Latest / The Conscious Divorce / How to set and hold boundaries
Transcript
- Justin: Welcome to the conscious divorce, the podcast that refrains divorce, not as a failure, but as one of the most powerful opportunities for transformation you will ever face. I'm your host, Justin Milrad, a certified divorce coach, MBA financial planner, and the founder of reclaim and reboot transformational coaching. But before we get into today's episode, my standard disclaimer, I'm not an attorney. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a financial advisor. What I am is someone who's been through divorce, who coaches people through it every single day, and who has dedicated his professional life to helping high achieving individuals navigate this process with clarity, strategy, and dignity. If you need legal, therapeutic, or financial guidance, please seek the appropriate licensed professionals. Now let's get into it. It's 1047 on a Tuesday night. Your kids are finally asleep. You just sat down. Maybe you poured a glass of wine. Maybe you're staring at the ceiling trying to figure out how your life got here. And then your phone buzzes. It's your ex. And before you even read the message, your body reacts. Your chest tightens. Your jaw clenches. Your stomach drops. You've not even opened the text yet, and already your nervous system is on full alert. You look at the screen. We need to talk about the schedule this weekend. Also, I heard you're introducing the kids to someone new. That is not okay with me. Call me ASAP. And now you're floored. Your brain is spinning. Do I respond? Do I ignore it? Do I defend myself? Do I explain? Do I set a boundary? Do I call my lawyer? Do I call my mom? Do I pour another glass of wine and draft the most surgically precise paragraph of my life? I already know this. not going to sleep tonight. Does it sound familiar? I'm sure it does. If you're going through divorce for navigating co-parenting after divorce, you know this moment. You know the late night text, the passive aggressive email, the co-parenting calendar conflict that is actually about control, not logistics. The feeling that no matter what you do, you can't get ahead. The fear that if you say something, it will escalate. The fear that if you say nothing, you're a doormat. And you know the emotional hangover, the heavy, drained, angry feeling you carry the next morning while you're making lunches and driving school and pretending that everything is fine. Here's what no one tells you about this moment. It's not just a bad night, it's a pattern. And every time you engage with it the same way, respond from anger, defend from fear, over explain from guilt, you reinforce the loop. You train both yourself and your ex that this is how it works. That late night text gets a response. That the provocation gets a reaction. your is interruptible on demand. And the worst part, ⁓ you it's happening. You can see it from the outside. You can see it from a mile away. You've probably told a friend, I know I shouldn't engage. And then you engage anyway. Not because you're weak. but because nobody ever taught you the alternative. Nobody ever sat you down and gave you a real honest, practical blueprint for how to set and hold boundaries when you're co-parenting with someone who knows exactly how to get under your skin. And that changes today. Today's episode is about all of it. Today we're doing a master class on boundaries, not a surface level, just set boundaries episode, because if you've ever been told to just set boundaries, you know how useless that advice is when your hands are shaking and your ex is standing in your driveway demanding to talk. We're gonna go deep. We're gonna define what boundaries actually are. We're going to talk about the psychology behind why they're so hard. We're going to walk through every type of co-parenting situation from the friendly and cooperative to the high conflict and unsafe. We're going to give you actual words you can use tonight. And we're going to talk about the hardest part of all, enforcement. This is the episode I wish someone had given me when I was in the trenches of my own divorce. It's the episode I wish every one of my coaching clients had heard before their first post-separation conversation went sideways. So settle in, take a breath, and let's build something that actually works. Part one, what boundaries actually are and what they're not. Let me start by clearing up one of the biggest misconceptions in all of divorce and co-parenting. A boundary is not a punishment. A boundary is not a wall. A boundary is not an ultimatum designed to control someone else. A boundary is not a weapon you deploy when you're angry. A boundary is not a way to win. A boundary is clarity. It's a clear statement about what you will do, you will accept, and how you'll respond to it. That's it. Here's the line I want you to write down. Tattoo on your arm or put on your bathroom mirror. A boundary is not about controlling someone else's behavior. It's about taking responsibility for your own. Read that again. A boundary is not about controlling someone else's behavior. It's about taking responsibility for your own. Most people set boundaries backwards. They say, you need to stop texting me late at night. That's not a boundary. That's a request. And requests can be ignored. Requests depend on the other person's willingness to cooperate. A boundary sounds like this. I am not available for non-emergency communication after 8 p.m. If you text me after 8, I will respond the next morning. End of sentence. Do you hear the difference? The first version tries to control them. The second version defines you, and that distinction changes everything. Brene Brown has a line that I come back to constantly. She says, daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others. And she also makes this observation that I think is one of the most important sentences ever written about relationships. The most compassionate people I've interviewed over the last 13 years were also the most boundaried. Let that sink in. Compassion and boundaries are not opposites. They're partners. The most