Coparenting After Divorce — Stop Fighting the Ex You Chose
Day 22 of the 30-day Relationships Series.
You divorced them. Your children did not.
The way you talk about, cooperate with, and hold your ex-partner in front of your children — for years, sometimes decades — will shape them more than almost any single decision you make after the divorce itself.
This is a hard truth. It is also a gift. Because it means one of the most powerful things you can do for your children, no matter how the marriage ended, is to coparent decently with the person you chose to have them with.
The One-House Rule
The most protective thing you can do for children in a two-household family is to give them the experience, as much as possible, of one integrated family across two homes.
Similar rules across houses. Bedtime. Homework. Screens. Not identical, but similar enough that the child is not swinging between two entirely different childhoods.
No litigating the divorce through the children. Do not use them to send messages. Do not ask them about the other parent's dating life. Do not put them in the middle.
Speak of the other parent with basic respect in front of the children. Every time. Even when you do not feel it.
Never criticize the other parent to the child, even in indirect ways. "I would love to help you with that but you know how your dad is" is a criticism.
Coordinate on the big things. School, medical, activities, major purchases. Even if you do it through a coparenting app.
BIFF Communication
Bill Eddy's BIFF method is one of the most useful communication frameworks for high-conflict coparenting relationships. Every message to your ex should be:
Brief — as few words as possible.
Informative — factual, not emotional.
Friendly — pleasant tone, even if you have to fake it.
Firm — clear about what you can and cannot do.
This is not about being fake. It is about removing the fuel from a fire. High-conflict exes feed on emotional engagement. BIFF starves it.
When the Other Parent Is Difficult
Sometimes the other parent is genuinely difficult — high-conflict personality, ongoing addiction, mental illness, or willful undermining of your role. In these situations you cannot make coparenting equal. You can still protect your children.
Document. Keep records of communications, incidents, and agreements. Use a coparenting app (Our Family Wizard, TalkingParents) that time-stamps everything.
Reduce direct contact. Parallel parenting — minimal direct communication, structured through the app or through attorneys — is a legitimate and often necessary framework in high-conflict situations.
Do not retaliate. Even when they do. The children are watching.
Get a family attorney who understands high-conflict divorce. Not every attorney does.
Get your own therapist. This is grueling. You need support.
Consider a therapist for the children. Not to talk badly about the other parent, but to have a neutral adult help them make sense of it.
The Long View
Children grow up. They notice. Adult children of divorce almost always remember which parent handled it with grace and which one used them as a pawn. This is not manipulation. This is the truth about how children read the adults in their lives.
If you handle the coparenting well — even when the other parent does not — your children will know. Sometimes not right away. Eventually, always.
Coparenting Is Also for You
There is a version of you on the other side of this that got out of the marriage with your dignity intact, kept your children's childhood as close to whole as possible, and did not spend a decade poisoning yourself with anger at your ex.
That version of you takes deliberate work to become. Individual therapy, especially in the year after divorce. Radical acceptance about what your ex is and is not capable of. Letting go of the fantasy that they will one day admit everything and beg your forgiveness. Directing your energy toward the life ahead.
It is worth doing. For you as much as the children.
Whole-Person Steps
Set a rule for yourself: never criticize the other parent in front of the children. Even indirectly. Even when they deserve it.
Use BIFF for all written communication with your ex.
In high-conflict situations, use a coparenting app that time-stamps everything.
Get your own therapist. This work needs support.
Take the long view. Your children will remember which parent handled it with dignity.
If You Are in Utah
At Integrative Mind Body Psychiatry, I take the whole picture seriously — the biology, the mental health, and the family dynamics around you as you build a new chapter. Telehealth for adults, adolescents, and women in hormonal transitions across Utah. Insurance accepted through Headway (headway.co/providers/beth-makar).
Tomorrow: Day 23 — Aging Parents and the Shift of Roles.
This post is educational and is not a substitute for individualized medical, mental-health, legal, or custody-related guidance.
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