A few days ago my friend Miranda, who, like me, has a VIP ex-husband and a son with behavioral issues, texted me this:
Please address in your blog. Because, omg.
Miranda was referring to a text she received from her son’s psychiatrist, yet another well-meaning but clueless mental health professional urging her to get on the same page with the ex who thinks she’s crazy, stupid, and the source of all their kid’s problems.
Over the years, Miranda and I have gotten the same lecture from countless therapists, doctors, teachers and others who believe that any divorce can be made amicable if you just try hard enough.
But the truth is, the “United Front” motto is about as effective as Just Say No and Can’t We All Just Get Along? You will have an easier time finding the Lost City of Atlantis than getting on the same page with someone who won’t go anywhere near your page.
Most therapists don’t know what to do with a high-conflict divorce. Nothing they learned in graduate school taught them how to manage messily-divorced families. They are freaked out by the level of discord and are praying you will fire them and find another therapist.
But because they are charging you $150 an hour, they feel that they need to say something that sounds expert-y and therapeutic.
Conventional Wisdom directives like the ones in the text message Miranda got — “uniform expectations between the two homes” and “display support and respect for one another” and be a “co-parenting team” — are appropriate when dished out to TWO reasonable people.
But that’s not your situation! You, the reasonable ex, will not succeed in these fruitless endeavors. You will wear yourself out and feel like an abject failure. You might as well add a couple teaspoons of cynanide to that Kool-Aid.
And, guess what? Feeling like an abject failure will not help your kids the least little bit.
Here’s what will help: get in reality. Know that “be a united front” is code for “you’re screwed.” The good news is that once you accept the fact that you’re screwed — that you will NEVER have an amicable divorce — you can take the only advisable steps to surviving life with your crazy-making ex:
– Parallel Parenting. This is the opposite of co-parenting. It means that you pick your battles. Don’t try to sync up anything unless absolutely necessary. You don’t need to agree on discipline techniques. You do need to agree on where to send your kid to school. Different rules for different houses doesn’t screw up kids. Never-ending conflict does.
– Do things that nuture and empower you. For me, this means writing and hanging out with friends. As crazy as my post-divorce life has been, I shudder to think how much crazier it would have been had I not started blogging or had such a wonderful assortment of friends and family.
– Keep Your Sense of Humor. Or cultivate one. Not to get all Norman Vincent Peale, but laughter really can change your mood and perspective, at least in the moment. And since you’re not going to be able to escape your existential quagmire till your kids turn 18, you might as well learn to laugh about it.
To my divorced homies: what’s the most egregious divorce advice you’ve ever gotten? And what do you do to manage your unmanageable ex?
That’s pretty good advice. My son’s therapist went through her own high conflict divorce and understands more than any other human being I’ve ever known, so I guess I’m lucky. I love the idea of parallel parenting (I’ve not thought of it that way, but I realize we’ve done this too for a long time). Picking your battles is the best advice I’ve ever followed and some of the most difficult when it comes to my kids. But it is good.
My family all told me that the reason we got divorced was that my ex and I “weren’t meant for each other” — so the break-up was really BOTH of our faults, and not just his. When I asked my parents, “So, Bubba just needs someone who is fine with him viewing teen porn, racking up $8,522 in phone sex and criticizing their every move?” my father’s reply was, “Yes — and you were critical of him too, by the way”. That is when I realized that there are many people, even family, that will never see what I went through. On the flip side: the best advice I ever got was, “Know your own reality”.
This is absolute gold. Thanks, Pauline.
HAHAHA! The things people say. Glad you at least got one piece of advice.
You’re welcome!
You are so right about the bad advice you can receive from therapists. Most therapists do not understand what it is like to deal with someone who has a narcissistic personality disorder. I can’t tell you how many times I had a therapist tell me they “didn’t believe me” when relating an incident with the ex-husband because no one would act that way. But, when you find a therapist who truly understands this disorder, it is life saving! The other point to mention is that it will always be this way, because these type of people do not ever change.
Hi Pauline,
You give a great example of what so many of clients face with their ex and professionals. I always recommend reading such text messages and emails, put it away for 24 hours, and respond after you have had some time to relax and to let the initial shock/frustration subside.
Michael Craven
Chicago Divorce Lawyer
great post, Pauline. You have an awesome way with words. OMG, I can relate to this absolute crap that you can respect each other, blah,blah,blah. When you’re dealing with a crazy ex, there is no hope for this. One thing I need to mention, it doesn’t end when they’re 18, unfortunately.
Hey, I didn’t even have a high conflict divorce (although there were moments), and I know that that United Front stuff is bs. And if there’s any term more annoying than “co-parenting,” I don’t know what it is. There will always be different rules for the two different households. I practice this and, as a result, she’s very well behaved at my house and can be a raging brat at his. Very good advice.