compassionate, generous, loving version of you is also the version with the clearest boundaries. Because here's what happens without boundaries. Resentment. Without boundaries, you say yes when you mean no. You tolerate things that are intolerable. You give access to people who misuse it. And over time, you don't become more generous. You become more bitter. You become more reactive. You become more exhausted. And eventually, you become the version of yourself you never wanted to be. Boundaries are not selfish. Boundaries are what makes sustained generosity possible. Part two, the science behind why boundaries are so hard. Let's talk about why knowing all of this intellectually does not automatically translate into doing it. Because if you're anything like my clients, you understand what boundaries are, you can explain them to a friend. You've probably recommended boundaries to other people. And yet, when it's your ex standing in front of you or your phone blowing up, all of that knowledge evaporates. That's not weakness, that's neuroscience. When your ex sends a provocative message, your amygdala fires before your prefrontal cortex even gets the memo. Your body's responding to a perceived threat. Your heart rate spikes. Cortisol and adrenaline flood your system. Dr. John Gottman calls this emotional flooding. And his research shows that once your heart rate exceeds roughly 100 beats per minute, your capacity for rational thought, empathy, and problem solving drops dramatically. You're not thinking anymore, you're surviving. And here's the part no one talks about. Your ex is not a stranger. Your ex is someone who had intimate access to your emotional architecture for years. They know your triggers because they helped install them. When your ex pushes a button, it's not a random button. It's a button they helped wire into your nervous system during the most intimate relationship of your adult life. This is where attachment theory becomes critical. Depending on your attachment style, whether anxious, avoidant, or disorganized, your reaction to boundary violations will look different. If you lean anxious, you may chase, over explain, seek reassurance or capitulate to avoid abandonment. you lean avoidant, you may shut down, stonewall or disappear, which looks like a boundary, but it's actually a wall. If you lean disorganized, which is common in people who have experienced high conflict or abusive dynamics, ⁓ may oscillate between both, sometimes raging and sometimes collapsing. None of these responses are boundaries. They're survival patterns, and they were formed long before your marriage. This is also where trauma bonding shows up. your relationship involves cycles of intensity, whether that was dramatic fights followed by dramatic reconciliation, hot and cold behavior, intermittent reinforcement, or chronic unpredictability, your nervous system may actually be addicted to the chaos. Setting a boundary in that context feels like withdrawal. It feels wrong. It feels cold. It feels like you're being mean. That discomfort is not evidence that you're doing something wrong. It's evidence that you're breaking a pattern and your body doesn't like it yet. Victor Frankel wrote, between stimulus and response, there is a space. that space is our freedom and our power to choose our response. Boundaries live in that space. And the work of setting boundaries is really the work of widening that space, even for a few seconds, ⁓ that you can respond instead of react. Here's something research makes very clear that most people don't realize. Boundaries reduce anxiety, not just for you, for everyone. When there are clear, predictable rules of engagement, the nervous system does not have to stay on high alert. Think about it. If you know that your ex will only communicate through the parenting app, you don't have to brace yourself every time your phone buzzes. If you know that pickup is always at 5 p.m. on Fridays and nothing needs to be negotiated, your body can relax on Friday afternoon instead of tensing up. Unclear boundaries invite repeated conflict because they create ambiguity ambiguity is where anxiety lives. Is it okay for them to call at 9 p.m.? Maybe, sometimes, depends on their mood, depends on you. That uncertainty keeps your nervous system in a low grade state of activation at all times. You are never fully relaxed because you never know when the next intrusion is coming. Clear boundaries eliminate that ambiguity. They are not restrictive. They are liberating. They tell your nervous system, you can stand down, there are rules and we're gonna James Clear writes about how every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. Every boundary you set and hold is a vote for the person who values their own peace, respects their own time, and refuses to live in perpetual reactivity. Part three, boundaries across the co-parenting spectrum. Here's where we get specific, because not all co-parenting is the same, and the boundaries you need depend entirely on the dynamic you're navigating. I'm going to walk through five levels of co-parenting from the most cooperative to the most dangerous and talk about what boundaries look like at each level. Level one, cooperative co-parenting. This is the gold standard. You and your ex generally get along. You communicate respectfully. You can sit together at a school play without becoming a spectacle. You text each other about the kids and it's mostly fine. If this is you, congratulations. Truly. This is not easy to build, and if you have it, protect it. This is where my ex-wife and I are right now, and it's truly glorious. here's the thing most people in cooperative co-parenting miss. You still need boundaries. Friendliness without clarity creates confusion and confusion over time creates resentment. I see this all the time. Two parents who are genuinely trying to be good to each other, but because they never define the rules of engagement, things get murky. One parent assumes they can stop by any time. The other feels like their space is being invaded, but doesn't want to say anything because everything is going so well. One parent starts dating and