Calm Co-Parenting With A High-Conflict Ex

In the last episode in The Ex-Files series I'm talking about what changes when you are co-parenting with a high-conflict ex where “communicate openly” and “be flexible” aren’t just unhelpful, they can actually set you up for more chaos. The goal becomes steadiness: keeping your nervous system regulated, keeping communication clean, and keeping your kids emotionally protected when they're with you.

I break down parallel parenting as a useful baseline and then go deeper with tools that work when the other parent is inflammatory or controlling, including the BIFF method to help you take your power back in this co-parenting relationship. 

I'll then focus on the part that matters most: your children. Drawing on trauma-informed parenting insights and research on stress and brain development, you'll learn why transition days can feel so hard, why kids may act younger under chronic stress, and how to create an environment of safety through calm routines, predictability, and consistent one-on-one connection. 

If you want calmer co-parenting communication, stronger boundaries, and a steadier home for your kids, press play. Then subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review so more divorced moms can find real help.

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL, INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND ARE NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING PSYCHOLOGICAL, COUNSELING OR PROFESSIONAL HEALTHCARE ADVICE. 

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Transcript

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Welcome And The Real Problem

Karin Nelson 0:00

Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast for divorcing and divorced women who want to stop feeling like every exchange with their ex is a battle and start taking back control over their own lives. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. I'm a divorce coach with a passion for helping women find calm, clarity, and their own power, even when the person they're co-parenting with makes that feel impossible. In today's episode, I am talking about how to parent alongside a high conflict ex without losing your mind or your peace and how to protect your kids emotionally while doing it. Let's get started. Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast, all of you amazing women. This is our fourth episode in the Ex-Files, and I feel like I have saved the biggest topic for last, because it is something that I think a lot of women out there are struggling with, and it's something that I don't cover a ton on the podcast. And I think this episode is going to be really helpful. So let me just start off this episode by saying this topic, this, you know, co-parenting with someone who is high conflict is not something that I have personal experience with in my own divorce. My own divorce, as most of you know, if you listen, if you've listened to lots of the podcast episodes, was very amicable. And my ex and I have really always been able to work on communication and problem solve and co-parent without a lot of drama. However, I have coached and I am continuing to coach women through high-conflict co-parenting moments. And I have also, for this specific episode, talked to a trauma-informed parenting consultant and done research on the topic to try and give you as much helpful, useful information as possible as you move forward with this co-parenting dynamic that you've got going on. So I had a conversation with AJ Gajar, who is a trauma-informed parenting consultant, and she has spent her entire career supporting parents navigating this high-conflict divorce co-parenting relationship. So I'm going to bring to you what our conversation, what came about through our conversation, and then all of the other research that I have done on this topic.

Why Standard Co-Parenting Advice Fails

Karin Nelson 2:47

So the thing with co-parenting, when you get divorced, there's kind of like this advice that is floating around. And it's advice that I typically will give most people. It's advice that you'll hear from other people as well, which is like when you co-parent, just make sure that you are communicating openly, that you are flexible, but that you're really just like doing your best to put your kids first. You're gonna work as a team, right? Like that's the advice that most people will give when it comes to co-parenting, which is good advice if you are working with somebody who is on the same page as you. That's Charlie. He's saying good morning. So this advice is like assuming that both parents want the same thing for their kids, what's best for their kids. But when you are dealing with a high conflict ex, experts refer to these type of people as maladaptive, meaning their patterns are going to probably cause more harm than good to your children. And those assumptions of like, we're gonna communicate well and we're gonna put our kids first, those don't work with a high conflict person like this, right? Because you are not looking at two people from the perspective of we have the same goal in mind. You are looking at one parent who wants to put the best interests of the kids first, and you are looking at another parent who is making decisions based on their best interests, not the kids' best interests. So there isn't common ground to be found.

