Yes, we had a Valentine’s Day wedding. (Note for anyone considering it: flowers are really expensive when you get married on V-Day!)

Since our wedding day, we’ve had two kids and been through a VERY rough divorce.

Today, we are once again living together in the same house and co-parenting our kids. This time as great friends. Maybe better friends than we ever were when we were dating or married.

I think it’s fair to say I love my ex more today than ever before. Family love. Like the kind I feel for my kids and my sister.  The kind of love that makes me want to do nice things for him, make his life easier, and take care of him.

Whenever I mention to folks that my ex and I are living together again, I get a lot of questions.  So in honor of Valentine’s Day, this post will provide some answers about how you too can love (and even live with) your ex again.

1.  Forgive radically.

Forgive the unforgivable.  And I do mean all of it.  If you heard some of the things I’ve forgiven, you’d say “no way, Alexis, I could never forgive that.”

Yes, you can.

And when you do, you’ll uncork a boundless amount of love within yourself and also for yourself.

When you withhold your forgiveness, you are not hurting your ex.  You are hurting yourself.  And your kids.

If you don’t know how to begin the process of forgiveness, be willing to see where you were 100% responsibility for your part of whatever you are pinning on your ex.  Then, forgive yourself for that.

If all else fails repeat this mantra silently to yourself until you feel forgiveness at your core:

“I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.”

2.  Accept completely.

Accept everything about your ex.  All of it.  Especially those things you simply could not accept when you were in relationship together.

Now that you are not together, they don’t affect you.  So, accept everything you couldn’t accept when you were together.  Your ex is not going to change.

You do know that by now, right?

If you say to yourself “well, those things do affect me because they affect my kids,” drop that.

Your kids came through the two of you because that is their path.  You chose to have children with this person. Forgive yourself for that and accept that your only role now is to help your kids learn how to grow through their relationship with your ex and accept even those parts of themselves that are just like your ex.

Whatever you do, never, never, never bad mouth your ex in front of your kids.  Ever.  When you fully accept your ex, you are showing your children they can love all parts of themselves.  When you badmouth your ex, you are implanting a message into your kids that there is something wrong with them.  Exactly what you don’t want to do.

Accept what is.

3.  Take nothing personally.

It’s quite possible that you are more emotionally developed than your ex.  If that is the case, see all of your future interactions as a test of the truth of that statement.  And if that is the case, it’s quite possible that your ex is still often triggered by interacting with you.

Have compassion for your ex every time he or she does that thing that used to get your goat when you were together.  Breathe.  Say to yourself “oh yeah, there’s that thing again.  that’s why we aren’t together. boy, am I happy to be free of that.”

And don’t take it personally.

It’s not about you.  Even if it’s something that’s being yelled at you in your face.  It’s still not about you.  Let it go and be grateful you get to walk away.

Three simple things that are not so simple in practice.  Forgive radically.  Accept completely. Take nothing personally.

Three ways of being in the world that will pay off tremendously for you, not just with your ex, but in every area of your life.

Today, on our 11th wedding anniversary, I am more grateful for my ex-husband than ever.  He’s been part of the fabric of my life for 16 years and shaped the me that I am today as much as my parents.

Every relationship (especially the difficult ones) give you an opportunity to be more of who you are.  To take the high road.   To forgive, when you think you can’t.  To have compassion.  To stop blaming and take personal responsibility for your part.  To love, even when it’s hard.

Loving your ex may be the very best thing you can ever do for yourself.

I really love when I can write 2-3 times a week.  But, with the money map launch (which we sold out with 100 attendees, so happy!) and finalizing LIFT (so, so, so close to launching), it just hasn’t been possible to do everything.

So, writing on the blog is what doesn’t get done.  And believe me, my kids are really happy about that because it means I didn’t choose my blog over them.

But, it truly is a conundrum for me.  I want to be a blogger.  A real blogger.  In fact, as soon as I saw ProBlogger’s list of bloggers to watch in 2010, I knew I would aim to be on that list for 2011.

And yet, I haven’t yet figured out the magical recipe of running my businesses, raising my kids AND regularly blogging on the bloggity blog.

My intent is to figure it out by the time I re-launch this blog with it’s new name and design in the next few weeks.  (Oh, and by the way, the name is changing from the Intrepid Mompreneur to Life, Business and the Pursuit of Truth – the tagline of being afraid and doing it anyway will remain the same.)

In the meantime, life is good.

Today is my ex-husband’s birthday and he let me give him a hug and now he’s letting me take him out to breakfast with the kids.  Such progress from just a couple of years ago when he wouldn’t even look at me.  Just this week, we had one of the best conversations we’ve had in the 16 years we’ve known each other.

In case you didn’t know, he lives with me and the kids in our house in Colorado.  But, he’ll be going back and forth to Los Angeles each month to take care of some business he has going on there.  And, he has agreed to be here with the kids so I can do all the travel I need to (and want to) do for my businesses.

I’m going to run now so I can take the ex to that breakfast I mentioned before he thinks I’m not giving him my attention, which is what led to our divorce in the first place.

I’ll be back with a new post about transforming from a small business owner into an inspired business leader as soon as I get a few more minutes to write.

Then, I get quoted in an article about women who pay their ex-husband’s alimony and all the sudden I’ve got all the national networks beating down my door (okay, not quite all of them and not quite beating down my door, but you get the point).

First, it was the CBS Early Show. Then, they aired the segment on the CBS nightly news. And now, I’ll be appearing on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning talking about it too.

Not that I mind, mind you. It’s good stuff for my reel and I’ve always welcomed the opportunities that came my way, even if they seemed a bit random, because you never know what leads to what.

I’ll bring my book with me to Fox & Friends on Wednesday and maybe after they get to know me, they’ll invite me back to talk about legal planning for parents.

And I do love that I get to share why I’m paying alimony and child support to my ex. I hope it inspires someone who is going through a divorce (especially where kids are involved) and fighting for every last entitlement to just let it go and move on. Give more than you ever thought possible and go out and make more.

Maybe this is what my next book should be about. Got title ideas? Post em in the comments. Whatever you do, don’t have the word “manimony” in the title though. It’s an annoying word that rubs me the wrong way. Alimony does not equate to woman-i-mony, so manimony is just silly.

Oh, and by the way, I don’t think alimony should be paid to either party in a marriage where there was no children and no agreement for the lower wage earner to give up earning potential to support the partnership/relationship by providing personal services instead of money.

When it is the case that one partner/spouse gave up earning potential, you can think of it as back wages.

But, where the non wage-earner spouse just earns less because that is his or her chosen path, why should the higher wage earner spouse have to pay? If it wasn’t for my kids, I’d tell my ex-husband to get off his ass and get to work. But, I do really like him being available for the kids and their school events and if he can’t work and do that, I’d rather support him to be readily available for them. He deserves it and so do they.