doesn't know how or when to tell the other. One parent makes a financial decision for the kids without consulting the other. In cooperative co-parenting, boundaries are clarity on scheduling, when can plans change and how much notice is required. What constitutes a legitimate reason to swap days versus an inconvenience. Privacy, what information about each other's lives do you share and what do you keep separate? Just because you get along doesn't mean you owe each other full transparency about your personal life. Dating and new partners, when do new partners get introduced to the children? What is the protocol? This is one of the fastest ways cooperative co-parenting blows up, if not addressed proactively. Holidays, who gets what and when does a negotiation happen? Don't wait until November to figure out Thanksgiving. Money, how are expenses beyond child support handled? Who approves extracurriculars, medical costs, school fees, communication expectations? is the expected response time? Are phone calls okay or is texting preferred? Are there times of the day that are off limits? Emotional over access. This is the subtle one. Just because you're friendly doesn't mean your act should be your emotional confidant. You're no longer partners. That intimacy needs a new container. The framework here is simple. Cooperate on parenting, separate on everything else. Be generous with your kids. Be clear about everything else. Level two, cordial but strained. This is where most people land after divorce. You're functional. You can handle the logistics, but there is tension underneath. There's resentment, disappointment, old pain that has not fully resolved. Conversations are mostly fine And when they're not, things escalate fast. If this is your dynamic, your boundaries need more structure. Goodwill alone is not gonna carry you. Not because you don't trust yourself or them, but because writing slows everything down. It creates a record. It reduces misinterpretation and it removes tone of voice, which is where most miscommunication lies. Establish a response window. You don't need to reply to every message within minutes. A reasonable response window, say 24 hours for non-urgent matters, gives you time to regulate before you respond. James Clear writes about how systems beat willpower every time. A response window is a system. It removes the decision making pressure in the moment and replaces it with the protocol. Use parenting apps. our family wizard, talking parents, app clothes. These platforms are designed exactly for this. They create structure, documentation, and accountability. And here's the bonus. When communication goes through an app, it tends to be more measured. People write differently when they know it's being documented. Reduce emotional language. This one is harder than it sounds, but in strained co-parenting, every word carries weight. I feel like you never consider my schedule is an emotional grenade. I'd like to propose a schedule swap for the next weekend. Here are some options. That is a business communication and in a strange co-parenting, business communication is the standard. Create predictable outcomes. Create predictable routines. reduces anxiety for everyone, including the kids. When is always at the same time, when the exchange location is always the same place, ⁓ when communication method is always the same app, you remove variables. And variables are where conflict lives. Harriet Lerner, who wrote The Dance of Anger, has the insight that I think about constantly. We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance. But if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern. That is what structured boundaries do. You're not changing your acts, you're changing the dance. Level three, high conflict co-parenting. Now we're in very different territory. This is where communication is frequently hostile, manipulative, blame heavy, or chaotic. There may be threats. There may be emotional abuse. There may be a pattern of one parent using the children, the courts, or financial pressures leverage. If this is your reality, I want to be direct with you. The goal is no longer cooperative co-parenting. The goal is parallel parenting. Parallel parenting means you parent independently. You disengage from joint decision-making to the greatest extent your parenting plan You communicate only about logistics and you do it in writing through a documented platform with minimal emotional content. This is where the BIFF method becomes essential. BIFF stands for brief, informative, friendly and firm. It was developed by Bill Eddy, who has spent decades working with high conflict personalities. Let me break it down. Keep communication short. Two to four sentences. That's it. Every additional sentence is another opportunity for them to find something to argue about. Informative. Stick to the facts. Soccer practices at 4 p.m. on Thursday at Riverside Park. Coach asks that players arrive by 3.45. No opinions, no editorializing. No, as I have told you multiple times. Friendly. Not warm, not affectionate, just civil. Thanks for confirming, or I hope the kids have a great weekend with you. This isn't about being nice. This is about giving them nothing to react to. State your position once. Don't defend, explain, over justify or negotiate in the moment. I will follow the parenting plan as written. If you'd like to request a modification, please contact your attorney or our mediator. In conflict co-parenting, you also need to understand the Grey Rock method. This is a strategy where you make yourself as emotionally uninteresting as possible. You don't take the bait. You don't engage with provocations. You don't react to insults, accusations or attempts to draw you into a fight. You're a gray rock, boring, flat, unresponsive to drama. Dr. Ramani Durvasala, who is one of the leading experts on narcissistic personality dynamics, talks extensively about why this works. High conflict individuals often feed on emotional reactions. Your anger, your defensiveness, your tears, your explanations. That is fuel. When you stop providing it, the dynamic shifts. Not because they change, but