Parallel Parenting And Its Limits

Karin Nelson 4:16

So some of the advice out there, and this is advice that I also will use at times because it is useful, is to parallel parent, which is a step in the right direction, but there is more that I'm gonna talk about later in this podcast. More advice to try and help you find your footing with this high conflict ex. But parallel parenting basically means you parent your kids how you want to parent them when they're with you, and you like let go of trying to control what your ex is doing in their home, right? Minimal direct communication, which is going to reduce a lot of that day-to-day conflict that you might be feeling with your ex and the co-parenting process. The thing that parallel parenting doesn't address and gives a lot of parents who want to put their children's best interests first, is this idea that a lot of these other co-parents who are high conflict come to parenting from a perspective of controlling or authoritarian parenting styles. And that can create a lot of anxiety and worry for a parent when their children are not with them. It's like, how do I support my kids through this when I know that my ex is a piece of shit and is going to try and control every aspect of their life, right? Or try to rule with like an iron fist. That can be scary and worrisome for a parent. So I'm going to try and give you some tips on how to show up for yourself and for your kids when they're with you, so that they when they go to the other parent's home, they feel supported and loved, even though they are not in your presence in those moments. Okay. So the first thing we're going to talk about is that experts say to focus on is called rewiring.

Regulate Before You Respond

Karin Nelson 6:07

And rewiring, I want to talk about this first because it's something that I talk about on the podcast literally all the time. I just use different words for it and basically just means grounding, like regulating your nervous system first before you do anything else in terms of co-parenting with this high conflict ex. Rewiring, as the experts call it, or grounding yourself or realigning your nervous system, all the same thing. Because the thing is, is you cannot show up as a support and a protection for your children in terms of conflict if you can't be steady and grounded for yourself in the first place. If you can't have your prefrontal cortex online, ready to think and problem solve and show up as your best self first, you're not going to be able to do that and support your kids through this as well. So when you get a like an aggressive text from your ex, you don't respond immediately. Like you don't respond when your nervous system is heightened. That's like rule number one, right? We're going to take a beat, we're going to take a break, we're going to create some space, we're going to realign ourselves, we're going to ground ourselves, we're going to support our nervous system and get our prefrontal cortex back online. That is number one. The next thing you're going to do, and this this is with every text and every email, is you are going to show up with the biff

The BIFF Method For Messages

Karin Nelson 7:33

method. Now, the biff method comes from a conflict resolution expert named Bill Eddy. He developed this response and it stands for brief, informative, friendly, and firm. So basically, let's say you get an ex, uh, let's say you get a text or an email from your ex and he is freaking out, he's being highly inflammatory, he's being whatever he is being, right? Whatever he does, because he just does these things, you respond in this way, the biff method, which means brief. It's gonna be short, you're not going to write a really long paragraph, you're not gonna write a lot of things in it, you're not gonna respond to a lot of the things that he says, because when you do that, it's gonna give him more opportunity to grab and take what you say and twist it and throw it back in your face and all the things that they are really good at manipulatively doing, right? Not gonna do that. So it's gonna be brief. Next thing is it's gonna be informative. We're gonna stick to the facts. We're not putting emotions in there, we're not defending ourselves or over-explaining or justifying or relitigating or any of that. Stick to the facts. It's going to just be informative. The next thing is friendly, not meaning you have to be like overly like, I'm your best friend and we're gonna get along and blah, blah, blah. No. Friendly meaning neutral. Okay? Like neutral in tone. Neutral in, I'm not going to escalate this further. Because that's what they want, right? They want the fight. That is what they live for. We're not doing that. We're just gonna be friendly in terms of like neutrality and then firm, meaning this is the end of the conversation. We are not open for debate. We are just stating the thing and ending the conversation. Like that's it. So let me give you a couple of examples of what this could possibly look like. Let's say you get a text from your ex and he's talking about he needs to change the time for pickup. But within that text, he also sends something like, You're such a selfish mother. You never think about what's best for our kids. All you do is care about yourself. All I'm asking is to change the time, and all you do is tell me that you can't do that because you are so selfish. That's all you do. Okay, so that's his text, right? And it's inflammatory and it's rude, and he's saying a bunch of shit that he doesn't need to say, but this is who he is, and he's gonna do this. So, number one, we're just gonna expect that he's gonna do this, right? Because that's who he is. Number two, we ground ourselves, we realign, and then we create the space and we respond in the biff method. It could look like a couple of different ways, okay? I hear that you're upset. Let's keep our focus on the pickup schedule for next week. Let's confirm that I can do Friday at 6 p.m. Does that work for you? That's it. Like there's no emotion there, it's neutral. You're not going into long over-explanatory, you're not trying to defend yourself about not being a selfish mother and all the things. You're just stating the thing, ending it, right? It could also look like I can do Tuesday instead of Wednesday this week. If that doesn't work for you, my other option is Thursday. Let me know which works. Done. So just notice that your intentionality of not addressing all of the inflammatory things that he's throwing in your face. You're not trying to defend yourself, you're not trying to get him to understand where you're coming from. You're not trying to overexplain yourself. You're not trying to get in this game where, like, he's emotional. Now I'm emotional. Now I'm defending, now he's defending. No. All you're doing with this myth method is taking your power back. It's boring, it's unremarkable. You're not being unreasonable. You're just being reasonable and stating the facts. Like that's literally it. This is gonna take practice, and that's okay. You can get better at this, you can step away, you can create space, you don't have to answer texts immediately. Like this is how we start.

