Co-Parenting and the Relationship that Persists After Divorce

Divorce is best considered as a restructuring of your family instead of the end of your family structure. Like any successful restructuring, all relationships that existed prior to divorce need to be considered. The most important is the parental relationship. In order for co-parenting to be effective, this new dynamic needs to be well-oiled and able to persist. For those co-parents who are rife with conflict, both marital and post-marital, the relationship deserves and requires attention. For so many, this involves maintaining some level of honesty, transparency, and vulnerability with someone who may be unsafe, unreliably and untrustworthy. It’s a tall order and one that your children deserve.

Many parents understandably want to shield their children from the painful dynamics they experienced in the marriage. Sometimes, however, that hurt fuels efforts to seek more parenting time than originally agreed upon. Extended custody disputes are highly disruptive, and courts focus on the children’s best interests, not the marital history. Judges generally believe children can maintain complex relationships with both parents and, absent clear evidence of physical, sexual, or substance abuse, benefit from continued involvement with each.  Emotional harm is harder to define and prove, despite its real impact. As a result, litigation often does not provide the protection a parent hopes for. In most cases, cooperative co-parenting is the more constructive path.

In a peaceful and amicable divorce, co-parenting happens naturally. Both parents are invested in supporting the children and are not inundated with the complications of the marital dynamic. In a contested divorce where the marital dynamic has toxic traits and significant conflict, the children are at risk of living in this conflict for the rest of their lives. Parenting plans may end at eighteen, but parenting does not. Children will dread visiting on weekends in college, holidays where they have to choose locations, weddings, and the rest of their milestones for which managing parental conflict becomes the norm. 

So, what do you do when you are painfully aware that your children need peace and consistency, but are unable to provide it due to the difficult relationship with your co-parent? The most practical and effective solution is to get some help. Co-parenting coaching is one option. Coaching can create operating rules that set and oversee appropriate boundaries that can make co-parenting more functional. Co-parenting coaching can offer solutions to problematic communication patterns, obstructive patterns and patterns that keep the children embedded in the conflict. Co-parenting coaching can also offer additional or alternative resources that may have more authority to enforce necessary changes through recommendations and sanctions. The point is, if you are struggling with your co-parent, there are solutions that can end expensive litigation and offer some stability to the relationship that you will be in for many years to come, despite your desire not to be.