The 10 Commandments
of High-Conflict Co-Parenting
In a high-conflict custody situation, we try everything to keep our kids/stepkids out of the middle. For most of us, this means making co-parenting compromises far beyond what's reasonable… and certainly beyond what's reciprocated.
On paper, more compromise seems like it surely must be the right solution to minimize conflict between co-parents. In reality, when it comes to a high-conflict ex, the answer is NOT more compromise — it's better boundaries.
Following these 10 Commandments for co-parenting with a toxic ex can help you move away from making fear-based decisions around your parenting and stepparenting choices while protecting your stepfamily from high conflict.
1. Thou Shalt Stick to the Custody Order
Don’t have an official custody order? Stop reading this right now and go get one. Legal protection is one of the strongest tools you have in your battle against a high-conflict ex. A good high-conflict parenting plan removes the ability for a toxic ex to gatekeep at their whim.
However, remember that the custody order only protects you as long as you yourself follow it. If you’re not abiding by the custody order yourself, you’re abdicating its legal protection. Don’t make trades or deals or arrangements outside the order unless it’s a literal emergency. Protect your parenting time like your entire relationship with your kid depends on it. Which it does.
Here’s some tips to get you started: ➡️ 4 POINTS TO INCLUDE IN A HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTING PLAN 👀
2. Thou Shalt Parallel Parent
A high-conflict ex isn't ever going to compromise like you think they will — or like most normal humans would. A person who’s willing to use their child as a weapon isn’t capable of reasonable compromise. So while it's to your credit that you think you should work together with your high-conflict ex to co-parent your shared child, the solution that actually reduces divorce conflict for your child is to switch to a parallel parenting plan.
What's parallel parenting, you ask? In a nutshell: your house, your rules. Other parent’s house, other parent’s rules.
Outside of major decisions that both parents have an equal right to via shared legal custody (such as medical or education decisions), parallel parenting means you do you, boo. This blog post explains in more detail: ➡️ THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF PARALLEL PARENTING 👀
Stop trying to calm down a high-conflict ex by attempting to honor their parenting preferences at your house. This is the custody equivalent to giving into terrorist demands: it’s a terrible idea that only ensures more demands will keep right on comin’.
3. Thou Shalt Keep All Communication in Writing
Unless you’re recording your phone calls or verbal conversations with your high-conflict ex, chances are high that anything you’ve said will be forgotten, twisted around somehow, or used against you later, depending which approach serves their motive better.
Listen. A toxic ex is someone who actively works against your ability to parent your own kid, and even against your emotional health and well-being. Are those the actions of a co-parent you can have a productive conversation with? Nope!
For your own protection and the purposes of sensible documentation, keep all communication between you and your high-conflict ex in writing. Any form of writing can work: text messages, screenshots of text messages, emails, or a custody communication app.
Just don’t do that thing where you send messages to the other co-parent in a notebook your kid keeps in their backpack. I don’t care how many co-parenting resources suggest doing that — it’s the literal definition of putting your kid in the middle. The goal here is to keep your kid out of the middle, not position them directly in the line of fire.
4. Thou Shalt Embrace the BIFF Response
Okay but by putting everything in writing, I definitely don’t mean you should spend hours crafting the perfect email that you think can’t possibly be argued with. First of all, a high-conflict ex will definitely find a reason to argue. ANY reason. Secondly, you’re under no obligation to explain or defend yourself. Your ex is not the boss of you, and they’re not the person in charge of all the parenting decisions either.
Ignore any personal digs at your character or past examples of your innumerable transgressions, and limit yourself strictly to correcting any factual inaccuracies. In short, live and die by the BIFF response: Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm. Keep messages short and factual, keep your tone polite, and leave no room for further back-and-forth.
5. Thou Shalt Document EVERYTHING
Speaking of writing things down, you should for sure keep some kind of documentation log. Whether you’re jotting hand-written notes in a notebook or using an app intended specifically for communicating with a high-conflict co-parent, make sure to track any and all custody-related info and events.
Some ideas of what to document:
Any custody order violations
Communication log (with your kiddo AND with the ex)
Actual time spent with kiddo, especially if it varies from what the custody order specifies
Expenses, including child support and reimbursements (or lack thereof)
The idea here isn’t to capture every incident and conversation verbatim, but rather to establish patterns of behavior that could demonstrate a timeline of conflict for the court if needed.
The tool you use for documentation depends on what works best for you of course, so here’s some suggestions along with pros and cons for each option: ➡️ HOW TO PROVE PARENTAL ALIENATION: 4 DOCUMENTATION TOOLS 👀
Bonus: Documentation also helps reinforce to yourself and your poor gaslit brain that yes, there IS a problem and no, it’s NOT just you.
