Oppugnant. It’s a fine word, though few people know it. Use it the next time you are dealing with a disagreeable ex-spouse. A disagreeable spouse seeks discord, antagonizes you, or is openly hostile to you and your co-parenting plans. Remind your divorced spouse that being discordant, contentious, hateful or just plain nasty — serves no good, not for you, not for your kids, not for anybody.

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What is Co-Parenting?

The Happy Co-Parent introduces co-parenting like this:

Co-parenting is a term often used to describe a parenting relationship where parents share the burden and benefits of looking after their children and work as a team for the children.

There is no legal definition of co-parenting. It does not mean that the parents spend equal time with their children.

The folks at Our Family Wizard have a bit of an offbeat but intriguing definition of co-parenting:

At its most basic, it’s putting the needs and well-being of your children before everything. It’s working honestly and openly with your co-parent to meet those needs and raise happy and healthy children.

The divorced, co-parenting, Virginia couple places the needs of children first. Such a couple shares the joys and challenges equally. Co-parenting is also completely compatible with Virginia’s legal mandate for all adults to keep in mind the “best interests of the child.”

All Unicorns and Rainbows

Virginia men new to co-parenting may assume that only amicably split or divorced couples can handle this method of parenting children. Everything must already be unicorns and rainbows for two people — who cannot get along — to somehow get along for the sake of the children.

Nonsense.

Flawed folks from Virginia Beach to Wheeler find ways to make co-parenting work. Even if your ex is a nasty, belligerent, spiteful person, you can find ways to co-parent.

And, if you absolutely can’t, you do have at least one alternative (but more on that later). The basics of co-parenting with an uncooperative ex include:

  • Setting firm schedules for visitation and almost never deviating from them
  • Keeping your focus on the welfare of the children, not the two adults
  • Having predefined ways to resolve conflict away from the children (an attorney’s office, a mediator, counselor, or social worker)
  • Use the BIFF model for communicating with the discordant party: Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm

Effective Co-parenting Tips

You should aim to treat the job of co-parenting like a business, especially if your ex is like a disgruntled customer:

  • Detach yourself
  • Keep all communications neutral
  • Reserve communication to email (avoiding face-to-face and telephonic conversations that cannot be memorialized)
  • Use simple, dry, unemotional phrasing
  • Provide information on a need-to-know basis
  • Draw deep lines in the sand (privacy, guilt, anger, etc.)
  • Set firm boundaries

In your business life you have surely had to work with someone with whom you did not get along. The coping mechanisms you developed for that relationship can now be tapped to deal with your ex:

  • Model respect (no matter what, your spouse is a parent of your kids)
  • Maintain distance (physically and mentally)
  • Speak ill of nobody (never talk smack around your kids)
  • Recruit no spies (keep the kids out of it)

Rise Above Toxic Behavior

You won’t find a Virginia lawyer or mental health professional who claims co-parenting is easy, especially with a toxic ex-spouse. If you bear in mind the overarching goal of co-parenting is to put your children first, you can learn to:

  • Rise above the conflicts of the moment to keep your eye on your children’s future
  • Create a nurturing environment shielding your child from the ex’s conflict
  • Recognize that, no matter the ex’s personality, children do better with two parents than with one
  • Let go of momentary animosity and emotions in your pursuit of mindfulness

Moving On After Divorce

Carving out safe space (mentally and physically) for your children and really working hard at co-parenting can give you important breathing room in your post-divorce life.

You can, for example, safely pursue new romantic relationships knowing you have a firmly established routine with the co-parent of your kids.

Perhaps more coldly, you can also keep a running record of issues you resolved so that, if and when necessary, you can revisit divorce topics like parenting time schedules, child support, and child custody. Your impulsive, maybe repulsive ex will have almost no reasonable response to all the instances of unreasonable behavior (from your spouse) that you handled through good co-parenting.

This is not to say you have permission to be a horrible person if your ex behaves badly. You have permission (leverage may be a better word) to assert what is best for your kids in the face of a disagreeable ex-partner.

Parallel Parenting

But what if you can’t make co-parenting work with a problem parent? Then try parallel parenting, described by WebMD as a style in which “each parent has certain responsibilities, and they carry out day-to-day duties without involving the other parent.”

Parallel parenting means parent-to-parent communication is at a minimum. Each of you does what you must do for the benefit of the kids, but without actively working with the other parent. Parallel parenting allows you to let go of your expectations that your ex-spouse will be any different after divorce. You do you while your spouse does whatever it is that works in that household.

The two of you meet and communicate only long enough to divvy up responsibilities:

  • One parent handles school matters
  • One parent handles religion and spirituality
  • One parent takes responsibility for after-school programs
  • One parent handles all the medical questions

Parallel parenting is not easy on children: two households, two sets of rules, two groups of privileges, and so on. One pro tip: Keep a communication book that travels silently between parents and is like a ship’s log:

  • Changes in sleep patterns or food preferences
  • Accidents, injuries, or illnesses
  • Current medicines and dosages
  • Names of new friends and friends you should not mention

More and better ideas for handling difficult personalities in separation and divorce can come from your trustworthy family law attorney. Separation and divorce can take many months, and post-divorce life can be fraught with problems. Having a strong lawyer as your ally, you can succeed at co-parenting, parallel parenting, or simply coping with life as a single parent.

Contact The Firm For Men today or call our office at (757) 383-9184 to get that all-important initial consultation and get the help you need.