Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex: What to Do When Your Ex-Spouse Tries to Turn the Kids Against You

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Whether you are attempting to co-parent with a healthy ex-partner, or parallel parent with a toxic one, your experience will undoubtedly be stressful. There are times when exes can put differences aside and seek professional therapy or counseling to achieve healthy co-parenting skills and do what’s best for their children. During times of conflict before, after, or as a divorce is going on, it’s not a bad idea to seek a mental health professional’s guidance.

Watching their caregivers focus on creating a healthy co-parent relationship can help them develop positive relationships in the future. Aspire Family Mediation offers mediation services that can help you establish a healthy co-parenting relationship. And although, emotional responses are common and probably expected, there are times when the co-parenting with an ex becomes toxic and too much to handle. The court may appoint a therapist, attorney, or parenting coordinator to assist in resolving conflicts and promoting effective co-parenting. When communication with your toxic ex-spouse is poor, it becomes even more important to establish clear guidelines for parenting time and visitation.

Sites such as Talking Parents are admissible in court and have read receipts, which prevent your ex from claiming that s/he “didn’t get the message. Block their number and refuse to communicate with them outside of parenting apps which record all conversations. Meet developmental milestones: Creating a healthy co-parenting dynamic removes children from a toxic situation. Of course, there were slip ups and difficulties but it empowered me with an appropriate reaction in almost any situation.

However, this robs that child of their childhood which they might pay for later with potential depression and anxiety. It explains and puts a label on their toxic behavior, how it effects the child in a life long way and how you can help from your position, without making it harder on the child/ren involved. Parallel parenting is just what it sounds like: Parenting in two different spaces that don’t overlap. While it’s clear that the easiest way to deal with a toxic co-parent in these situations would be to minimize any communication, and sometimes to cut them off completely, you may wish to find that balance of just enough communication to provide your child with a stable environment for their development. A stable environment, free of parental arguments and conflict, can lessen the stress divorce can have on a child.

Unfortunately, this sometimes means that you will have to ignore or disengage from your ex’s antics and attempts to create chaos. When you think of co-parenting, you would work together with your ex to decide what’s best for the kids and how to mutually make that happen.

It shows that you’re listening to how they feel and that you’re not dismissing their right to an opinion. Now, there certainly are times you may wish to obtain professional help with more serious issues such as abuse or addiction, etc. Co-parenting with a toxic ex-partner can make things even more difficult, but it is possible to maintain a healthy relationship for the sake of your children.High conflict after divorce is normal as relationships change, emotions are still hurt, and can even be caused due to the reasons for your divorce in the first place. Bend Health provides a complete report with in-depth findings, reviews with your school, and a clinical diagnosis (if applicable). This can lead to what is known as parent alienation which, although not formally considered a syndrome in the DSM-5, is caused by emotional abuse. Seeking therapy doesn’t make you less of a good parent, despite what your ex or other people may tell you.