because you are no longer participating in the pattern. A few critical rules for high conflict co-parenting. not defend every accusation. Not every accusation requires a response. When your ex says, are the worst parent, the temptation is to fire back with a list of everything you've ever done right. Don't. This is a trap. You don't need to prove yourself to someone who is not evaluating evidence. Respond with silence or if a response is required with something like, disagree, but I'm not going to debate parenting philosophies over text. If there's a specific scheduling issue, let me know. Stop litigating the marriage through parenting logistics. When your ex brings up the divorce, the affair, the money, the things that were said during mediation, in the context of a conversation about whether your kids can go to a birthday party, they are not trying to co-parent. They're trying to refight the war. Don't follow them there. I'm available to discuss Jake's birthday party invitation. I'm not available to revisit the divorce. Document everything. Calmly, consistently, without drama. Save every text, screenshot, every email. Use a parenting app that timestamps everything. Keep a log of late pickups, missed weekends, and violations of the parenting plan. Not because you're building a case, but because if you ever need one, it's already built. Level four, co-parenting with someone who ignores boundaries. is the level that makes people feel the most powerless. You've set a boundary, you've been clear, you've been calm, you've used BIFF, you've used the Grey Rock method, and they simply don't care. They text constantly, they show up unannounced, they use the children as messengers, they violate agreements, and then they act like you're the unreasonable one. I want to say something that might feel uncomfortable, but that I believe is absolutely true. A boundary without enforcement is a wish. That line is worth repeating. A boundary without enforcement is a wish. If you tell your ex not to text after 8 p.m. and then you respond at 10.30, you've not set a boundary. You've made a suggestion that they correctly identified as optional. Keep in mind that most phones now have an option to send a text, but hold it and send it at a certain time. Why is this important? Well, want to get it out of your head and you want to get it done, but make sure that you use it. So if you do get that text after 8 p.m. and you want to respond, it to, set it, write it, have it send the next morning at 8 a.m. Enforcement is where most people fall apart and I understand why. Let me name the reasons because naming them takes away some of their power. Fear of conflict. If I enforce this they will explode. Maybe, but they're already exploding. At least you're now exploding over something that matters. Guilt. Am I being too rigid? Am I being petty? No, clarity is not pettiness. Expecting the agreement to be honored is not rigidity. Childhood conditioning. If you were raised in a household where keeping that piece meant abandoning your own needs, boundary enforcement will feel physically dangerous. Your body doesn't know the difference between your mother's disapproval in 1987 and your ex's anger in 2026. The signal feels the same, but you're not a child anymore, and this time you get to choose. People pleasing. I enforce this boundary, ⁓ will not like me. I need you to hear this clearly. Their opinion of you is not your responsibility. Your integrity is. Fear of losing the kids. This is a big one. If I push back, they will take me to court. This fear keeps people trapped in dynamics that are genuinely harmful. And while I can't give legal advice, I can tell you this. documenting boundary violations, communicating through proper channels, and enforcing your parenting plan is not provocation. evidence of a functioning parent. So what do you do when boundaries aren't respected? You cannot make them respect the boundary, but you can control your response when they cross it. You said no texts after eight. They text you at 9.30, you don't respond until 8 a.m. the next day. That's enforcement, consistent, boring, relentless enforcement. Escalate appropriately. If verbal and written boundaries are constantly ignored, it may be time to involve a mediator, a parent coordinator, or your attorney. This is not escalation for the sake of drama. This is escalation because the informal system has failed and you need a formal one. Stop participating in emotional chaos. This is the hardest one. When your ex sends a four paragraph text full of accusations, blame or character assassination, the most powerful thing you can do is not respond to any of it or respond with one sentence. I have received your message. I will follow the parenting plan. Terry Real, who does extraordinary work on relational dynamics, talks about staying on your own side of the net. side of the net is your behavior, your responses, your emotional regulation, your integrity. Their side of the net is theirs. You can't play their side and yours. So stop trying. I wanna speak directly to the person who's listening to this and thinking, I hear you Justin, but I can't enforce my boundaries yet. I'm not there. I hear you and I wanna tell you that it's okay. Enforcement is a skill, not a personality trait. And like any skill, it can be built. Here's how you start when you're not ready for the big moves. Start smaller. You don't have to begin with the hardest boundary. Maybe the first one is simply not responding to texts within five minutes. Give yourself a 30 minute buffer. That is a boundary, a small one, but it's yours and it's real. Use written scripts. When you are emotionally flooded, your ability to think clearly drops to near zero. don't try to improvise. Have your B-I-F-F response pre-written. Have them in the notes on your phone. Copy, paste, send. There no shame in a scripted response. There is wisdom in it. Delay responses. This is one of the most underrated tools in all of co-parenting. You don't need to respond right now. Unless it's a genuine emergency involving the safety of your children, it can wait. the act of waiting or creating that gap between stimulus