Latest / The Conscious Divorce / Why co-parenting conflicts escalate, and how to stop them
Transcript
- Justin: Welcome to the conscious divorce podcast. I'm Justin Milrad certified divorce coach, financial planner, MBA, and founder of reclaim and reboot transformational divorce coaching, as well as the author of the YouTube point note divorce, a better way forward and the YouTube point note workbook. This podcast exists for one reason, to help you stop surviving your divorce and start designing what comes next. But before we jump in, a quick note. I'm not an attorney, I'm not a therapist, and I'm not a financial advisor. Everything you hear on this show is coaching perspective, evidence-informed insights, and the real talk that comes from working with hundreds of clients in the middle of one of the hardest seasons of their lives. Please consult the appropriate professionals for legal, financial, and clinical guidance. All right, let's go. Let me tell you about someone I work with. We'll call her Sarah. Sarah came to me about six months after her divorce was finalized. Smart woman, successful, loved her kids more than anything on earth, and she was a complete wreck. Not because the legal process destroyed her, though it wasn't pretty. Not because she was broke, though the financial transition was real. She was a wreck because every single interaction with her ex, every text, every handoff, every school pickup felt like walking into a war zone. And her kids were standing right in the middle of it. She called me the night before Thanksgiving. Her daughter, nine years old, had been crying for an hour because she didn't know which parent to say she was most excited to see. Nine years old, sitting with that weight. Sarah said to me, I know I'm doing things wrong. I just don't know how to stop. That sentence, that's why this episode exists. Because most parents in divorce don't want to their kids. They're not monsters. They're people in pain, trying to parent through it and keep getting in their own way. Today we're going to talk about what it actually looks like to stop doing that. And I'm going to use Sarah's story to show you how that shift happens, step by step. The reality of co-parenting. Act one, the breakdown. Here's the thing no one tells you clearly enough when the divorce is happening. The marriage ended, the parenting partnership did not. That reality hits people differently at different times. For Sarah, it hit her in a grocery store parking lot. Two weeks after moving into her apartment, her son called from his dad's house to say good night. And halfway through the call, she could hear her ex laughing in the background at something the kids are watching on TV and something in her chest caved in. Not because anything bad was happening, because something normal was happening and she wasn't there for it. That's the grief of co-parenting that no one talks about. It's not just that your marriage ended. It's your life as a family as it existed is now permanently split, shaped differently. And you have to figure out how to parent across that split with someone you may have deep resentment towards for the next decade or two. That reality can feel like a life sentence or can feel like an invitation. The way you choose to co-parent will shape not just your children's wellbeing, but your own. It can keep you tethered to the past or it can free you to build the future you actually want. Sarah's question, I know I'm doing things wrong. I just don't know how to stop, is actually a doorway. The fact that she could ask it meant that she's already on the other side of the denial phase. And that's where the work begins. Let's start with the place that breaks down most often, communication. Research published in the Journal of Family Psychology is pretty unambiguous about this. How parents communicate after divorce is one of the single greatest predictors of how well children adjust. Not the legal arrangement, not the school district, not whether both parents are in the same zip code, the communication. Let that sink in. Here's what Sarah's communication looked like in the early months. Her ex would text something about a schedule change, something logistically neutral, and she would read it and that old feeling would come up, the feeling from the marriage, the feeling of being dismissed, unheard, controlled, and she would fire back a text that had nothing to do with the schedule change and everything to do with that feeling. ⁓ The text chain would go from, we swap Saturday to a nine message argument about who failed whom, and the kids could feel every ounce of it. Most co-parenting breakdowns don't happen because people don't know what to do. They happen in the moment when emotional overrides intention. You can agree completely with everything in a communication guide and then get a passive aggressive text at 9pm and blow all of it. That's not a failure of understanding. It's a failure of execution under pressure. Here's the framework Sarah learned that changed everything. It's called BIF, brief, informative, friendly, and Brief means short. The longer the message, the more opportunities for misrepresentation and escalation. Say what needs to be said and stop. Informative means stick to facts, what your child needs, when, where, that's it. Friendly doesn't mean warm, it means neutral. No sarcasm, no passive aggression, no loaded phrasing, just professional. Firm means clear. Don't over explain, don't justify, say the thing once, let it stand. So the Saturday swap text, Sarah's old response was three paragraphs and a reference to something from 2019. Her BIF response was, hi, Saturday works. I'll drop ⁓ off at 10. Let me know if that changes. Thanks. Done. Loop closed. No fuel added to the fire. There's also a tool called the gray rock method, which I want you to have in your back pocket. sometimes limiting interaction altogether is the goal. Grey rock means a response becomes as uninteresting as a grey rock, brief, neutral, devoid of emotional energy. No invitation for further discussion. This isn't coldness, it's strategy. I wanna give you a script that works under pressure. When your ex sends you something inflammatory, something that makes your blood