Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Mi hermano está divorciado, pero se lleva bien con su antigua esposa. - My brother is divorced, but he gets along well with his former wife.

estar casado / divorciado / separado / viudo
- Mi hermano está casado. – My brother is married.
- Mi hermano está divorciado. – My brother is divorced.

Using ser here (es divorciado) would sound unusual in most contexts. It can appear in some varieties or in very specific contexts to classify someone (“he is a divorced man” as a kind of permanent label), but the natural, everyday form for “is divorced” is está divorciado.

So, for you as a learner: with marital-status adjectives, default to estar.

What exactly is divorciado grammatically, and why is it masculine here?

Divorciado is a past participle of the verb divorciar / divorciarse that is being used as an adjective.

As an adjective, it must agree in gender and number with the person it refers to:

Masculine singular: divorciado
- Mi hermano está divorciado. – My brother is divorced.
Feminine singular: divorciada
- Mi hermana está divorciada. – My sister is divorced.
Masculine plural: divorciados
- Mis hermanos están divorciados. – My (male or mixed) siblings are divorced.
Feminine plural: divorciadas
- Mis hermanas están divorciadas. – My (female) siblings are divorced.

Here the subject is mi hermano (a male person), so the adjective must be divorciado (masculine singular).

Why do we say se lleva bien con instead of just lleva bien con?

Because llevarse bien/mal con alguien is a set pronominal expression in Spanish that specifically means “to get along well/badly with someone.”

Llevar (without se) usually means to carry, to take, to wear, or to lead, etc.
Llevarse bien/mal con alguien (with se) means to get along well/badly with someone.

So:

✅ Mi hermano se lleva bien con su antigua esposa.
– My brother gets along well with his former wife.
❌ Mi hermano lleva bien con su antigua esposa.
– This is incorrect; Spanish speakers don’t say it this way.

Note that llevar algo bien (without se) exists, but it has a different meaning:

Llevar bien algo = to handle something well / to cope well with something.
- Lleva bien el divorcio. – He is handling the divorce well.

So:

llevarse bien con alguien = get along well with someone
llevar algo bien = handle/cope well with something

What does se lleva bien con literally mean, and are there similar expressions I should know?

Literally, llevarse comes from llevar (to carry), with a reflexive/reciprocal pronoun se, so a very literal idea is something like “to carry oneself (with)” someone. But you should treat llevarse bien/mal con as an idiom meaning:

llevarse bien con alguien – to get along well with someone
llevarse mal con alguien – to get along badly with someone / to not get along

Some similar expressions:

tener buena relación con alguien – to have a good relationship with someone
- Mi hermano tiene buena relación con su antigua esposa.
no tener mucha relación con alguien – to not have much contact/relationship
llevarse fatal con alguien – to get along terribly with someone

In everyday speech in Spain, llevarse bien/mal/fatal con is extremely common when you’re talking about how people get along.

How do I conjugate llevarse bien con for different people in the present tense?

You conjugate llevar and keep the reflexive pronoun in front, matching the person:

yo – me llevo bien con …
- Me llevo bien con mis vecinos.
tú – te llevas bien con …
- ¿Te llevas bien con tu jefe?
él / ella / usted – se lleva bien con …
- Mi hermano se lleva bien con su antigua esposa.
nosotros / nosotras – nos llevamos bien con …
- Nos llevamos bien con todos.
vosotros / vosotras – os lleváis bien con … (Spain)
- ¿Os lleváis bien con los profesores?
ellos / ellas / ustedes – se llevan bien con …
- Se llevan bien con sus suegros.

The pattern is the same for llevarse mal, just replace bien with mal.

Does antigua esposa mean “ex‑wife” or “old wife”? Is there any difference from exesposa / ex esposa?

In this sentence, antigua esposa means “former wife”, i.e. ex‑wife.

When antiguo / antigua comes before the noun (like antigua esposa), it often means former or previous:
- un antiguo alumno – a former student
- mi antigua casa – my former house
When antiguo / antigua comes after the noun (like esposa antigua), it tends to mean old (in time), “from long ago.”
With esposa, esposa antigua sounds odd and is not how you would say “old wife” or “elderly wife.” You’d usually say esposa mayor or similar if you meant “elderly wife”.

About exesposa / ex esposa:

exesposa, ex-esposa, ex esposa (spellings vary) are all used to mean ex‑wife.
In everyday speech, people more often say exmujer / ex mujer in Spain:
- Mi hermano se lleva bien con su exmujer.

So:

antigua esposa = former wife (slightly more formal / careful style)
exesposa / ex esposa / exmujer = ex‑wife (very common, especially exmujer in Spain)

Is esposa the usual word in Spain, or would people say mujer instead?

In Spain:

mujer is very commonly used to mean “wife”:
- Mi mujer – my wife
- Su mujer – his/her wife
esposa is perfectly correct, but it sounds a bit more formal or more typical of Latin America in everyday conversation.

For an ex‑wife in Spain, you’ll probably hear:

su exmujer (most colloquial)
also possible: su exesposa / su ex esposa / su antigua esposa

So your sentence is correct Spanish, but a very natural, everyday Spain-Spanish version might be:

Mi hermano está divorciado, pero se lleva bien con su exmujer.

Who does su refer to in su antigua esposa? Could it be ambiguous?

Su in Spanish is ambiguous by itself. It can mean:

his
her
their
your (formal, singular or plural: usted / ustedes)

In this specific sentence:

Mi hermano está divorciado, pero se lleva bien con su antigua esposa.

The natural interpretation is that su refers to mi hermano → his former wife.

However, grammatically, su could refer to another person mentioned earlier in a broader context. If there is any risk of misunderstanding, Spanish often uses de + noun:

…con la antigua esposa de mi hermano. – with my brother’s former wife.
…con su propia antigua esposa. – with his own former wife (emphasizing it’s his).

So yes, su can be ambiguous, and speakers disambiguate with context or by using de + [name/pronoun].

Could I replace pero with aunque here? What is the difference?

You can replace pero with aunque, but the nuance changes slightly.

Your sentence:

Mi hermano está divorciado, pero se lleva bien con su antigua esposa.

Pero = but / however – it contrasts two facts, often in a fairly neutral, matter‑of‑fact way.

If you say:

Mi hermano está divorciado, aunque se lleva bien con su antigua esposa.

Aunque = although / even though – it introduces something that might be surprising or contrary to expectation.

So:

With pero, you state two contrasting facts.
With aunque, you highlight the contrast a bit more, as if “Even though he’s divorced, he still gets along well with her.”

Both are grammatically correct; it’s more about the speaker’s emphasis.

Why is it mi hermano está divorciado and not el hermano mío está divorciado?

In Spanish, with close family members, the normal and most frequent structure is:

[possessive adjective] + [family member]
mi hermano, mi madre, mi hijo, mis padres, etc.

So:

Mi hermano está divorciado. – completely natural.

The structure el hermano mío exists, but it’s:

less common,
used for emphasis, contrast, or in more literary or expressive language.

For example:

Ese no es un amigo mío. – That’s not a friend of mine.
Un hermano mío vive en Madrid y otro en Sevilla. – One brother of mine lives in Madrid and another in Seville.

With a specific person already identified (like your brother), mi hermano is the standard form. So in your sentence, Mi hermano está divorciado is exactly what you should use.