My ex-wife and I reconnected as friends a couple of years after splitting, and I found it helpful that we could be honest about what happened between us so we could avoid doing certain things in our present relationships.

Yes, having kids leads to certain sacrifices, but my parents believed they still needed to make time for their relationship so they had a Friday night date night for a long time while they were raising us.

They were married 62 years when my father passed.