spike, here's your default. I received your message. I want to stay focused on what's best for Emma. Can we revisit this when we're both in a better headspace? I'm available Thursday afternoon. That's it. Child's name, forward motion, no bait taken. Consistency and scheduling. Children are not built for chaos. They're built for rhythm. Sarah told me about the handoffs in the first three weeks after the separation. Her son, Stephen, seven years old, every time she pulled up to her ex's house to drop him off, Stephen would get quiet. His shoulders would come up around his ears. He'd ask the same question every single time. Mom, are you gonna be okay? A seven year old asking his mother if she's gonna be okay at a drop off. He was picking up everything. The tension in her grip. The tension in her grip on the steering wheel. The way she'd check her phone three times before getting out. The tug. The tight hug that lasted three seconds too long because she didn't want to let go. Children don't need identical households. They need predictability. They need to know what comes next. They need transitions to feel safe, not like they're crossing enemy lines. Here's what Sarah built. transition ritual. Every handoff day, she and Stephen would stop at the same gas station, get the same snack and play the same game. Name three things from the week. Three things. That's it. Then she'd give him a code word just between them that meant I love you and I'm totally fine. The word was pineapple. Don't ask. Within a month, Stephen stopped asking if she was gonna be okay because the ritual answered the question before he could ask it. That is what consistency does. It's not about matching rules between households on screen time and bedtime, though those matter. It's about predictability over time. Your child doesn't need two identical homes. They need two safe ones. Every handoff sends a message. Make sure yours always says you're loved, you're safe, and everything is okay. Emotional boundaries. Act two, the realization. This is the section that requires the most honesty. separating your feelings about your ex from your shared responsibilities as a parent is the hardest piece of co-parenting. separating your feelings about your ex from your shared responsibilities as a parent is the hardest piece of co-parenting. You don't have to like them. You don't have to forgive them right now. But you do have to protect your children from the emotional fallout of adult conflict. The distinction between what you feel and how you act is where your real power lives. You don't have to like them. You don't have to forgive them right now. But you do have to protect your children from the emotional fallout of adult conflict. The distinction between what you feel and how you act is where your real power lives. Sarah has a sister, close friend, really. And for the first six months, her sister was the repository for everything. Every text exchange, every frustration, everything her ex did or did not do. And one evening, Sarah's daughter Emma walked in mid vent and stood in the doorway. Sarah doesn't know how long Emma had been there, but when she turned around, Emma's face looked like she was carrying something very heavy. Sarah told me, I realized in that moment that I'd been using whoever was available and sometimes available meant my kids. This is what researchers call parentification. When a child becomes a confidant, an emotional support system, a safe place to process adult pain, it reverses the roles and it places a weight on them that they're not equipped to carry. The rule is simple. Even when it's hard, adult problems stay with adults. Your kids need a parent, not a co-pilot in your grief. Here's a note on wellbeing that standard guides always miss. You cannot give what you don't have. A depleted, emotionally dysregulated parent cannot execute any of these strategies consistently. Self-care isn't self-indulgence right now. It's the prerequisite. Processing your own grief, your anger, your identity transition. This is not separate from becoming a great co-parent. It is the work that makes all the other work possible. When you heal, your kids feel it. When you grow, they grow with you. Financial co-parenting without the drama. Money. We have to talk about it. Money is one of the most common sources of post-divorce conflict between co-parents. And it's one of the areas where conflict is most likely to reach your children because kids are perceptive. They pick up on financial tension even when you think you're hiding it. Sarah's financial dynamic with her ex was a mess. Not because they were terrible people, but because they had no system. Who paid for what? Who owed whom what? who had receipts and who had the feelings. It was all mixed together. And the feelings were definitely showing up in the texts. Her ex would send a receipt for soccer cleats. She would send back a message about three things he hadn't reimbursed her in October. He'd reference something from before they even separated. It became scorekeeping disguised as financial management. Here's the thing. Most financial conflict doesn't come from disagreement. It comes from lack of clarity. The fix is a system, not a perfect system, a clear one. Categorize your shared expenses. Fix recurring costs like tuition and insurance. Variable essentials like clothing and school supplies, extracurricular that needs joint agreement, and optional items that each parent handles independently. When you have categories, you have clarity. You're not debating every expense, you're following a shared framework. Set up a threshold. Any child-related expense above, let's say $100, requires a heads up before you commit. That's it. Simple rule, massive reduction in reactive conflict. And when you need to request reimbursement, use BIF. Sierra's new template, hi, I wanted to flag MSSACA registration of $180 from last Friday. For our agreement, this is shared. Could you send your half by the 15th? Thanks. Sent, done, no history, no emotion, no invitation to argue. The goal is not perfect agreement on every dollar. The goal is a clear, predictable system that removes money from the emotional arena and puts it where it belongs in a practical