How To Co-Parent With An Abusive Ex: 3 Tips

If the court has failed to protect you and your children, here are 3 tips you need to know.

Is your abusive ex doing what co parenting should not do? If the court has failed to protect you and your children, here are 3 tips you need to know.

To determine if your ex is abusive in any one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Intimate Partner Abuse and Its Impact

When a woman is abused by her partner, it hurts her children too. Kids are affected when they see or feel abuse happening at home. Abuse can include controlling someone’s emotions, hurting them physically, taking their money, or even using religion to control them. This is also a great example of what co parenting should not do—parents need to keep their children safe and away from harm.

Because abuse is a character issue, divorce doesn’t change anything. He’ll still be just as abusive after divorce, even if it seems to escalate due to his desire to regain control.

To learn more about this type of abuse, listen to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast.

If He’s Abusive To You, He’s Abusive To His Children

Some custody cases involve kids who have been hurt by a father’s abusive behavior. Courts are supposed to make decisions that are best for the child, but that doesn’t always happen. A lot of times, they focus only on serious physical abuse and forget about emotional or mental harm. This is a good example of what co parenting should not do—ignore the child’s feelings or safety.

What If He Says I'M The One That's Emotionally Abusive

Many people think emotional and psychological abuse isn’t important in custody cases, but this can hurt kids. Most court workers don’t know who the real abuser is when both parents say the other is abusive. They don’t realize that most abusers lie and pretend to be her victim to confuse others. When an abuser lies about their victim, it’s not just their side of the story—it’s more abuse.

The court system often doesn’t realize that abuse is part of a person’s character. This means it affects all their relationships, including how they treat their children.

Why Co Parenting With an Abusive Ex Doesn’t Work

Experts agree that co parenting with an abusive ex is impossible. While the marriage may have ended, the abuse will continue and often escalate after divorce, trapping women in the same harmful patterns.

If your ex-husband was abusive to you, he’ll exhibits abusive behaviors toward your children too.

Co-Parenting vs. Parallel Parenting

When the court doesn’t keep you or your kids safe from his hurtful behavior after a divorce, parallel parenting might be your best choice. Here’s how parallel parenting is different from co parenting and what co parenting should not do.

  • Co-Parenting involves regular communication and collaboration between parents to make decisions in their child’s best interest.
  • Parallel Parenting minimizes contact between parents, allowing them to independently parent their children according to the agreed-upon custody arrangement.

Research shows that children who avoid exposure to abuse or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are healthier emotionally, mentally, and behaviorally. When a father’s abusive tendencies persist post-separation, parallel parenting can be critical in reducing harm.

However, since abusers rarely follow the agreed-upon custody arrangement, it’s important to learn how to profile him, so you can anticipate what he’ll do next. To learn more about how to profile your abusive ex, enroll in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop.

The Benefits of Parallel Parenting

Parallel parenting helps set boundaries and reduce conflict, shielding your children from toxic behavior while in your care (even if you can’t do anything about what happens when they’re with their abusive father). Children who are not subjected to abuse, even for some of the time, have:

  • Healthier self-esteem
  • Stronger relationships
  • Better academic performance
  • Fewer behavioral and emotional issues

Creating a Parallel Parenting Strategy

A successful parallel parenting strategy prioritizes minimizing direct communication with your abusive ex. Key components of such a plan include:

Set Custody Rules: The plan should be clear and written in the custody agreement or court order. If changes are needed, they should go through legal steps to keep everything fair and official. Even if he doesn’t follow the rules, you can use the plan to protect your time. Learn how with The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop.

Thought, Communication, and Boundary Strategies: These are strategies you can implement that do not rely on him following the parenting plan. Learn about these strategies in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Livng Free Workshop.

By implementing detailed boundaries and avoiding unnecessary communication, you can protect yourself and your children from further harm.

When Parallel Parenting is Necessary

Parallel parenting is essential when the abusive parent:

  • Hurts the kids’ well-being by ignoring their schedule, schoolwork, or activities.
  • Won’t call the school, doctors, or other people in the child’s life and makes one parent get all the information for them.
  • Refuses to pay for activities by saying it’s not good for the kids or because they “didn’t agree” to those activities.
  • Ignoring how upset kids feel when they have to leave the parent who makes them feel safe.

The Role of Courts in Parallel Parenting

Courts try to make decisions that are best for kids, but they don’t always understand how abuse can hurt families after a divorce. That’s why victims can use parallel parenting to stay safe and protect their children. It’s also a good example of what co parenting should not do—forcing parents to work closely together when it’s not safe.

Finding The Right Support

Dealing with an abusive ex can be hard and emotional. Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free and Message Workshop teach helpful tips and strategies to handle an abusive ex-husband.

For women who need extra support, attend one of our daily Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions.

Moving Forward Safely

Co-parenting with an abusive ex is not safe or possible. That’s why parallel parenting can help. It gives you a way to take care of your kids without having to deal with your abuser much. This is important because what co parenting should not do is put you or your children in harm’s way. Until courts step in to protect victims of abuse, parallel parenting can help keep things stable for your kids.

If you, like many women in our community, are exhausted from striving for peace and mutuality only to run into the same barriers again and again, check out our 3 tips as you co-parent with your ex.

1. Process Your Trauma with Healthy People – Not Your Ex

Often, abusers will try to provoke emotions and hijack your mental wellbeing at every opportunity.

Get support from kind, caring women in our daily Group Sessions. They can help you talk about your feelings, heal from your trauma, and learn what co-parenting should not do to keep things healthy and safe for everyone.

2. Document, Document, Document

Keeping track of everything can feel stressful, but we suggest only using the Our Family Wizard app to communicate. By documenting things regularly, you can notice patterns that help you understand what’s going on. This can also show you what co parenting should not do. You can learn how to do this step-by-step in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop.

3. Practice Radical Self-Care

Remember that your emotional, physical, mental, and financial safety need to be your top priority.

To help you feel peace, we recommend The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Meditations.

At BTR, we know the stress, grief, and sorrow that can come as you try to coparent with an abusive ex. We’re here for you. Consider attending a BTR.ORG Group Session today.

MORE…

8 Comments

  1. Which podcasts new the continuation of the series please? What is the name and date of this series? Thank you.

    Reply
    • We haven’t recorded them yet:). We’re still in the process of doing that. Stay tuned!

      Reply
  2. This is my story, right down to the “pretend parenting” , constant gaslighting (triggers) and refusal to pay the child support as ordered through the court. He Likes to put it in my mailbox and gloat about it! Oh and his infidelity! He was doing that for years online and in person. I’m so grateful I found your Group Sessions! They’ve helped me so much!

    Reply
  3. Thank you for this! I can really relate to concept of feeling like I am being mean just because I am setting boundaries. Very helpful podcast!

    Reply
    • I’m so glad you found it helpful!

      Reply
  4. Excellent Podcast. Wish I could share with my last “collaborative” lawyer who was basically scared of him. So many women need this advice early on but don’t get it. It’s very hard in FL where they push coparenting communication at all costs. You have to find the right professionals and most importantly, stay the calm, quiet, non reactionary one through all of their crazy. 6 yrs, 3 pc’s, a Corrupt Gal, several professionals on my side and he just gets worse and worse. I stay silent and get stronger. Hardest thing is not defending yourself against crazy accusations. Keep moving forward.

    Reply
    • I appreciate you sharing. I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. So many more women need to know about what to expect so they can avoid at least some of the things we had to go through.

      Reply

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