When Kids Live With Chronic Stress

Karin Nelson 11:31

So now let's talk about your kids because this is really the heart of it. And when I was talking to AJ, she taught me something in her conversation that I think about a lot. When your kid is living with a high conflict or maladaptive parent, when they're with that parent, that time can function as a recurring stressor for them. Especially if that household is chaotic or authoritarian or they feel emotionally unsafe, but they don't really know what to do with that. So if they're coming back from like this chaotic, authoritarian or emotionally unsafe, you know, time with the other parent, this is where you get to step in because you don't get to control, as we've stated, what happens at the other house. But when they come home to you, that is entirely up to you. That is enormously powerful for you to learn to create an environment of safety for your children. So let's talk about like how your how our kids' brains work, which is very similar to how our brains work. It's just their brains aren't fully developed until they're like late 20s, right? So we got to remember that. But we have, let's just think about their brains in these three different layers. We have the bottom layer of the brain, which is the body brain, and it's the part that is responsible for any of the automatic functions like breathing, heart rate, digestion, those kinds of things, right? It's the part of our body that feels things before we actually know what's happening, before we can actually explain what's going on. Then we have the amygdala, that's the middle part of our brain, it's the emotional part of our brain, it's the stress response, it's the automatic fight, fight, flip, fight, flight, or freeze response that shows up. And then we have the prefrontal cortex, the top, the part that I've talked about that you need to have online when you're parenting your kids through these types of high conflict parenting experiences. But the prefrontal cortex part of our brain, it's the critical thinking, it's the reasoning, it's the decision making. That's the part of your kid's brain that isn't fully even developed until their late 20s. Okay. So when your kid comes back to you and they're dysregulated and their nervous system is heightened because they've just been living through five days of stress and possibly anxiety and things that are going on that you have zero control over and you want to just sit down with them and reason with them or like have these intellectual conversations with them. That's not a thing. Don't expect that of your children, right? It can come and you can like create an environment where you can get that prefrontal cortex back online, but it's not gonna happen like second one, day one of their transition time of coming back to you. So don't expect that like you're gonna be able to just sit down and have this conversation. Maybe they acted up, maybe they were misbehaving, maybe they were whatever when they got back to you. We're gonna have a little compassion and understanding of why that might be happening and going on for them. And we're not going to expect that they're gonna be able to have a regulated nervous system is in the perfect place conversation right away. Okay.

Transition Days That Feel Safe

Karin Nelson 14:48

So recognize on transition days, meaning when your kids are going back and forth, like they're coming back to you or they are leaving to go to the other parents' home. Those are the transition days. Recognize that you want to do your best to create an environment of safety for them. You can't create the safety inside them for them. That's up to them, but you can create an environment of safety where they can feel safe to create that for themselves. Okay. So you want to keep your house as calm as possible and as predictable as possible. No big plans, no new play dates, no big surprises if you can control it. Surprises usually typically means you can't, like, it's a surprise, but like do your best to keep things as normal and stable and predictable as possible. On a transition day when your kid is coming home to you. Maybe you typically always have the same thing for dinner. Maybe Taco Tuesday, right? You all they know what to expect. Maybe you give them a little extra screen time before bed. Maybe you like always have ice cream for dessert and you go around the table and talk about the great thing that happened to them and the low point that happened to them. Or like something that is like predictable, they know is gonna happen. It's tradition for you. It's something that they know what to expect, and they can feel and lean into safety in that knowing. Remember, uncertainty to all of us feels unsafe. And so the more certain and predictable you can make your environment for your children, especially on transition days, is going to add so much for their own ability to create safety when they are with you.

