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How do you stop bickering with your ex? You've tried everything you know how to do. You've cried, screamed, begged and plead, but nothing works to ease the need for bickering. The issue is the same as before, even though you're not married anymore.

In the words of the famous Dr. Phil, "How's that working for you?" It may seem that every time your ex is around, your sanity can never be found. You try with all your might to get along with the co-parent of your kids, but your ex will stop at nothing to make you appear to be the bad guy to them. You, on the other hand, just want to move on and forget your ex exists. The problem is that your ex does exist and shares flesh and blood with your kids. It's sad to say, but on both sides of this never ending battle is the issue of, "bitterness."

The best way I can explain what bitterness does to the body and mind is to share my own experience. To say that I was bitter would be putting it much too mildly. I was homicidal and suicidal, at least down deep inside my mind. I was enraged, and dreamed about his funeral, and/or mine, all the time. Don't get me wrong, I'd never murder anyone, not even my ex, who might have deserved it. Still, if thoughts could kill, my ex, and/or I would have been dead long ago.

Someone wise once said, "Bitterness is like taking poison and waiting for the other guy to die." I learned just how wise this guy was, soon after my bitter divorce. I'd spent twenty-three years taking the poison of strife and the bitterness almost cost me my life.

Scientifically, I believe they've proved beyond much doubt that stress can cause disease. Anger, fear and strife creates the need to flee or fight, so those chemicals which produce adrenalin flow excessively. That's fine in a crisis or emergency, but the body isn't equipped to fight and flee constantly and endlessly

For me, the disease created by the stress of bitterness was an incurable cancer. I was stricken with the disease soon after my bitter divorce, and I blamed the disease on my ex-husband, of course. Chemotherapy never exhausted me as much as my anger did, but I survived both these things in time, only to find myself in a strange position. It was called, "remission." I was still not cured of anything and time had become borrowed for me.

Ironically, it was the disease that released the bitterness from me. Facing a deadly disease has a strange way of making your ex appear to be, "okay." Suddenly, I could only see the blessings he gave to me. It was around that

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