You can’t have a rational conversation with an irrational person. And you can’t make someone be rational. While I am not yet through the divorce process, I know where I am headed, and it’s where Miranda is. I am sick & tired of well-meaning advice to “figure out how to co-parent”. The judge assigned to my case could not get her head wrapped around why my case wasn’t settled. At every case management hearing, she’d tell the lawyers in chambers that “these two parties need to work this out, a trial isn’t gong to help them move forward, why haven’t they settled”. So now we go to binding arbitration and we’ll see if my irrational STBX can find a way to refuse to settle via binding arbitration. The parenting/custody evaluator did recognize, to a point, that there are some people who simply cannot co-parent, and referenced “parallel parenting”, but even after reading the evaluator’s report, the judge still didn’t understand why it wasn’t settled. A case can only get settled when two people want it to settle. Co-parenting can only occur when two people want to make it happen. And hey, if we could co-parent, maybe we wouldn’t be getting divorced. I wish the legal & psychiatric professions would realize that lecturing the saner of the two parties is not going to fix some very deep-seated issues between two people. Thank you Pauline & Miranda for telling it like it is.
HAHAHA! Could there be a better argument for different house, different rules?
I’m not going through a divorce, but this post reminded me a lot of a Captain Awkward post that went up recently
http://captainawkward.com/2013/08/02/497-keeping-the-peace-with-an-unlikeable-mansplainer/
It’s not quite the same as dealing with a VPEx, but I think this point applies to many situations: You can’t “keep the peace” when the peace is already broken.
I don’t engage with people who advocate for the blended co-parenting stuff. It is not a possibility in my situation so there’s no need to talk about it. For me, that also means not reading about it either because it just brings me down. So unfortunately it often means I do not follow or post on “divorce” sites or those who teach “happy divorce” — I do read individual posts and interact on a personal level. But I have to opt out of the koolaid because it tastes bad and makes me sick.
I think you are right, for the most part, that both parties are screwed right from the beginning when they divorce with children involved and they do not see eye to eye on parenting. In my practice, I see two people that purportedly love their children, but one of them inevitably uses the child as a pawn in their game of revenge against the other. Psychiatrists and therapists, for some reason, are stuck in their books and believe that their method of live and let live, just worry about yourself, will have a positive impact, when I think it is the shrinks telling you to let your ex walk all over you.
The problem with “getting on the same page” with a narcissist is that the only page he’s willing to get on is his.
Exactly!
If we could agree on how to parent, we wouldn’t be divorcing. Morons. I did have my judge tell me I was very “selfish” for wanting to move out of state of my ex closer to my family. Agreed. Selfish indeed.
Thank you, Pauline. I have been reading your blogs for years. I divorced a formerly semi-VIP. I get spousal and child support, but not enough to live on, but I am happy with it. I have three kids, my son and two daughters, 12 and 17.
Fast forward, my formally good kid son, 14 years old, has conduct disorder, started at age 13. I had him arrested after he attacked me for taking away his lighter fluid. Having my sister plead to his employees to take him as he was dangerous around the girls and I came to nothing. ( he does not speak to m e or my family)
My son was taken to juvenile detention, then quickly put in a shelter. He was kicked out for getting in a fight and was back in jail for a week or so. Finally, ex decided to take him as the courts didn’t think he should be with me.
So, he has a probation officer and a mental health caseworker, courtesy of Hennepin county. But my ex is not taking him to his various therapy appointments. He is “stressed.” but he is retired. Yes, retired. I work 1 and a half jobs and I raise my two girls all by myself. I always have. He doesn’t take the kids every Wednesday and every other weekend.
I am grateful for him faithfully paying child support and alimony, though.
So we are having a meeting Friday to talk about maybe me doing some of the driving. Driving across town, to pick up my son who won’t speak to me, take him to an appointment and then drop him back off, and then drive home, probably during rush hour to go back to parenting my girls.
The caseworker kind of sees how ridiculous he is, but keeps saying “you guys need to learn to work together.”
So I told the caseworker maybe I could take my son back home if I had lots of support from the county, like multi systemic therapy, which they’d give me.
But maybe that’s a bad idea, for my daughters and I. I love my son, but have to keep my girls safe. They say they are not afraid of him.
He could end up in county residential treatment. Neither of us have money for boarding school.
Still, at the meeting. I don’t want to sound like a baby, bleating out It’s not fair!
Paula, or any moms here, any advice, encouragement, etc?
You can’t take him home. Not from what you’ve described. He’d blow his way out in no time. If there’s a decent county group home where you’d get family therapy, I’d take that route.
My ex informed me that he does not believe in co-parenting. He has almost 50% custody of our 4 kids and is clueless on how to parent. I needed to read this. I need to let go of my hopes of consistency and amicability. I need to do my best when I have them and hope that they don’t incur too much emotional and physical damage while with him. Thanks.
Yes, let yourself off the hook! He does not sound like someone you can co-parent with so don’t waste your energy trying.