Validate Feelings, Guide Behavior

Karin Nelson 16:40

And something else to be aware of that AJ pointed out to me is that when your kids are under chronic stress, they will often behave developmentally younger than their actual age. So let's say you have a 10-year-old and they are freaking out, and it seems they're acting like it seems like they're acting much younger than a 10-year-old should be acting, right? Maybe they had a hard week at their dad's. It's possible that this meltdown isn't about defiance or about acting out or about misbehaving. It's possible that like that's just literally where their nervous system is at in the moment. They are acting like a seven-year-old melting down rather than what a 10-year-old probably should be acting like, right? That can just like knowing that information of what chronic stress can do and knowing how their nervous system will respond, and it will respond as a younger age than they are, just knowing that can change how you respond to what is going on. And I want to just mention here when it comes to talking to your kids about what's happening in their bodies and their emotions, it is really important to validate to your children that it's okay for them to feel what they are feeling, that what they're feeling, nothing has gone wrong. They're not wrong for feeling it. And it's okay for them to feel how they're feeling, right? That is a way to, that is a way to cement this idea that it's okay to feel emotions, that everyone feels emotions, and it's not bad too. Where you want to differentiate that with your children is the behavior that comes because of what they're feeling. Because often when we feel something, especially like a negative emotion, we don't know what to do with that. And so we will act out on it, we will behave improperly. Maybe that's not even the right word. We will just behave, act out in a way because we don't know what to do with the uncomfortable feeling. So it's just a matter of like having a conversation with your children when they're more regulated, when their prefrontal cortex is probably more online, is to just recognize that, like, listen, we all feel emotions, we all feel these things, and nothing has gone wrong when we feel them. And it's just a matter of can we look at the behavior behind the acting out or the acting out what they're feeling because they don't know what to do with that. But you can still do a lot just in terms of creating that environment of safety for your children when they come back to you, when they are being parented by you.

Connection That Rebuilds Security

Karin Nelson 19:20

And a lot of that is going to come down to like doing your best to create one-on-one connection, right? It doesn't mean you're always pushing them that they have to get their homework done or they have to sit at the dinner table, they have to have the schedules. Sometimes it's just your presence. It's just one-on-one paying attention, listening, right? Driving with music on, watching a television show that you both enjoy together, creating a pattern of presence and predictability. That relationship of just being present with your kids is going to create and do so much of the healing. Not a lesson, not having them be perfect at the dinner table, not constantly correcting them and making them feel like they're doing everything wrong, just consistent connection with safety over and over and over again is going to do a huge service to you and your children.

Boundaries And Outside Support

Karin Nelson 20:14

And the last thing that I have learned from the experts is talking about boundaries. Boundaries for both you with your ex in terms of the systems around your divorce. So get really familiar with your divorce decree, with your separation agreement. Hold the line in terms of boundaries on what actually needs to be discussed versus things that don't actually need to be discussed. Not every message that your ex sends to you needs to have a response. You just don't need to respond to every text or email. Not every disagreement needs to be resolved between the two of you directly. Like it just doesn't have to happen. There are definitely things that need to be addressed, but not every text that you're gonna get from him or every email is going to be something that needs to be responded to or addressed. You also can always have your mediator step in. You can get a parent coordinator, you can use your lawyers, you may have to go back to court. You may need these third parties to come in and help you handle things, but not all things need to actually be addressed or handled. The goal isn't to disappear from the process, it's to stop believing that every single thing needs to be absorbed into your nervous system and addressed and resolved. Not all of it does need to be resolved. So I just want you to remember: you cannot control your ex. He's gonna show up in his unregulated, shitty way that he always has and he always does. And it still doesn't mean that you cannot create an environment of safety and protection for your children when they're with you. Teach them tools, whether it's conscious or subconscious, right? You get to model for them how you want them to support themselves and how you support them, and show up in a way that is supportive for both you in creating boundaries for yourself and in how you show up to create connection between you and your kids when they're with you.

Wrap Up And Coaching Invite

Karin Nelson 22:22

All right, my friends. I hope that you found some helpful information in this podcast episode. This wraps up the Ex-File series. Thank you so much for showing up with me this month over the last four episodes. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. I will be back next week. Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson Coaching.com. That's www.karin nelson coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.