and response is itself a boundary. You telling your nervous system, we do not operate on their timeline anymore. And remember what I said, if you want to get it off your plate, you can set the response ⁓ up in text or email, but schedule it to send later. That way you know it's off your plate. Get support, a therapist, a divorce coach, a trusted friend who will not just validate your feelings but will hold you accountable to your own standards. You need someone in your corner who will say, I know that was hard and I'm proud of you for holding the line and also you caved on that boundary again. Let's talk about why. Create a boundary buddy. This is someone you text before you respond to your ex. You send them the draft. They help you edit it down. They remind you that the four paragraph response you just wrote is not a boundary. It's a therapy session your ex didn't ask for and doesn't deserve. Document patterns. Every time a boundary is violated, write it down. Date, time, what happened, how you responded. This is not about building a legal case, though it might become one. It's about seeing the pattern. Because when you see that pattern on paper, you stop believing the story your ex tells you, which is that you're overreacting and it's not that bad. documentation lie. Build emotional tolerance. This is the real work. The reason you cannot enforce boundaries is usually not strategic. It's emotional. You can't tolerate the discomfort of the reaction. you need to build the tolerance. The same way an athlete builds endurance. One step at a time. One uncomfortable conversation at a time. One boundary at a time. And over time, what felt impossible starts to feel manageable. And what felt manageable starts to feel automatic. Practice saying no without over explaining. No is a complete sentence. You do not owe a dissertation on why you're saying no. That doesn't work for me is enough. I am not available for that is enough. Every word after no is a negotiation point you just handed them for free. And finally, stop confusing guilt with wrongdoing. This is critical. Guilt is a feeling, it's not evidence. You can feel guilty and still be doing the right thing. In fact, if you're raised in a family system that rewarded self-sacrifice and punished self-advocacy, you will feel guilty every single time you stand up for yourself. That guilt is not a moral compass, it's a relic. feel the guilt and enforce the boundary anyways. Level five, unsafe or abusive dynamics. I need to address this directly because for some listeners, the conversation about boundaries is not about scheduling or text messages, it's about safety. If you're a co-parent with someone who is physically threatening, stalking, harassing, or creating an environment that puts you or your children at risk, the boundary conversation changes fundamentally. In unsafe dynamics, better communication is not the answer. empathy is not the answer. Understanding their perspective is not the answer. Safety is the answer. This may mean restraining orders. It may mean custody modifications. It may mean supervised exchanges at a police station or a neutral monitored location. It may mean a guardian ad litem or a custody evaluator. It may mean an escape plan. I want to be clear, I'm not a therapist I'm not an attorney. you are in an situation, please reach out to a licensed domestic violence advocate, your local family court or the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233. You deserve professional support from people trained to help with exactly this. What I can tell you from my coaching work is this, if your gut is telling you that something is wrong, listen to it. Don't rationalize it away. Don't minimize it. do not tell yourself it's not that bad. Your instincts exist for a reason and you're usually right. Part four, scripts you can tonight. I wanna give you actual language because one of the biggest barriers to settling boundaries is not knowing what to say. So here are some scripts, modify them, make them yours, but use them. For late night or non-urgent texts, I am not available for non-emergency communication after 8 p.m. I will respond tomorrow morning. For conversations that drift into the past, I am available to discuss parenting logistics. I am not available to revisit the marriage. For scheduling changes, send all scheduled change requests through the parenting app so we both have the documentation. For insults or personal attacks, I will not continue this conversation if I am being insulted. I'm happy to discuss the issue at hand when the conversation is respectful. For disagreements on parenting decisions, I understand you disagree. I'm gonna follow the parenting plan as written. If you'd like to request a modification, please contact your mediator or attorney. attempts to involve the children, this is an adult issue. Please do not involve the children in this conversation. For guilt trips or emotional manipulation. I've heard your perspective. My position has not changed. when you need time, I not ignoring you. I am choosing to respond when I can be calm and clear. Notice what all of these have in common. They're short, they're clear, they define your behavior, not theirs. They don't overly explain, they don't justify, and they don't apologize for existing. They are boundaries, not negotiations. Part five, how boundaries protect your children. I wanna talk about the people who matter most in all of this. The research of this is unambiguous. The single greatest predictor of a child's adjustment after divorce is not whether the parents stay together. It's a level of conflict between the parents that the child is exposed to. Dr. Robert Emory's research, Dr. Joan Kelly's work, decades of child development literature, it all points to the same conclusion. Children can thrive after divorce, but they can't thrive in a war zone. Boundaries are not just about protecting your peace. They're about protecting your children's psychological safety. Let me name what children should never carry. Children should never be messengers. Tell your father that he needs to send the check. That child just became a collections