While most comments made are from women PLEASE know these situations apply to the opposite as well. I wish I could have read this over 5 years ago when we waged battle for visitation with a women who has NO conscious. While the stereotype exists of “absentee fathers” and “dead-beat dads” there are exceptions to the rule and my Fiance is one of them. When he married the CXW she came with a toddler and baby daddy that was banished from his life. With in a short period of time Fiance was given the role, responsibility and reins of “Daddy” and the title to go with it; truly believing that if someone is “banished” it MUST be for good reason. Stories of abuse physical/verbal made the role that more appealing and he took it on without hesitation. <<<<<<>>>>>>
Well, History DOES repeat itself and Fiance would find himself in the same battle 9 years later. When she left with the kids on NYD with no intent return they started down a path of visitation in exchange for money. After losing his family, house and job the appeal of living in her home town where everyone who has ever known your STBXW rallies around her regardless of the facts he moved and took a new a job out of state in the hopes of trying put his life back together. It wasn’t long after the his move that his requests for visits became less likely and phone calls went to VM. After reviewing the facts it seemed only natural to file for custody as CXW had NO job, NO income and lived with her parents with NO intention of becoming independent. After filing for custody CXW cut off all communication between the kids and Fiance. Over the course of 9 months Fiance would lose the right to even ask about the “son” he once raised and had been financially supporting since the age of 2 and would not see his daughter with the exception of 2 court visits where CXW thought she needed to be – in the courtroom and not at school. CXW shared every detail of every document ever filed with the court with both children creating a fear and anxiety in daughter of being moved out of state and having to call another woman Mommy. This battled CONSUMED our lives and nearly destroyed a brand new relationship between Fiance and myself. As a mother myself I know the concept of eating your young to protect them but this was CRAZINESS!!! I had been divorced and I knew mistakes were made, harsh words exchanged and I am fully aware that for every crazy bitch out there is a man who has probably made her that way but NEVER did I see in CXW a woman conflicted – a woman just trying to do the right thing for her child/children. A woman who truly wanted to find a solution for the sake of her child. What I did see on the final court appearance when she walked into the court room with baby-daddy #1 as her new beau, the same man that was banished years before that was mean and terrible and should never be allowed to be alone with his son ever. I saw a woman trying to PUNISH someone and remove them from world she lived in completely just like she had done 9 years ago. A woman that at the end of the day was going to “GET” what she was owed – at any length. For 9 months we were urged to “come to an agreement” on our own. Attended “mandatory” mediation without results because she felt ganged up on and that it wasn’t fair that no one could be in the room with her from her family. All without ever speaking in front of the judge – fighting for visitation of a young girl terrified of us – of her own father. Exchanging draft after draft agreements that CXW would not agree to until finally I broke. I could not take anymore torture and I called her asking what would it take for her to sign off on the agreement because I could not watch the most important person continue to be hurt by all of this – HER DAUGHTER. I told her that I loved that little girl (I had never met) too much to do it anymore so if she just told me what she needed to sign this I would make it happen. I vowed to her that no matter what we were invested in making daughter’s life the best we could and if we all worked together she would want for nothing. I knew she had a mother and I would only ever act as a concerned adult for safety, well-being and be a mediator to her parents since they couldn’t communicate effectively. After a long pause CXW said she was glad I felt that way and to always remember who I was – not daughters Mother also told me it was necessary she “tell me” somethings, sharing every mean, dark and nasty thing she could think of about her daughter’s father – a man she had once loved more than life and wanted nothing more than to have a child with and quickly transitioned into her demands.
She agreed to the majority agreement: Primary custody, $600 a month in child support, land in lieu of spousal support, visitation on each long weekend of every month, 4 weeks (never continuous) with Dad in the summer and rotating holiday’s but what she REALLY needed to sign off:
1. Dependent tax filing for her parents permanently (we proposed alternating years) – they were footing the bill for everything – “it was only right”
AND
2. The meeting place. We proposed 1/2 way as we lived 5 hrs from her but she needed to meet closer to her home: only traveling a total of 40 mins. We have since moved closer to her but the meeting place as never changed and we continue to drive the larger distance.
That is what 9 months of no visitation, $20,000 in legal bills and 15,000 miles of traveling back and forth all boiled down to. Needless to say our “agreement” also calls for co parenting as if that is just a box you check for or even possible for someone like ^. We know NOTHING of what goes on in her life when she is not with us, Daughter has not had her parents in the same room with her in over 5 years no birthday parties, school events, holidays – nothing. We have very limited contact with her, are not included on anything with school – her mother puts all of responsibility on Daughter to keep us informed. Daughter lives in a 900 sq ft addition on a double wide trailer, the same as she did 5 years ago. At 12 she walks on eggshells to speak her mind afraid of causing an argument or hurting someone’s feelings. We continue to meet in a Walmart parking lot, the long weekend of each school month – Daughter getting out of one vehicle and quickly into the other – with no words exchanged and certainly no co parenting.