It’s easy to think nothing but evil thoughts about a former spouse or spousal equivalent*. You went into the relationship swimming in endorphins and serotonin, sure that this was so different from every other relationship you’ve had, from every other relationship that’s ever been. You were positive it would last for ever. And then, maybe after years, maybe after months, things changed. You started sliding into something that eventually resembled some kind of nightmare — maybe not the kind that wakes you up in a cold sweat as an adult, but certainly something you feared as a teenager: being alone and unloved. So you cut your losses and end whatever your personal horror story was and try to move on.

When you have kids you never really part ways, and what with all that constant contact and communication, it can be hard to think other than evil thoughts. Your dream come true got up and went. Maybe some of your anger is even righteous. What you want is to stand before that audience of wrongdoers, however big or small, and have them all stand up and apologize for whatever they did to you that was wrong, acknowledge your moral and mental superiority, and tell you they’re forever changed by your inherent rightness. And the one you want in the front of the crowd, kowtowing and bowing the most before your rightness is that former spouse.

I’ve spent the years since the breakdown of my marriage trying to be positive because we have a child together and you never want that offspring in the middle of your joint animosity, right? But still, how can that youngster not sense the hurt and anguish from both parties? So I doubled down. I am consciously trying to remember each and every gift my spouse gave me. Not the physical gifts (thanks, though, for the diamond earrings when I gave birth to Darling Son, and all those wonderful books from the long long list of reads I want). I’m talking the gifts of self that burrowed into your soul and changed you — like the wide open curiosity about world cuisines that led me to a love of Ethiopian and Persian food or the secure knowledge that I don’t like bubble tea or that dill flavored yogurt soda they drink in Iran.

I thought of another one while I was looking for a card for my mom for Mother’s Day. I never buy cards with sayings in them. I don’t care if it’s Hallmark or American Greetings or upmarket Papyrus: they never say it better than I could myself. My husband never sent a pre-sentimented card. He got something blank with an appropriate picture on the front. For a great many reasons, his cards to me always had cats on them. Mine to him had rodents; capybaras if I could find them. Which I never did. What went inside often took my husband time to create — whether it was a birthday card for his brother-in-law wherein he finally settled on expressing my brother’s incredibly advanced age in hex, or something sweet for Darling Son written in the neatest printing so the boy could read it easily.

Now I look through the cards and most of the time opt for something that’s blank on the inside and I give myself time to come up with just the right thing to say. It doesn’t cost me any more to be a little more thoughtful — and I mean the kind of thoughtful that involves thinking of the appropriate thing to say, not the kind where I remember to send the card I bought and so very thoughtfully filled out. It revs the creative juices.

Most importantly, every single time I look through the card rack, I think a kind thought about my former spouse. Okay, I will also admit I feel a bit smug that I send cards as unique as the people to whom I send them. So thanks for everything you taught me and every way you changed me. It’s all building blocks — we are here today because of everything that passed before. And even though there was pain and heartbreak at the end, I know I’m better for having known you, loved you, and lived with you.

Now, don’t forget to get a card for your mom. Mother’s day is in 12 days. Also, remind our son to get his mom a card and consider teaching him why he should look inside himself, rather than a card, for the perfect sentiment to describe his feelings.

* You don’t expect me, at nearly 48 to write “boyfriend” or the exceptionally cold “partner” do you?