4 things typical co-parenting advice gets wrong about high conflict
TL;DR: Stop bending over backwards and start setting boundaries that limit the ex’s toxic influence.
Dan & I stumbled across his old court-mandated co-parenting guide while doing some deep cleaning this week. What a trip that workbook was — equal parts awful and affirming, as so many high-conflict resources tend to be.
What stood out to me the most as I paged through Dan’s scribbles (he dutifully filled out every exercise, bless his heart) was just how wrong so much of the advice was — advice from actual professionals within the court system. Their recommendations were completely off-base; present-day Dan & I had a good chuckle at more than one suggested script and/or unrealistic outcome.
Which pretty much sums up our entire experience with the court system as well as other professionals we interacted with over the years, like my stepkid’s therapists: they just plain didn’t get it. Even those whose hearts were in the right place, as I’m sure was the case for the creators of this co-parenting guide.
So today I thought I’d share some of the most damaging and inaccurate co-parenting tips from this actual court-recommended guide, along with what actually worked for us.
Normally on Wednesdays we post a Q&A episode, but this week we didn't have any questions. If you want our personal take on your situation, you can send us a Q for next week right here!
1. Co-parenting the “right” way won’t make a high-conflict ex less difficult
This entire co-parenting guide incorrectly assumes:
Conflict between co-parents is temporary
A difficult co-parent simply lacks awareness that their behavior is problematic; once they’ve realized that, they’ll change
Both parents share the goal of wanting to co-parent their child together (via joint decision-making etc.)
Both parents are capable of putting their personal agenda aside for the sake of their shared child
I remember back when Dan & I believed all of that. Even if just one of those assumptions had been true, my stepkid’s childhood could’ve drastically improved for the better.
But unfortunately, these typical co-parenting assumptions are unlikely to apply to a high-conflict personality.
2. Simple co-parenting solutions don’t apply in high conflict
Dan’s old co-parenting guide is chock-full of well-meaning advice based on real-life scenarios like “Don’t take it personally when you call your child and they don’t want to talk! This doesn’t mean they don’t love you. You probably just caught them in the middle of something. Try again another night, or work out a different time with your co-parent.”
Okay, technically this is true… except what about when only one call out of every dozen or so gets returned? What about when that lone conversation is terse and monosyllabic every single time? And what if this pattern continues for years? Because that’s what Dan dealt with — he’d call SD’s cell, the landline, even HCBM’s cell, leave messages on all 3 numbers and get no response for days.
And trying to work out a set time for calls with HCBM was impossible. She’d respond angrily and immediately to tell Dan she was under no obligation to provide him with her schedule every week let alone share details about her personal life.
Meanwhile, on the weeks SD was with us, we had the opposite phone problem: constant, lengthy, intrusive calls from her mother… which made the lack of communication when SD wasn’t with us even more pointed.
So yes, don’t take the occasional missed call personally. However, also don’t ignore a clear and established history of problematic behavior — especially if that history includes attempts to actively limit your presence in your kid’s life.
3. Family court professionals don’t necessarily understand high conflict
Dan was court-ordered to attend co-parenting classes with his ex due to a custody dispute, and this guide was the mandated class material. They went through chapter by chapter with a facilitator — not as part of a class, either. Just the two of them plus the facilitator.
So when Dan wrote down that his #1 co-parenting concern was that his ex “either consciously or unconsciously practices parental alienation” complete with a list of specific examples like “Has openly berated & criticized me in front of [Child]” you’d think the facilitator would have been like 😱 🚩🚩🚩🚩
But nope.
Instead, they just continued on with the course material, which includes exercises for how to make sure your vocal tone and body language aren’t “adding fuel to the fire.” Which sounds a whole lot like victim-blaming to me. No amount of responding calmly or using “I” statements was gonna get Dan’s ex to stop screaming at him over the phone.
The book also repeatedly emphasizes the idea that these kids have one family, which in and of itself shows a fundamental misunderstanding of post-divorce family dynamics. You don’t need to recreate a first-family dynamic for children of divorce to become happy, functional adults.
The two families aspect isn’t the traumatizing part — it’s the constant conflict. Yet this book had no advice on how Dan could protect himself or his kid from that.
4. A high-conflict person thinks YOU are the problem
I’ve never seen how Dan’s ex filled out her workbook, but I guarantee you she could’ve answered every single question “correctly” (and probably did) — yet still nothing changed.
After co-parenting classes, HCBM didn’t ease up on bullying Dan. Nor did she try harder to meet him in the middle. She viewed the entire co-parenting course as a frustrating side quest that detracted from her primary mission of moving away with SD.
Dan’s ex genuinely believed that SD spending less time with us would be better. She genuinely believed that Dan should’ve immediately agreed to them moving hundreds of miles away and cheerfully give up his 50/50 custody. And the fact that he didn’t made him the difficult one; in her mind, Dan was the problem.
That’s completely typical for a high conflict personality, though — they are the victim/martyr in their own story, and everyone else is against them. Good luck getting someone with that mindset to compromise, let alone co-parent.
So how do we co-parent with a high-conflict ex?
Back at the beginning of this piece, I said finding this old workbook was equal parts awful and affirming. I think we’ve covered the “awful” aspect pretty thoroughly… but what the heck was affirming about all this?
First, reading this shit over again was a stark reminder that we received poor advice and incorrect guidance at every turn, even from the professionals. In other words, we weren’t messing up — we were just flying blind. There’s a difference.
Secondly, even the professionals didn’t know what we were up against!! Which just goes to show the incredibly glaring lack of resources around these topics back then. A problem that continues today, although to a somewhat lesser degree.
This lack of appropriate support is ultimately what motivated me to start Blended Family Frappé in the first place and create the resources I wish we’d had ourselves back in the day. Like THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF HIGH-CONFLICT CO-PARENTING, which explains in more detail why compromising more isn’t the answer when you’re dealing with a nightmare ex. (A lesson we learned the hard way after years of Dan bending over backwards for HCBM.)
Not every personality type is capable of a productive, collaborative co-parenting relationship. And even if they were, not every parent wants to co-parent — some simply want to be Supreme Dictator in Charge.
So while I agree with the premise in the guide that a “win-lose” co-parenting relationship that’s based primarily in personal vendetta is harmful to the kids, I don’t agree that the ideal way to parent post-divorce is by being BFFs. Sometimes even trying to be collaborative can cause more conflict compared to, say, parallel parenting combined with firm boundaries. I wish Dan & I had learned that lesson years earlier than we did.
Your best defense against an ex who’s shown a definitive pattern of non-compromise, difficult behavior, and/or non-support for your relationship with your kid is to educate yourself. Stop trying to follow the rules for typical co-parenting — they don’t apply here. Instead, learn how to set boundaries that limit the ex’s toxic influence in your lives and family.
Here’s a bunch of resources on high conflict to get you started.