How to Insulate Yourself from a Co-parent’s Verbal Attacks
By Teresa Luse
I am a huge advocate for collaborative co-parenting and honestly believe that most parents can achieve it with the right mindset and by treating their co-parent the way they wish to be treated. While it happens at varying speeds, most parents eventually graduate from hostile interactions they may have engaged in during the divorce to relative civility once the legal proceedings are behind them.
Over time, most parents release at least some of their hurt, anger, and disappointment toward their former partner. They swallow their pride, learn to pick their battles, and accept that they can’t control everything in order to keep the peace.
And then there are those parents who just can’t move on. They stay stuck in blame, shame, and a need to punish their co-parent for past “wrongs.” You’d think these were the ones most deeply harmed during the relationship, but that’s rarely what I see in coaching.
There are many parents that endured adultery, emotional abuse, and controlling behaviors who transition to civil discourse once they are no longer living under the same roof. Then there are parents who no matter how nicely they treat their co-parent, face verbal combat during every interaction.
If you are being subjected to more than disagreement with a co-parent—I’m talking verbal abuse, intimidation, manipulation of the facts, and the stuff that psychological thriller movies are made of—it’s time to protect yourself from emotional harm and your children from the psychological impact of witnessing these behaviors.
A parent should never concede to degrading, threatening, or manipulative behavior from a co-parent. Doing so reinforces bad behavior and sends the wrong message to your kids. On one hand, it teaches them that if you want to keep the peace, you must capitulate to the bully. On the other hand, it says that if you want to get your way, verbal abuse is the path.
Here are five strategies to insulate yourself from unwarranted attacks from your co-parent without destroying the potential for collaborative co-parenting in the future.
Don’t Engage with your co-parent on matters that do not relate to your child
Stick to the parenting agreement
Limit communication to a parenting app
Don’t engage family, friends, or children to communicate with your co-parent
Engage a co-parenting coach skilled at helping high-conflict co-parents
1. Don’t Engage with your co-parent on matters that do not relate to your child
Some co-parents can handle communicating about any topic. They have in effect transitioned from intimate partners to more of a friendship. For these co-parents, they may talk about their world views, gossip about friends, or ask each other for opinions on a variety of fronts. Then there are the co-parents who call and text you continuously with complaints, accusations, and character assaults. They seem to have no other purpose than to provoke you and disrupt your peaceful existence.
If your co-parent is calling or texting you to berate your choices as a person or even as a parent, you have no obligation to respond to them. You are only obligated to respond to questions that directly relate to the wellbeing of your child. This includes discussions on “their” health, their education, their habits, their activities, their friends, etc. This does not include defending your lifestyle choices, answering questions about your social life, or debating parenting decisions made inside your home.
As long as you are not engaging in illegal or dangerous activities, you have no obligation to discuss these topics with your co-parent. And if they can’t be civil when addressing you, you should not continue the conversation. Politely and directly explain to them that their concern is not about your child and therefore will not be discussed with them.
If they continue to send you texts and leave you voice messages of these sorts, after 3 times of explaining to them that you will not be discussing anything with them not directly related to your kids, stop responding to messages outside of these boundaries.
NOTE: You may want to save these messages as screenshots in case you need to refer to them later. But delete the original text messages once you’ve done that so you are not constantly assaulted by them.
2. Stick to the Parenting Agreement
The parent who is stuck in a conflict loop perpetually seeks fault with their former partner. They need to prove that it is their co-parent who is defective. Not them. So they never miss an opportunity to reinforce their belief, always on the lookout for you to screw up.
In this case, let’s make sure you deny them easy opportunities to blame you for parental missteps. Strictly comply with your parenting agreement. Maintain your parenting schedule, communication protocols, financial obligations, all of it. Don’t put weapons in your co-parent’s hands.
But Teresa, what if they don’t? What if all they do is bad-mouth me to the kids? What if they withhold visitation? What if they aren’t honoring any part of our agreement? What then?
Let me repeat… stick to the parenting agreement… even if they don’t. If you end up in court, a judge will not give you points for evening the score. In fact they will view you both as just another pair of high conflict parents rather than seeing you as a victim of emotional abuse.
3. Limit Communication to a Parenting App
When parents are able to engage in civil discourse, I’m all about using every method of communication available to humans. But when civility goes out the window and is replaced with emotional abuse, it is time to reduce the opportunity for the other parent to inflict harm. It is time for some guard rails to protect your emotional wellbeing.
There are many co-parenting apps on the market. You can read more about them here.
Since the publication of this list, new apps have been introduced that leverage AI. Some can even be used by a solo parent such as BestInterest. If your co-parent will not agree to use a parenting app, BestInterest may be your best bet!
There are also apps that don’t have to take over your existence but that will shield you from incoming hostility so that you don’t even have to see it such as Peaceful CoParenting Messenger. How much better could your day be if you read fewer hostile messages from your ex?
Check out the full list and the app store for the latest and greatest co-parenting apps.
4. Don’t Engage Others to Communication with your Co-parent
No one wants to expose themselves to toxic communication or the individuals behind it. But shifting that burden to family, friends, or worst of all, your children is well… not nice. You don’t want to deal with them so you think someone else will do a better job. I get it.
While it is possible that these other parties will be more successful communicating with your ex, you’re just shifting the responsibility to someone else. Plus, you’re introducing the potential for miscommunication by adding another failure point in the chain. Think “telephone game.”
Additionally, by using proxies, you and your ex lose the opportunity to improve. Practice makes progress, after all. To improve a skill—in this case the ability to communicate civilly with your co-parent—you must practice. You must do it more. Of course, didn’t I just say, we need to limit communication with them? Yes, I get the dilemma. But engaging others exposes them to the same verbal abuse you endure, and it relieves you and your co-parent of the responsibility to fix your own disfunction.
If you really want to engage a third party to help you communicate, consider tip #5 below.
5. Engage a co-parenting coach skilled at helping high-conflict co-parents
If you’ve tried to fix your co-parenting communication on your own, you may be exhausted, defeated, and emotionally wrecked. At this point, you may want to consider engaging the help of a professional.
As a co-parenting coach, I stand in the gap where co-parenting communication breaks down. I bring calm and perspective to the equation that alone, neither of you may be able to muster. While you two are blinded by the constant hostility that bounces back and forth between you, I can bring reason back to the table.
If one parent refuses to make changes, the other can still learn how to reduce, defuse, and redirect the hostility coming their way.
The cooperative parent learns when to engage and how. They also gain clarity about when they can disengage and confidence in knowing how to do that without jeopardizing the care their child receives from either parent.
If you do decide to engage a coach, meet with several and pick one with whom you connect with. A good chemistry is key to making progress with a coach.
Teresa (Harlow) Luse is a Co-parenting Coach and the author of Combative to Collaborative: The Co-parenting Code. Learn more at TeresaLuse.com.