agent. That's not their job. Children should not be therapists. You will not believe what your mother did today. That child just became your emotional support system. That's not their job. Children should not hear adult legal or financial information. Your dad's lawyer is trying to take the house. That child just absorbed in adult crisis. They have zero ability to process. That's not their job. Children should not be asked to choose sides. Who do you want to spend Thanksgiving with? The child was just asked to betray one parent to please the other. That's not their job. Children should not be spies. What does mommy's new boyfriend do? Where do they go? The child just became an intelligence asset and that's not their job. Here's what children need. Calm, predictable adults who love them without conditions and without conscripting them into adult conflict. want to add something here that I think gets overlooked. Children are remarkably perceptive. They hear the tone in your voice when you say the other parent's name. They feel the tension when you hand them off at pickup. They notice when you stiffen at a text notification. They absorb all of it and they carry it into their bodies even when they can't articulate it in words. Dr. John Gottman's research on emotional attunement shows that children develop their emotional regulation capacities by watching their parents regulate. you stay calm in the face of provocation, your child's nervous system learns that it's possible to be calm in the face of provocation. When you escalate, their nervous system learns that escalation is the appropriate response to stress. You're not just settling boundaries for yourself. You're teaching your children what healthy boundaries look like. You're showing them that it's possible to love someone, to share children with someone, to have complicated history with someone, and still maintain your dignity with composure and your clarity. Esther Perel talks about how children don't need perfect parents. They need parents who can repair. repair starts with regulation. If you lose your cool at pickup, the boundary is not destroyed. But the repair matters. coming home, taking a breath and saying to your child, I was frustrated back there and I wish I had handled that differently. That is modeling accountability. That's showing your child that adults make mistakes and adults own them. One more thing about children, and this is specifically for the parents who are doing all of this work and not seeing the other parent do any of it. I know how unfair that feels. You're reading books, going to therapy, practicing B-I-F-F, using the parenting app, and they're still sending hostile texts at midnight and bad-mouthing use of the kids. I know it feels like you're doing all the heavy lifting while they get to be the fun parent or the victim parent or the chaos parent. what I want you to hold on to. Your will figure it out. Maybe not today, maybe not this year, but children grow up and when they do, they'll look back and know who showed up with consistency, who kept the peace when it would have been easier to fight, and who loved them enough to protect them from battle problems. You're playing the long game, and the long game always wins. And here's a line I want you to carry with you. The goal is not to win the co-parenting war. The goal is to stop making your child live in the battlefield. Every boundary you set that reduces conflict in front of your children is a gift. Every time you bite your tongue and pick up instead of making a sarcastic comment is a gift. Every time you refuse to interrogate your kid about what happens at the other parent's house is a gift. Every time you say, your dad loves you and I love you and we're both going to take care of you, even when you want to scream, this is a gift. Maya Angelou wrote, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Your children are watching. They're watching how you handle conflict, how you treat people who may have hurt you, and how you manage your own emotions. You're not just co-parenting, you're modeling what adulthood looks like. Make it something worth modeling. Part six, the truth some people need to hear. I'm gonna shift down here for a moment because some of you need the compassion and the scripts and the strategies. And some of you need someone to look you in the eye and tell you the truth. Here it is. Your ex may never validate you. They may never say, you're right, I was wrong, you handled that well. you're waiting for that, you will wait forever. Stop waiting. Your ex may never respect your boundaries. can set the clearest, most reasonable, most well-communicated, compassionate boundary on the planet, and they may ignore it every time. Your boundary's still worth setting because the boundary is for you. You may need to stop trying to be understood. people will mischaracterize your boundaries as hostility. They tell mutual friends you are being difficult. They will tell the kids you're being mean. And you may never get the chance to set the record straight. Peace may require being misunderstood. You do not need to attend to every argument you're invited to. Read that again. Not every provocation requires a response. Not every accusation requires a defense. Sometimes the most powerful response is no response at all. Your healing cannot depend on their emotional maturity. If you're waiting for your ex to get their act together before you can move forward, you've given them control of your timeline. Take it back. Sometimes the boundary is not a sentence you say. Sometimes it's a pattern you stop repeating. The boundary is not, please stop calling me names. boundary is hanging up the phone when they do. The boundary is not, please stop showing up on an ounce. The boundary is not opening the door. The person who needs to hear your boundary most might be you. Sometimes we set boundaries outward when the real work is internal. The boundary is not just, will tolerate disrespect. The boundary is, I will not disrespect myself by staying in a conversation that degrades me. The boundary is, I will not betray my own values to match someone else's dysfunction. When