the_art_of_partnering_ vs5

How can you best prepare yourself for the transition from spouse to ex-spouse to co-parent?

Life can seem like a cruel joke, can’t it? You finally get up the nerve to divorce. You muster up the courage and the energy it takes to turn life as you knew it upside down, and then instantly you understand; it hits you like a ton of bricks. You will never truly be ride of your ex (or soon to be ex).

The relationship will never ever end. You and he are stuck like glue when it comes to raising your children. How can you best prepare yourself for the transition from spouse to ex-spouse to co-parent? How on earth can you manage to hold all of those painful memories and bad feelings toward your ex in check and work together successfully to raise healthy and happy children?

Co-parenting isn’t easy, but the good news is that it is possible. Here are 5 steps you can follow to help you create a successful co-parenting relationship with your children’s other parent.

The Art of Parenting While Un-Partnering

5 Steps to a Successful Co-Parenting Relationship1. Change Your Mindset

2. Control Yourself

3. Take Notes, Don’t Yell

4. Don’t Take It Personally 5. Think Before You Speak

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Quick TipsWant to know how you can get started right now?

1. Change Your Mindset

The relationship between you and your ex is no longer personal.

You now are in a business relationship of raising children.

Think about treating your ex-spouse as if he or she is a client or a business partner.

2. Control Yourself

The days of fighting, bickering, and retaliating are over.

Take time before reacting.

Do not let yourself yell, whine, or engage in plot retaliation.

Work together with your ex to set aside your differences.

Work with professionals who can assist you in raising successful and happy children.

Norwich Inn & Spa - Norwich, CTApril 21 - 22, 2012


1. Change Your MindsetThe relationship between you and your ex is no longer personal; you are now in a business relationship. You are both in the business of raising your children. Think about and treat your ex-spouse as if he is a client or a business partner. You must now transition to working together as partners in the business of helping your children to grow up successfully to be healthy and confident adults. The relationship between the two of you is limited to a single, common goal---to ensure a healthy environment that promotes your children’s well-being.

2. Control Yourself

The days of fighting, bickering, and retaliating are over. In the workplace, if a partner or colleague always showed up late to meetings, always arrived poorly prepared or uninformed, or otherwise acted unproductively, what would you do? Chances are good that you wouldn’t just go out of control and start bickering, screaming, or engage in retaliatory behaviors. You probably wouldn’t just go “tell” on your misbehaving colleague to the boss either.

Hopefully, in a work environment, you would take some time before just reacting. You would think about why your colleague was behaving this way, formulate goals for new behavior, consider your options in how you might assist to bring these about, and then find a constructive way to put this plan into motion.

Same thing goes for co-parenting. Do not let yourself go out of control and just yell, whine, or plot retaliation. Do not just go flying off to your attorney’s office to set up a court date without having first tried something new. Do not even consider calling the police when he is 10 minutes late bringing the children home.

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Work together with your ex to set aside your differences and figure out how to get the job of raising successful and happy children done. You’ll need help so do know that there are professionals out there who can assist you in accomplishing this. There are skilled divorce coaches, family therapists, resolution oriented family law attorneys, mediators, and parenting coordinators available to help you.

3. Take Notes, Don’t YellTake notes rather than yelling , arguing, or otherwise continuing to fight; commit yourself to taking excellent, detailed notes about whatever difficulties you are encountering. Is pick up time starting to slide into the “ten or fifteen minutes late” department on a regular basis? Is school work not getting completed on sleepover days? Are the rules in your children’s other home shifting into an area you genuinely feel is problematic?

If the structure, routines, or discipline techniques that were written into your parenting plan are not being followed regularly, your detailed notes will come in handy and serve as concrete support for any conversations you choose to have about these issues. When we can site real examples, our grievances are generally taken more seriously and are harder to shrug off or ignore.

4. Don’t Take It Personally

Under No Circumstances Should You Take Any of This Personally. You can choose to continue to view your ex’s behavior through a personal lens; ie, “He’s returning the kids late just to bug me” or you can make the choice to instead, focus on your children’s health and well being.

Personalizing your ex’s behavior will only serve to sustain or continue the old fight and keep the old familiar struggles going. We professionals in the family ‘business’ call this, “maintaining the status quo”, which is so common among families in transition. Making changes and doing things differently means that life may begin to move into less familiar territory and making changes can be a bit worrisome although it is essential. Keep taking things personally and we can practically guarantee that the two of you will continue the arguing and fighting and that your kids will continue suffering because of your bad behavior, just like before your divorce. This pattern can truly change only if you are willing to choose to:

1) Change how you see and think about things and

2) Do things differently from now on


3. Take Notes - Don’t Yell

Commit yourself to taking detailed notes instead of yelling, arguing, or fighting.

If your parenting plan is not being followed, your detailed notes will serve as concrete support for conversations you have about issues.