framework. Here's a question worth asking yourself. When money conflicts come up, am I enforcing a fair agreement or am I keeping score? Because if you find yourself thinking about finances in terms of winning, that's a signal, not a strategy. Decision making and problem solving. Co-parenting decisions don't happen in calm, rational, well-slept moments. They happen when you're driving to work or when you're in the middle of something else and when you've already had a hard day and you get a text that states, we need to talk about... Three months in, Sarah's ex raised the idea of switching schools. Stephen's current school was a good school. The new school was also a good school. The underlying issue, her ex's new girlfriend lived closer to a new school and Sarah knew it. She came to me absolutely ready to fight and I asked her one question. Set aside everything about him and why he's suggesting this. What does Stephen actually need? She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, he's got good friends at his current school. Changing right now would destabilize him. That's the child's first filter and it cuts through almost everything. Before any significant decision, ask yourself three questions. Does this directly support my child's wellbeing? Is this about their needs or my preferences? And would I make the same decision if there were no tension between me and my co-parent? These questions are not meant to slow you down. They're meant to bring you back to the center. Sarah's school decision. She responded with Biff. She named Stephen's social connections at his current school. She said the timing wasn't right. She suggested they revisit in a year. She kept it about Stephen the entire time. Her ex pushed back once. She held the line and they moved on. Here's the short term versus a long term lens that changes everything. Before you escalate, ask, will this matter in six months, in one year, in three years, in five years? Some battles feel urgent, but carry no lasting weight. Others feel small, but actually matter. The skill is learning to tell the difference in that moment. Not every decision needs to be perfect or fully agreed upon. Many just need to be clear, child focused, and able to move forward. High conflict co-parenting. I want to be direct with you for a minute. Not every co-parenting situation is difficult because both people are struggling. Some situations are high conflict because one person is actively making them that way. Consistently hostile communication, agreements ignored with no accountability, children being pulled into adult conflict, legal tools used as weapons rather than resolution, Rewriting reality in ways that leaves you questioning your own judgment. If that's your situation, the standard advice about keeping things respectful can feel dangerously out of touch with your reality. You're not imagining it. For those situations, there's a different operating model. It's called parallel parenting. And it's not a lesser form of co-parenting. It's a strategic choice. Where co-parenting involves collaboration, parallel parenting involves structured disengagement. You communicate only in writing, only about the child, only through the agreed channel. Each parent operates independently within their own household without justification required. Transitions happen at neutral locations when needed. The goal is not a functioning relationship with your co-parent. The goal is protection of your children from ongoing conflict. Parallel parenting is not failure, it is strategy. For documentation apps like our family wizard and talking parents, create time stamped, court admissible records of all communication. Our family wizard even has something called a tone meter that flags aggressive language before you send it. Use these tools. communication batching, instead of reacting to your message as they arrive, designate two windows per day, say 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. when you review and respond. This removes the impulse to fire back in the heat of the moment. It signals that you control your communication. The other person's urgency is not your emergency. Remember that. The other person's urgency is not your emergency. You're on your own time. Ask yourself three questions to calibrate what you're actually dealing with. Is this occasional or is it consistent? Is this frustrating or is it destabilizing? Does this affect just me or is it impacting my child? Your answer will tell you what kind of response is needed. The hard mirror moment. I want to pause here and I want to ask you something directly. Where might you? Where might you be part of the problem? This is a section that takes courage because most of us, when we're in pain, we do things we wouldn't want to do as ourselves. leaked out in a way that harms our children. Not because we're bad parents, because we are human ones navigating something genuinely hard. Sarah did the honest self-assessment. I'm going to walk you through some of the questions. Just sit with each one. Do you speak critically about your co-parent within earshot of your children, even casually, even in what you think is a private moment? do you ask your kids, even though subtle questions about what's happening at the other house? Do you make it emotionally difficult for your children to leave for a handoff? Tears that go on a beat too long? Guilt dressed as love? Do you share financial worries or legal frustrations with your kids because they're available and you need to talk? Do your children ever feel implicitly that loving both parents is somehow disloyal to you? These are not comfortable questions. They're not meant to be. Sarah answered honestly and she checked several. Her reaction was not shame. She sat with it and she said, I see it now. I see exactly what's happening. That's the starting line, not the finish line. Here's what research is clear about. And this comes from Robert Emory's work on children's adjustment through divorce. Children need full, uncomplicated access to both parents to thrive. when they sense that expressing love for one parent will hurt the other, something quietly breaks in them, their emotional freedom. The anecdote is not perfection, it's