you start setting boundaries with yourself, the external ones become almost automatic. Being the bigger person doesn't mean being the smaller version of yourself. Somewhere along the way, being the bigger person got confused with being a doormat. Being the bigger person means acting from your highest values. It doesn't mean absorbing abuse with a smile. It doesn't mean tolerating the intolerable so that everyone else is comfortable. If being the bigger person requires you to shrink, it is not maturity, it's self abandonment. Your co-parent's narrative about you is not your biography. They may tell people you're being difficult, controlling, unreasonable, cold, or vindictive. And those words will sting. But their version of you is a story they tell to make sense of their own choices. It's not a mirror. Don't let someone else's narrative become your identity. You know who you are. Live from that knowledge. And maybe... The heart is truth of all. You cannot control the outcome, but you can control who you become in the process. You can become someone your children trust. You can become someone your future self respects. You can become someone who chooses dignity over drama, clarity over chaos, and growth over grudges. And that is the real work. Part seven, the boundary audit. I want to give you an exercise you can do tonight. Grab a journal, a notes app, napkin, whatever you have, and answer these questions honestly. The boundary audit. number one, where am I over explaining? Where am I using 10 sentences when one would do? Where am I justifying my decisions to someone who has not earned that level of access to my reasoning? Number two, where am I still trying to control their reaction? Where am I softening, hedging or withholding truth because I'm managing their emotions? Where am I editing myself so that they don't get upset? Number three, What am I tolerating that is costing me peace? What behavior have I accepted as just how they are that is actually eroding my mental health, my sleep, my patience with my kids, my ability to be present? Four, what boundary have I started but not enforced? Where have I drawn the line and then let it move? Where have I communicated a boundary that I quietly abandoned when it was tested? Number five, what am I afraid will happen if I enforce it? Name the fear. Is it conflict, legal retaliation, the kids being upset, being seen as a bad guy? Name it, because unnamed fears control you. Named fears can be evaluated. Number six. What would a calm, clear, self-respecting version of me do next? Not the angry version, not the scared version, not the revenge version, the version of you that has processed the pain, regulated the nervous system, and is acting from values instead of words. What would that person do? last is the one I want you to sit with, because that person is not the same imaginary future self. That person is the one you're becoming right now every time you choose response over reaction. Every time you enforce a boundary, even when it's uncomfortable. Every time you refuse to participate in someone else's chaos. Part eight, the clear framework. I want to leave you with a framework you can carry. Something you can return to when you're triggered, overwhelmed, or unsure what to do next. I call it the clear framework for boundaries and divorce. C. Clarify what matters. Before you respond, before you react, ask yourself, what actually matters here? Is this about the kids? Is it about logistics? Or is this about ego, control, or old pain? Separate that signal from the noise. Most arguments in co-parenting are not about what they appear to be about. The fighting about the pickup time is not about the pickup time. It's about power, fear, or grief. Clarify the real issue before you respond to the presented one. L. Limit emotional access. Your ex no longer has an all access past your emotional life, not with your fears, not with your insecurities, not with your hopes, not with your triggers, you get to decide how much emotional bandwidth any person in your life receives. And the amount you allocate your ex should be proportional to the functional co parenting relationship, not the emotional history. emotional access is not coldness, it is clarity where your energy goes. E, enforce consistently. A boundary that is only enforced when you're feeling strong is not a boundary, it's a mood. Consistency is what teaches people how to interact with you. When your boundary is the same on your good days and your bad days, when it holds whether you're rested or exhausted, when it does not flex based on guilt or fear, it becomes real. And when it becomes real, people eventually will adapt to it. Not because they respect it, but because they realize it's going nowhere. act from values, not triggers. Every response you give your ex either moves you towards the person want to become or pulls you back towards the person you're trying to leave behind. Before you hit send, ask yourself, am I responding for my values or my wounds? Am I acting from who I wanna be or reacting from who I was? Triggers will always be but do not get to make your decisions. R regulate before responding. This is first in practice, even though it's last in the acronym. Before any boundary conversation, before any response to a provocative text, for any pickup or drop off that might be tense, regulate your nervous system. Take five breaths, go for a walk, call a friend, 24 hours, you are engaging from your prefrontal not your amygdala. Victor Frankl's space between stimulus and response is not automatic. It's a practice. And it's the most important practice you will ever develop. Clear, C, ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ Clarify, limit, enforce, act from values, regulate. Print it, screenshot it, put it on your fridge. Use it every single day until it becomes automatically. I want to close with something I don't say enough on this podcast. I'm proud of you. Not in a generic motivational poster kind of way. I'm proud of you for being here, for listening to an episode about boundaries instead of pouring another glass of wine and doom scrolling on Instagram. choosing