4. Don’t Take it Personally

If you take his bad behavior personally, you and your ex will continue to fight and your kids will suffer.

Change how you see and think about things.

Do things differently here on.

Don’t let your ex’s behavior cause you to lose control. Chalk his bad behavior up to another good reason why you are no longer married to him.

Take responsibility for your own behavior.



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Rather than experience your ex’s behavior as a way to provoke, punish, or otherwise upset you, why not view it simply as an example of his bad behavior, poor judgement, lack of self control or immaturity? Thus think about yourself instead of about your ex- it isn’t your fault and it isn’t under your control! Why take it personally and let it get under your skin when you can just chalk it up to another good reason why you and this person are no longer married?

Consider being pro-active, ie - if you know your ex-spouse, for whatever reason, is likely to return or pick up the children late, why not plan accordingly (allow extra time in your schedule for late pick ups) and expect this rather than be “surprised” every time? You cannot change your ex’s behavior, but you certainly can change your behavior and your responses to him.

When you expect lateness, forgotten homework or sports equipment, or other petty annoyances and plan for these, you are taking charge of yourself and your time rather than leaving yourself completely vulnerable to the whims of your ex.

Similarly, if you already know that your ex will likely say “no” to any special personal requests that you might make, why not try harder not to ask for anything out of the ordinary? Of course, at times asking for something unusual cannot be avoided, but we are frequently amazed at how some couples knowingly engage in these negative patterns over and over again and then are surprised to find themselves constantly fighting or winding up in court for a destructive and expensive battle.

A Sampling of our Workshops:

“Financial Tips and Traps for the Unmarried Woman”

“How to Talk with Your Children About Divorce”

“Communication Tools & Tips: Get What You Want With Words!”

“The Art of Finding Someone New”

“Common Obstacles to Close Relationships”

“Increasing Your Parenting IQ”

“Stress and String Beans: Managing Your Busy Life”



The Top - 3 TipsWant to know how you can get started right now?1. Change Your Mindset2. Don’t Take it Personally 3. Don’t Go It Alone

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5. Think Before You Speak

When It Comes To Your Ex, Always, Always Think Before You Speak The bottom line is that you will have to interact with this _______________ (you fill in the blank: “hothead”, “meanie”, “knucklehead”…) regularly.

By now you have undoubtedly learned what your ex’s “triggers” are (particular words, phrases, or behaviors from you) that will set off a chain reaction of insults, accusations, expletives and can then lead to destructive behavior. It only makes sense to be careful about what you say to your ex, ALWAYS!

If you know your ex blows his top based on comments you make that make him feel criticized or incompetent, for example: “Can’t you get here on time just once?”, “Why can’t you ever help our son or daughter with their homework when the kids are with you?”, “You always put me down in front of…” why not stop saying these? You can learn and practice better ways to communicate. You can also learn and practice better ways to work on your co-parenting relationship. Working with a reputable divorce coach, mediator, parenting coordinator, or family therapist can help you learn to avoid old pitfalls and patterns that haven’t worked.

Parenting well while unpartnering or after you are already unpartnered isn’t ever easy, but it is worth it. Your children will fare better if they can grow up with two loving parents. You can choose and control at least some of the future for your children and yourself--- and that’s what makes all of the effort worthwhile!

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5. Think Before You Speak Be careful about what you say.

Avoid old destructive patterns.

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April 21-22, 2012

About the Authors

Betsy Ross, LICSW CGP

Betsy Ross’s training in three different specialties – as a licensed psychotherapist, divorce and transition coach and as a mediator, have provided her with a large repertoire of tools to choose from when helping clients transition out of marriage toward a more successful future. For the past 20 years, Betsy has helped individuals, couples and families to fight less, talk more, and improve their ability to solve problems via improving their communication and relationship skills.

Ms. Ross has provided seminars and workshop series at the Harvard Medical Center, the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, and Boston College’s Graduate School of Social Work on topics relevant to couples, individuals, and families. Betsy is also a blogger on marriage, divorce, and family related issues at The Patch.

Betsy’s work also includes providing training to master’s level social workers in divorce coaching and collaborative divorce as she particularly enjoys teaching other therapists and counselors how to transfer their clinical talents into effective coaching skills.

Paula H. Noe, Esquire

PAULA H. NOE, Esquire, practices Massachusetts family law without resorting to litigation, whenever possible, and helps families through crises with dignity and respect. She believes in guiding families to settlement and resolution without resorting to court battles, believing that most families benefit from avoiding the stress and conflict of the court system.

She was named a ‘WOMAN OF DISTINCTION IN LAW AND PUBLIC SERVICE’ by the Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers in 2005 for her achievements as a Massachusetts family law attorney and her contributions to the world of alternative dispute resolution.

Paula served as the President of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council from 2005 to 2006; she is a founding member and served as a board member and as a member of the President’s Advisory Council.

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