6. Thou Shalt Create Firm Boundaries
The modern-day philosophy toward divorce seems to trend toward acting like you’re not actually divorced. Like you’re still supposed to be friends and invite each other to social events and help out with chores and house repairs and stuff.
Friendly co-parenting is lovely, but normal co-parenting rules don't apply in high conflict. Nor is it your job to make your ex happy or do them favors. A high-conflict co-parent is a master at manipulating your guilty conscience to frame some favor they want for themselves as “but this is better for the kids!”
Why yes! Actual co-parenting would be better for the kids! But when only one person is the one doing all the favor-granting, that’s not any kind of a healthy friendship. And it’s definitely not a healthy co-parenting relationship.
With a high-conflict ex, minimizing contact also minimizes the opportunity for conflict. This means limiting communication to kids-only topics, and ensuring those topics are actually relevant, not casual chit-chat.
As you implement boundaries, expect some drama to flare up at first. Your instincts will be to give in immediately, but hold your ground—you’re protected as long as you’re acting within the legal parameters of your custody order. (See how handy that’s coming in already?)
Oh, and a note for stepparents on boundaries: don’t get sucked into thinking that you can solve all the communication problems between your partner and their ex. Actually let’s just go ahead and give you your own commandment.
7. STEPPARENTS, THOU SHALT NOT GET SUCKED IN
Stepparents come in as outside observers, which makes it easy (maybe too easy) to see the main co-parenting issues between households. You then think you can and should step in to help wherever you can.
Your intentions come from the best place. You think if you just reach out in a friendly kind of way to your stepkid’s other parent that you can get through when your partner can’t. You’re basically a neutral third party; you see both sides, you really do!
Set those good intentions down and back away slowly. No amount of “reaching out” is gonna de-escalate a high-conflict ex who’s hell-bent on staying bitter and angry due to their own issues.
Stepparents are not responsible for managing post-divorce conflict between houses. It’s not your job to act as an ambassador between your partner and their high-conflict ex. Your job is to support your partner while they deal with this chucklehead that they had a child with.
Pretend the ex is your partner’s work problem: listen and sympathize all day long, but don’t get emotionally involved.
8. Thou Shalt Parent to the Authentic Child
Kids who get stuck in the middle of high-conflict co-parenting tend to act out as a result. These behaviors can present as pretty mild, like acting cranky on transition days, or as very extreme, like completely rejecting a parent.
No matter how horribly your kid acts toward you, keep parenting them as if the child you know and love is still in there someplace. (Because they are.) Even if they’re refusing to come to your home, calling you names, or worse, stay calm and parent on like all that outrageous behavior is some act they’re putting on. (Because it is.)
Don’t parent out of fear — bending over backwards to win your child’s love and approval. And don’t parent out of anger — responding emotionally to your kid’s hurtful actions. Parent like none of this high-conflict shit is going on at all.
Show your kids that your love for them hasn’t changed and won’t ever change. Demonstrate stability and structure so they can learn what normal feels like, an anchor they’ll desperately need to grow into grounded and functioning adults.
9. Thou Shalt Keep Thy Own Oxygen Mask Firmly Planted on Thy Face
Co-parenting with a high-conflict ex is exhausting. Even without active litigation or a current court battle, daily life spent in constant negotiations and always defending yourself will wipe you right out.
So you know what? DON’T. Don’t spend all your time negotiating and defending and arguing and strategizing and preparing.
Turn off your phone. Walk away. Take a break. Take a nap. Do whatever you need to do to give yourself breathing room and thinking space so your brain stays sharp for whatever bullshit’s coming next. Keeping your head clear and your thoughts straight will lower your stress levels, which is critical for making smart long-term decisions.
10. Thou Shalt Not Hesitate to Get Outside Support
One thing Dan and I both remain baffled by is whyyyyy did we not seek professional help earlier on this adventure?? When faced with a high-conflict ex, a custody battle that just kept getting worse, and a stepkid who was doing her best to reject not just her stepmom and stepsister but her dad too, why did we think we could totally handle all that stuff ourselves?
Because we had no idea we were in over our heads. We were so far from solid ground and so wrung out from thrashing around and trying to keep our heads above water that the idea of swimming in a new direction to look for help felt too scary, too risky, and too uncertain. Impossible, even.
So please learn from our mistake and get outside help sooner. Research more. Educate yourself better. That’s exactly why this site exists — here’s an overview of our resources for dealing with a high conflict ex to jump start things a bit.
In addition to education, counseling (whether for yourself or both of you as a couple or all of you as a family) can serve as the lighthouse that leads you back to safe and solid ground.
Again, this is an option we really wish we’d considered sooner. While Dan’s ex probably wouldn’t have agreed to let SD attend family counseling with us, Dan & I getting support as a couple would’ve gone a long way to helping us learn how to navigate all this scary overwhelming nonsense. And in doing so, both my kid and his would’ve benefitted tremendously, even if indirectly.