Navigating Difficulties With a High-Conflict Co-Parent
It’s easy to slip into fear-based decision-making in your parenting relationship after a high-conflict divorce. You care deeply for your children. Of course, you want to shield them from the stress and animosity of a frustrating co-parenting situation. Yet you know all too well that fostering a healthy, loving bond between your children and their other parent is essential to their social and emotional development.
Finding the right balance is tough—especially when you feel like you’re doing it alone. With the right support, confrontation doesn’t have to steal your family’s peace. A measured approach may minimize disagreements if you’re dealing with a high-conflict co-parent.
Create a parenting plan and stick to it
Even when the parenting situation is amicable, separated parents in New Jersey need to develop a parenting plan. Also known as a custody agreement, this legal document is enforceable by New Jersey’s family court system. As such, a thorough parenting plan is the best form of legal protection for your parenting rights.
If you’re dealing with a high-conflict co-parent, don’t leave any aspect of your parenting plan open to interpretation. It should be written clearly and in plain language so that each parent can easily understand their responsibilities going forward. Work with your family law attorney to make this document as specific as possible.
Include exact dates, times, locations, and transportation responsibilities for parenting time. This will create clear expectations for both you and your co-parent and reduce the likelihood of miscommunication.
Unless there’s a true emergency, stick to your parenting plan, even when the high-conflict co-parent refuses to do so. If it becomes absolutely necessary to temporarily deviate from the plan, keep detailed records to prove that both parents were on board with the change.
Commit to co-parenting boundaries
Commit to setting healthy boundaries with your co-parent to protect your children—and your peace of mind.
Setting boundaries with adults
After enduring a high-conflict divorce, you may worry that even your best efforts at working together won’t be met with reason or rationality. If your high-conflict co-parent is spiteful and cruel or still grieving your romantic relationship, they may find it difficult to accept that they no longer have any control over what happens in your household.
As a result, you could feel as if you’re constantly defending your parenting choices, schedule, and perspective. Well-meaning friends or family members may encourage you to compromise more to appease a high-conflict co-parent in the interest of shielding your children from confrontation. Although collaboration and compromise are admirable in an average co-parenting situation, the solution to peacefully parenting with a high-conflict person may be to compromise less.
Make it clear from the start that you won’t engage in rivalry, verbal abuse, or other conflicts. Here are some ways to accomplish this:
- Adopt a business-like, “just the facts” approach to communicating with a high-conflict co-parent
- Share important kid-related information in writing, rather than over the phone, to keep the conversation on-topic
- Make the swap in a neutral, public place when children travel from one parent’s home to another
Setting boundaries with kids
Drawing boundaries with your kids is essential to protecting them from the damaging effects of a high-conflict co-parenting situation. Avoid arguing with their other parent in front of them. When you need to vent to a friend or family member, discuss your parenting situation when they’re out of earshot.
Most importantly, never place your child in the middle of you and the high-conflict person. Instead of having them pass messages between the two of you, communicate directly with your co-parent.
Parallel parenting
Does your social media feed bombard you with pictures of happy co-parents wearing matching T-shirts at their children’s ball games? Some influencers become famous for befriending their ex-spouse’s new partner. These families may share holidays, go back-to-school shopping together, and make TikToks together—all in the name of “putting the kids first!”
While collaborating to support the children is admirable, it’s not always possible. For some, working together just doesn’t work. Instead of compromising on your parenting philosophy or integrity just to avoid conflict, consider parallel parenting.
Parallel parenting is a philosophy best summed up as, “Your house, your rules.” Instead of fighting to agree on the kids’ diet, routine, or rules at both houses with your former partner, simply maintain consistency in your home.
Of course, neglecting to communicate with the other parent can harm kids. In a parallel parenting situation, communication between the parents is on a need-to-know basis. Rather than tensely sitting through appointments and performances together, you might each take turns attending instead.
Focus on yourself
Creating a healthy environment and providing emotional stability for your children is extremely difficult when parenting relationships are filled with tension. Simply put, raising kids with a high-conflict co-parent is exhausting, even without active litigation to worry about.
It’s easy to stress about the impact high-conflict situations can have on your children, but stay grounded in the present moment. Remember, you can only truly control your own behavior in this type of parenting situation. Focus on consistently providing them with a loving, supportive home environment during your own parenting time.
Continue to care for yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally, so that you have the energy to parent at your best. If necessary, seek support from a therapist or counselor to manage your stress. Even if you are the only parent doing so, setting a positive example for your child by modeling healthy boundaries, communication, and parenting makes a difference.
Modifying your parenting plan
When high-conflict situations become too tumultuous to manage on your own, contact a family law attorney. If the high-conflict person exposes your children to abuse or continually shirks their parenting time, modifying your parenting plan may be in the best interest of your children.
Because we offer the resources and experience of a large firm, with the personal attention of a smaller firm, Dughi, Hewit, & Domalewski is positioned to develop affordable, creative solutions that mitigate high-conflict parenting situations.
You can trust our capable family law attorneys to advocate for your family with sensitivity and compassion. If it’s time to re-evaluate your parenting plan, contact us today for a consultation.
