online most days and he visits them every Tuesday for a curry evening.

There were phases of extreme anger and massive hurt, Sarah says, but “even though he’s certainly a difficult character, I love him and we hug and say we love each other”. He remains an important part of her life, all the more so because her parents died recently in tragic circumstances. As Tim says, that “focused everyone on what’s important”.

“Despite everything we’ve put each other through,” Tim says, “we’ve come out of it. We will be sitting in our deckchairs in 30 years’ time with our mint tea, looking at the children, and thinking, ‘We’ve done good.’”

How to divorce well

1. Slow down. Reactive decisions are usually bad ones; if you are feeling hurt, or have just discovered your partner with someone else, don’t take any legal action until the red mist has gone.

2. Try to be rational. Going through a separation is highly emotional, but try to put that to one side and sit down with a neutral party with the aim of making sensible decisions. Remember that you loved the other person once.

3. Decide on your priorities. More often than not one of the biggest goals is to move on with your life with your dignity intact. The more amicable the divorce, the quicker it will be over, leaving you to get on with the next chapter of your life. It is also a lot cheaper.

4. Go to a good family lawyer. Find a family specialist committed to working out solutions as amicably as possible and in a way that will preserve your relationship with your spouse.

5. Expect a big change in your lifestyle. Your life is going to change dramatically; being shocked by this can often lead to resentment and breed conflict. Your partner’s life will be changing, too, and they will have the same problems adjusting as you are. Yes, really.

6. Don’t do it the celebrity way. You don’t have to fight dirty to get the best result – in fact, judges will frown upon it when making their settlement.

7. Don’t listen to your friends. Turn to them for emotional support but remember that every marriage is different and every divorce is different. Just because friends think it is a good idea, doesn’t mean it is.

8. Be the bigger person. Even if your nearly ex is trying to play dirty, don’t rise to the bait. It is easier said than done, but I often hear from people who, years later, regret that they allowed themselves to be brought down to that level.

9. Think about divorce before you get married. What will your situation be if things don’t work out? Consider how your partner is likely to behave in those circumstances as well. Think about a prenuptial agreement – realism does not have to be anti-romantic.

10. If you have children, be nice for their sake. It is only in the most exceptional circumstances that it is not in the children’s interests for their parents to remain friendly.

Peter Martin, family lawyer, OGR Stock Denton

