Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex Challenges Abuse Survivors 

Description of A "Toxic Ex"

A toxic ex is any co-parent who creates a loyalty conflict for your child(ren). Loyalty conflicts occur when your child believes they must choose one parent over the other.
A toxic ex will do things like:

• Restrict or hinder communication and/or contact between you and your children.
• Talk badly about you to your children.
• Erase and Replace You (This phrase comes from Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex and means to ". . . erase you from your child's heart, mind, and memory and install someone else . . .").
• Undermine you.
• Persuade your kids to not trust you and urge them to betray your trust (the "divide and conquer to maintain control" routine).

Abuse Survivors: Beware of Being A Toxic Ex

Abuse in your former relationship is a factor in predicting whether you will experience the effects of a toxic ex. It is true that your ex will not change because the relationship is over. However, it is also true that you will not change just because the relationship is over. You must be diligent in improving your communication with your children because if an abuse survivor (like you) is not careful, you could become toxic, too. If you left the relationship because your ex abused you (and/or your children), you have to accept the fact that you could unintentionally damage your relationships with your children if you continue to react to abuse in the same manner you did during the relationship. The cycle of abuse includes two people; as one of those people, you must come to terms with behaviors you wish to change in yourself.

Any parent could consciously or subconsciously create a loyalty conflict. According to Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex authors, the most likely reasons a parent creates a loyalty conflict include the emotions of:

• Jealousy
• Fear
• Guilt
• Shame
• Sadness
• Loneliness
• Anger
• Narcissistic injury (in which case one parent protects their sense of self by devaluing the other parent)

Notice that all eight of the emotions involved could describe abuse survivors' emotions, either pre- or post-separation. Yes, you could become a toxic ex for real instead of in your ex's imagination. More than likely, "narcissistic injury" will not apply to all abuse survivors. However, if you mix the seven other emotions together, it is possible to come out with a coping mechanism that looks a whole lot like "narcissistic injury" (If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it may as well be a duck . . .).

How to Cope with Loyalty Conflicts Caused by Your Toxic Ex

Coping with loyalty conflicts means you must:

1. Put your initial emotions to your children's loyalty conflict on the back burner.
2. Communicate effectively with your child both when they act out and during peaceful times.

Don't Display Your First Emotions to Your Child

As a survivor of abuse, hearing your child say things that sound like they came directly from your toxic ex's mouth could cause you to react as if your child were your ex. Remember that your ex is confusing your child either on purpose or by accident. If your ex abused you, it will be easy to jump to the conclusion that they're confusing your child on purpose. While this may be true, it doesn't matter at this crucial juncture in parent/child communication. The authors of Coparenting with a Toxic Ex emphasize that the other parent's motivation is no longer your concern. Why? Because your child feels angry or is under a false impression. Your child's well-being is your primary concern; you can run some subtle damage control later, if you must. If your child feels angry or confused in any other situation, you most likely handle their emotions gingerly. You seek to find out the cause, empathize with the emotions to calm the child, then discuss the wound. Don't allow your ex to further hurt you or your child by reacting any differently to the loyalty conflict. During loyalty conflict situations, your child needs stable parenting, not the puppet-on-a-string behavior your abusive ex may evoke.

Make Effective and Loving Communication Skills Omnipresent

Effective communication trumps any other show of love you can give to your child. Remember that effective communication with your kids must be present when they're acting out and when you're having a great time together. It's imperative that your children hear from you when they're behaving well, behaving badly and everything in between.

"Good parenting" boils down to communicating with grace, and it is not always instinctual. As an abuse survivor, you may have picked up some bad communication habits during the abusive relationship. Let's be frank: there is much to unlearn when it comes to communication skills after you've survived abuse. Unfortunately, leaving your abuser does not automatically improve your ability to communicate with your children. It takes time and knowledge to get to a point where both you and your child feel respected and loved. If you want to pick up some quick tips for loving and effective communication, I highly recommend that you grab a copy of Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex: What to Do When Your Ex-Spouse Tries to Turn the Kids Against You. The authors give concise examples of how you can quickly get a handle on kids in crisis, and that will set you apart from your toxic ex in their hearts and minds in no time.

Information in this article comes from the book "Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex: What to Do When Your Ex-Spouse Tries to Turn the Kids Against You," by Amy Baker, PhD and Paul Fine, LCSW.

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