education over avoidance, for believing, even if it's a fragile belief right now, that things can be different. Because they can. I've watched people transform through this process. I've watched a woman who couldn't send a single text or act without shaking become the calmest person in every exchange. I've watched a man who used to fire back at every provocation learn to put his phone down, take a walk and respond two hours later with four measured words. I've watched people who thought they would never stop being angry discover that anger was just grief in a costume. And once they processed that grief, the anger left on its own. That's what's available to you, not perfection, a co-parenting relationship that looks like a Hallmark movie, but something real, something sustainable, something that lets you sleep at night and look at your kids in the eye in the morning. Let me tell you what I've seen on the other side of this work. Becoming the calmest person in the room. There is a particular kind of power that comes from being the person who doesn't react. It is quiet. It's not dramatic, but it changes the dynamic completely. When you stop feeding the fire, the fire eventually has to find fuel somewhere else. Reclaiming self-respect. boundary you hold is a deposit in your self-respect account. Every time you choose response over reaction, you're telling yourself, I trust my own judgment. I respect my own piece. I am worth protecting. And over time, that account compounds. Modeling emotional maturity for your children. Your kids may not remember the specific arguments, but they will remember the feeling of your home. They will remember when it felt safe or chaotic. They will remember whether they were the kind of person who was handed hard things with grace or the kind who made hard things harder. You are writing their playbook for how adults navigate conflict. Write them a good one. Turning pain into leadership. person I coach who comes out on the other side of this work tells me some version of the same thing. I'm a better person than I was before the divorce. Not because divorce is good, but because the work demanded it. The self-awareness, the emotional regulation, the boundary setting, the identity rebuilding. It forced a level of growth that comfort never requires. Moving from reaction to response. This is a shift from being controlled by external stimuli to being guided by internal From to someone else's music to writing your own. Choose dignity over drama. every single time. Divorce is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can go through. It dismantles your identity, your routines, your assumptions about the future, and sometimes your confidence in your own judgment. And when you add co-parenting to the equation, you don't get the clean break the other endings offer. You're connected to this person through your children for the rest of your life. That connection can be a source of ongoing pain or it can be a canvas for demonstrating the kind of person you're becoming. are how you build that canvas. or how you stop the bleeding, or how you reclaim your time, your energy, your home, and your peace, or how you teach your children that love doesn't mean tolerating mistreatment, and strength does not mean never walking away. I said at the top of this episode that a boundary is not about controlling someone else's behavior. It's about taking responsibility for your own. And I want to extend that one step further. Boundaries are an act of faith. Faith that you are worth protecting. Faith that your peace is non-negotiable. Faith that your children will be better served by a parent who is calm and clear than one who is reactive and resentful. that the life you're building on the other side of this is worth the discomfort of holding the line right now. You're not just setting boundaries, you're building the architecture of your next chapter. And that chapter, one where you're calmer, cleaner, stronger, more intentional, the one where your kids see you handle hard things with grace, the one where you look in the mirror and actually like the person looking back. That chapter starts with the next boundary you set and actually hold. So I want to thank you for being here today. Thank you for choosing growth over avoidance. Thank you for doing the work, even when it's uncomfortable, because you know your kids and your future are worth it. If this episode resonate with you, I have a favor to ask. Share it. Send it to someone who is up at 1047 on a Tuesday night, staring at a text from their ex, wondering what to do. Send it to the friend who saying, they know you need boundaries, but cannot seem to hold them. Send it to someone who needs to hear that they're not crazy, they're not too much, and they're not wrong for wanting peace. Subscribe to the Conscious Divorce Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Leave a review, it helps other people find this show, and every review matters more than you think. If you wanna go deeper into this work, check out my books, You 2.0, Divorce a Better Way Forward, and the You 2.0 Workbook. You can find them wherever books are sold, especially on amazon.com. If you're in the middle of it right now, if you're navigating a divorce, rebuilding after one or trying to figure out who you are on the other side of one, I offer a free 30 minute consultation. No pitch, no pressure, just a real conversation about where you are and what might help. You can book at www.reclaimandreboot.me Because here's what I believe with everything I have. Divorce is not just the end of a marriage. It's the beginning of reclaiming who you are, rebooting how you live, and becoming the person you were always meant to be. U2.0 is not a destination. It's a decision. And you already started making it. I will see you on the next episode. Until then, clear, be kind, be brave, and take care of yourself. The conscious divorce is produced for educational and information purposes only. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional legal, financial, or therapeutic advice. Always the guidance of a qualified professional for your specific situation.