How To Co-Parent With Your Ex

Divorce, especially when unwanted or resulting from destructive circumstances, initiates a process of deep grief and pain, often compared to the ripping apart of a protective, core bond. Successfully navigating co-parenting after separation requires intentional steps focused on personal healing, strategic emotional strength, and prioritizing the well-being of the children above the residual pain caused by the former partner.

Prioritizing Personal Health: Be the One Healthy Parent

The most crucial step in successful post-divorce parenting is focusing on your own emotional and mental health. This personal commitment is a stand taken for the children.

The Child’s Need for Stability

Children deserve one healthy parent. If a divorce occurred because of destructive realities in the home, the decision to end those realities is, in itself, a stand taken for the children. This action prevents children from witnessing and repeating destructive behaviors in their own adult lives.

Proving Them Wrong

When faced with a difficult co-parenting dynamic—such as an ex-spouse and a new partner attempting to mock, accuse, or paint a picture of you as the “crazy ex-wife”—the advice is to “Prove them wrong”.

• Do not act weak or “crazy” when they expect it.
• Instead, find strength and direct that energy toward the children.
• Cheer your kids on, smile, and laugh, making the entire dynamic “all about the kids” and “a whole lot less about the people that are hurting you”.

The pain from a broken 13-year bond is real, and the acknowledgement of this deep hurt is important for the healing process.

Forgiveness and Boundaries: Protecting Your Heart and Children

Moving forward requires hard work daily at forgiveness, which must be balanced with appropriate boundaries.

Choosing Forgiveness Over Bitterness

Even while maintaining necessary boundaries, the heart must remain in a place of forgiveness and not bitterness. When bitterness takes root, it can lead to harmful behaviors in the co-parenting relationship, such as:

• Weaponizing the children.
• Triangulation (discussed further below).
• Using the kids to try to get them “on your side”.

These responses are understandable in challenging dynamics, but they hinder healing and harm the children.

Seeking Honor in the Other Parent

Healing may be eased by adopting a counterproductive but ethically sound approach: finding something honorable about the ex-spouse in the co-parenting dynamic. If the ex-spouse genuinely “really loves his kids” and is “doing the best that he can with his kids,” you can honor that specific aspect of their truth.

It is important to determine if both parents share an alignment for the best well-being of the children. If that alignment is authentic and true, it can be a path toward moving forward in the co-parenting journey. However, the focus must remain on honoring what is honorable, not dishonorable.

Redefining Co-Parenting: Focus on Individual Strength

The sources advise recalibrating the expectations of “co-parenting,” recognizing the harsh reality that divorce is the death of the nuclear family.