intention. Choosing again and again to put your child's emotional wholeness out of your own need to be validated or kept close. Awareness is not the finish line, it's the starting line. Supporting your child's emotional health. The question every parent's in divorce carries, whether spoken out loud or not, is this, am I damaging my kids? The honest answer is that your children will feel the impact of this transition. That is unavoidable. What is not unavoidable is how significant or lasting that impact becomes. The American Academy of Pediatrics is clear on this. It is not divorce itself that causes the greatest harm to your children. It is a level of unresolved conflict between parents that they witness and absorb. After four months in, Sarah noticed something in Emma. Her daughter was nine, sharp kid. Emma started having stomach aches before school on Monday morning specifically. Mondays were the day after she transitioned back from her dad's house. Sarah brought Emma to the pediatrician. Physically, Emma was fine, but the pediatrician asked a question that changed things. What does Monday morning feel like for Emma emotionally? Sarah went home and asked Emma directly. Emma said, I never know if you're going to seem sad when I get home from dad's. There it is. children are reading us constantly. They're not reading our words. They're reading our energy, our body language, the first 10 seconds when they walk through the door. Here's a practice I want to give you. Before your child comes home from the other parent's house, check yourself. What are you bringing to that moment? Do a 30 second regulation practice, three deep breaths, a stretch, a moment of conscious intention. And then when that door opens, you are fully present and fully warm. Whatever happened in the last 48 hours, that's your stuff. It doesn't get to meet your child at the door. Watch for stress signals in your kids, especially if they persist for more than four to six weeks. Regression to earlier behaviors, school avoidance, grade drops, unexplained physical complaints, withdrawal from friends. These aren't cause for alarm by themselves. They're invitations to pay closer attention. And when they persist, get professional support. When you talk to your kids about the divorce, the single most important thing you can say clearly and repeatedly is this. This is not your fault. It never was and it will never be. Say it out loud more than once. They need to hear from both of you. the shift and the outcome. I want to tell you where Sarah is now. It's been about 14 months since that first call. She is not co-parenting perfectly. Her ex is not a different person. There are still hard days. There's still moments when she reads a text and has to put her phone face down and walk away before she responds. But here's what's changed. Steven doesn't ask if she's going to be okay at the handoff anymore. He does the pineapple thing. Emma's Monday stomachaches are gone. Sarah's text chains with her ex are boring. That's the word she used, boring, short, functional, child focused exchanges that close quickly and don't ripple into her evening. She told me, I used to spend so much energy managing that dynamic between him and me. Now I spend that energy on me and my kids. It's like I got my time back that I didn't know I had. is the shift looks like, not resolution, not friendship with your ex, not the conflict disappearing entirely. The shift is your relationship to it. You stop being reactive. You start being intentional. You stop fighting for position in the dynamic and start protecting the thing that actually matters. Your children's experience of both of their homes. Small changes produce big outcomes in this work. One BIF response instead of a reactive one. One ritual that makes a handoff predictable. One honest conversation with yourself about where you might be the problem. These are not small acts. They are the architecture of a different future. Here's what I know from working with hundreds of people through this. The parents who commit to showing up intentionally, even when it's hard, even when the other person is not cooperating, even when no one is watching, those parents build something extraordinary. You build children who feel loved without condition. Who know, who know that both of their parents are capable of putting them first. who grow up understanding that even the hardest things can be navigated with dignity and purpose. That is not a small thing. That's really everything. The parent we talked about, Sarah, that can be you. The shifts you made is available to you. It doesn't require your co-parent to change. It doesn't require your legal situation to resolve. It requires you to decide that your children deserve a version of you that is intentional, grounded, and growing. That's you 2.0 in action. All right, that's a wrap on today's episode. If this episode landed for you, here's what I want you to do now. Pull out your phone, go to your last five messages with your co-parent. For each one, ask honestly, was this child focused? That's your baseline, that's where you start. If you want support in doing this work with structure and accountability, I offer a free 30 minute consultation. No pitch, no pressure, just a real conversation about where you are or what you actually need. You can book it at www.reclaimandreboot.me. I just created a co-parenting workbook that is available on Amazon called the Smart Co-parenting Playbook. This workbook takes many of the ideas from this podcast and more and provides powerful exercises and insights to co-parent effectively. You can also find my books, You 2.0, Divorce a Better Way Forward, and the 2.0 ⁓ workbook on Amazon. If this episode gave you something useful, share it with someone who needs it. a friend going through it, a family member watching someone they love struggle. Co-parenting is one of those topics where the right conversation at the right moment can change everything. wherever you listen. Leave a review if you're on Apple podcasts. It matters more than you think. And I read every single one. I'll be back next week with another episode of the Conscious Divorce Podcast. Until then, this is Justin Milrad. Have a wonderful day.